“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him..” Mk. 10: 21
On Tuesday of this week, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Teresa of Avila who is fondly remembered for her response to a vision of Jesus saying to her, “This is how I treat my friends.” The response being, “If this is how You treat your friends, it is no wonder You have so few!” Similar sentiments could be attributed to the event in the first half of this morning’s Gospel, when the, we presume from some translations, the, young, man on whom Jesus looked with love goes away with his face fallen to the ground, ‘sad, for he was a man of great wealth.’
October begins with the celebration of another Teresa who lived three centuries later, Saint Therese of Lisieux, a young lady who at the tender age of 16 fought and overcoming many obstacles left everything behind entered the Carmelite monastery as had her forbear, at the seemingly advanced age of 20! Both served the Church as they believed called by God, Saint Teresa of Avila, bringing about much needed reforms of the order and dying at the age of 67: Saint Therese of Lisieux stoically coping with chronic tuberculosis leaving a wealth of reflective material amassed after living for only nine more years, died at the age of 20.
It seems to me that the truth behind this morning’s passage lies not in the young man’s attitude to wealth but to what it represented in his response to Jesus call to him: - (Pause)
“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him..”
Writing on this passage, The Living Word has this to say: -
“Jesus sees beyond the surface, to the true nature and intentions of others – whether addressing the Pharisees as hypocrites or describing Nathaniel as a “man without guile.”
Thus, it seems to me, as Jesus longed for the young man to reform his ways, for we should note there were genuine Pharisees, after all Nicodemus one of those who buried him, was a Pharisee himself: also we should recall that Nathaniel translates as ‘God has given’ and in this case we know him more as the Apostle Saint Bartholomew!
“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him..”
That love was with the greatest depth and warmth. In this way we can see the scene in the opposite way: the young man is impressing Jesus by his keeping of the commandments and probably going beyond, but he has another step to take – the step of trusting in God who provides and sustains anyone who responds to his call. This, The Living Word describes as: -
“Jesus held up, as it were, a mirror to his spiritual emptiness.
As has been my practice recently I read and re-read today’s Collect in which we ask: -
“May your grace…. at all times ,….go before us and follow after….”
As such, today our attention is drawn to the fact that just as the Lord looks on us with such warmth, it is a discerning warmth that is encouraging in that he sees equally our weaknesses and our loveliness, our failures and our successes.
“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him..”
We are not told how long that look held….with Jesus I would suggest it was until the young man passed out of sight praying that he would turn back.
When we turn to the two other paragraphs of the passage, introduced with the words :
“Jesus looked round and said to his disciples,”
we begin to see that same love for them – as he encourages them culminating in the words of promise of repayment; -
“a hundred times over.”
My final thoughts went to the challenge posed by the familiar parable of the Camel, laden with goods arriving at the city gate. God’s love is warm, it is discerning and in that it is God’s love it is also challenging in that to enter the city the camel would have to stripped of its load, coaxed through the low gate and then dressed again.
Very few are called to the cloister and the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, yet our baptism calls us to rise to the challenge. Neither of our Saints Teresa knew what awaited them as they entered their respective Carmel’s – both are now celebrated as Saints and Doctors of the Church. As today we rise to the warm discerning and challenging love of God that we have witnessed in the Gospel; I will conclude with two quotations. The first from S John of the Cross with whom Teresa of Avila worked so closely: -
“to be attached by the smallest thread is the same as being attached with a heavy chain.”
The second from the dying words of Saint Therese of Lisieux herself: -
“let us go forward in peace, our eyes upon Heaven, the only one goalof our labours.”
“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him..”
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