Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today we see one of those wonderfully rich stories of Scripture as Jesus talks with the rich young man. His question is a common one, I think, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We might read the question in other contemporary ways. What must I do to be fulfilled? What must I do to find meaning? What must I do to make a difference?

People ask those and a thousand more questions that come back to the same fundamental place. They come back to meaning — and to what comes after we’re gone.

Poets, artists, writers, and more across cultures and across time have asked this question in an infinite number of ways. It’s at the heart of the human condition.

The uniqueness of the Christian answer rests in the person of Jesus. The rich young man seeks truth without realizing that the person of truth, the fullness of it, is the one standing in front of him. He is begging for an answer from one who can only be truth for him.

So, in the wonderfully evocative phrase, “Jesus looked at him carefully and loved him.” Truth met him with love and with a love deep enough to bear honesty. Jesus tells him what he must do. He gives the eternal answer to the eternal question.

Jesus answers him not as a cipher or riddle or with Delphic mystery. He answers him with himself. This is the answer, the utter simplicity, with which he answers us all. He simply meets the deepest human longing with the true vine, with living water, with the bread of life.

How we follow, what it will mean, will be different for each of us. What causes us to hold back will be that which we are called to lay down. For the rich young man it meant selling everything. It does for each of us too. It may mean giving up our pride, our bitterness, our judgment, our sharp tongue and cruel vision, our lack of hope, our vanity, our dishonesty, our lust, or so much more.

It will mean selling what pins us down and holds us back — what makes us less Christlike and less loving. Less charitable and less forgiving. Less joyful and less compassionate. Whatever we must sell, let us sell it, so that we may trust more deeply the promise that all things are possible for God.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert