Gospel: [Matt. 19:16-26 (§79)]

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Dear father, brothers and sisters: Spraznecom!

In today’s Gospel reading, as with our Resurrectional Gospel of last week, we do not hear of another miracle or healing of the Lord, but instead an encounter with a rich young man which gives rise to one of the most well known sayings in the Gospel. Our Gospel today is thus primarily concerned with riches and material possessions or to be more precise, our disordered relationship with these things. In our secular world which is so obsessed and focused on the allure and acquisition of material things as Christians – who seek a Kingdom not of this world – we need to listen very carefully to what our Lord says to us in this reading. To help us interpret the Gospel, let us turn to our holy Father St Nikolai Velimirovic of Zicha, the Serbian Chrysostom.

Our Gospel reading today comes from chapter 19 of St Matthew’s Gospel. Our Lord has left the shores of the Sea of Galilee for the coasts of Judea, a journey in a south westerly direction of around 70 miles or so. When He arrives, as well as the usual crowds that always thronged about the Author of Life, there were of course the usual band of Scribes and Pharisees, who did not follow Him out of any love, devotion of faith, but, on the contrary they followed Him deliberately and specifically in order to tempt and trap Him out of pure envy, spite and hatred.

Immediately before our Gospel starts there is that beautiful scene of our Lord blessing the children, one of a number of times throughout His ministry, where our Saviour highlights the inherent beauty, innocence and goodness of children. Just after this, we then see another person approaching the Saviour which is where our reading starts.

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

Although as we have seen so many times, the Scribes and the Pharisees asked questions only to tempt our Lord, or in order to trap Him in his speech, this man who comes before Him seems to approach which earnestness and respect. He asks a question which should also be one which is on our lips – how shall we inherit eternal life? How will we enter the Kingdom? As St Nikolai notes,

The manner of his approaching Christ was praiseworthy, as his departure from Christ was regrettable.

And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God:

This particular verse was sometimes used by the Arians and heretics to suggest – blasphemously – that Christ was saying that He was not Divine. However, our Lord is saying nothing of the sort here. Rather, He is seeking to draw a different kind of response from this man who stands before Him, to test and explore his heart. As St Nikolai says –

The Lord saw that the young man did not know Him, but looked on Him simply as a good man and a good teacher, and He desired with these words to rouse him to some hard thinking.

but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Of course, one of the commonest criticisms of our Saviour that the Scribes and the Pharisees were constantly accusing Him of was that our Lord’s teaching was opposed to the Law and to Moses, to everything that God had given the Jewish people under the Old Covenant. However, here we see our Lord showing the clear continuity of His teaching with the Law, demonstrating that He had not come to reject the Law but to fulfil it. Interestingly, in this shortened summary of the 10 commandments, that our Lord gives the man, He focuses in on just 6 of the ten commandments and doesn’t present them in exactly the same order as Moses had given them.

The Lord therefore first emphasized the negative commandments, and then the positive …We must first, then, keep ourselves from evil, and evil from ourselves, and only then shall we be capable of doing good.

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

One cannot but inwardly smile at the naiveity and simplicity of this man who when confronted about the need to keep the Commandments answers without missing a beat- Oh yes, I have done all that since I was a child. What else do I need to do! In St Mark’s version of this encounter in his Gospel he incorporates this moving detail ‘Then Jesus beholding him, loved him.’ Mark 10:21. Whilst we don’t find this line in St Matthew’s account we can be sure that our Lord was also loving this man, despite his obvious lack of understanding. Again to so many of the Scribes and Pharisees, the Law was simply a list of formal, external rules to be adhered to or conformed to. However, through our Lord’s teaching the Law is still affirmed but is also fulfilled and deepened.

He thought that Christ had said nothing new to him, but had only repeated old teachings. In fact, every old commandment receives a new meaning, a new spirit and new life on Christ’s tongue … Were the young man in very truth to have fulfilled these manifold commandments in their inner, Christian sense, and not only externally – as the Pharisees fulfilled them … he would have been in spirit free from his riches, and it would not have been difficult for him to fulfil that which the Lord had to place before him.

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Our Lord then finally gives this rich man a challenging word, something he was not expecting or ready to accept.

The Lord finally spoke a new word to him, a hard and unexpected word … Go and show yourself to be master of your possessions, and not they of you … go now and sell [your possessions] and give to those in need, and do so as the master, not the slave, of life.

We can also see in this exchange the way in which our compassionate Lord doesn’t impose Himself or shout out commands. Rather He is meek and compassionate and respects the freedom of His sinful and errant creatures.

All depends on a man’s choice. Christ came to urge men to understanding, not to force them. Christ did not, therefore, command the young man: ‘Enter into life’, but ‘if thou wilt be perfect …’

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

Sadly this man could not go beyond the superficial understanding of the Law and the external observance of the commandments. He declines the Saviour’s attempt to heal him of his underlying passion, that Christ could see was holding him back.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

St Nikolai in his sermon emphasizes with reference to both the Old and the New Testaments that there are a plethora of examples of rich people who are devoted to God – Abraham was a very rich person as well as Job. Likewise in the New Testament, St Joseph of Arimathea is also a very wealthy man. All of this shows that there is no necessary incompatibility between being rich and becoming saved. It is possible to have riches and still be saved but it is also more challenging and the temptation to sin and to succumb to the passions is very great.

The Lord did not say it was impossible, but that it is very, very difficult.

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

This reference to a camel going through the eye of a needle has always been one of the most misunderstood verses in the Gospel, leading people to imagine the complete impossibility of squeezing a camel complete with humps through the eye of a tiny needle. However, in fact this saying is a bit of a play on words for in Greek the word for Camel is ‘kamelon’ and rope is ‘kamilon’. The “camel” here referred to nautical rope, the rope that would attach large ships to their moorings. Very difficult, but not completely impossible to pass through the eye of a very large needle.  

Wealth is not evil in itself, as nothing that God has created is evil in itself, but men’s bondage to riches, land and possessions is evil; and the destructive passions that riches empower and invoke … Few are those who have the strength to resist the temptations of riches and to be in control of their wealth, not becoming its servants and slaves.

When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?

But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

My dear Fathers, brothers and sisters – our Gospel reading today thus tells us that riches in themselves will not keep us from the Kingdom of Heaven and inheriting eternal life. Rather it is our sinful relationship and attachment to riches and our material possessions which could prevent us from entering the Kingdom. As we see in the Life of St Mammas – who came from a wealthy family, as well as in the lives of Sts Peter and Febronia the Prince and Princess of Murom – wealth does not prevent one from becoming a saint, if you use the wealth in the way that God intended by giving to the poor in acts of mercy and charity.

A rich man is saved by his great acts of charity and humility before God, and a poor man by his great patience, endurance and endless hope in God … Rich and poor are not in the world by chance but by God’s most wise providence … For men are saved through their dependence on one another. The rich depend on the poor, and the poor on the rich’.

Amen.