A Clear Vision of Eternity

Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost / Thirteenth Sunday of Luke, November 24, 2024
Galatians 6:11-18; Luke 18:18-27

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

In Luke 18, we hear the Gospel account of the Rich Young Ruler. This man comes to Jesus and asks Him what He can do to receive eternal life. Jesus responds by summarizing some of the commandments: “Do not commit adultery. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother.”

The young man responds that he’s been doing these things all his life, so Jesus tells him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

The Scripture says that the young man then goes away sad, “because he was very rich.” And then Jesus tells His disciples that it is very hard for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God.

For most of my life, in hearing this story, I understood it to mean that this rich young man loved his money more than he loved eternal life. And that is not wrong.

There is a powerful lesson here about generosity. You really cannot take it with you, so if you spend your life trying to accumulate more wealth and do not make your wealth’s primary purpose the help of those who need it more than you, then you are wasting your wealth on this life, which is short. But if you use your wealth to benefit others, then you are investing it for eternal life. This is the lesson of the Gospel reading we heard last Sunday, concerning the “rich fool” who wanted to build bigger and bigger barns for himself and was not “rich toward God.”

But this young man is different than the rich fool. That rich fool was not concerned about eternal life. This man is, and he asks Jesus about it. He wants to know how he can get it.

In trying to understand how to interpret this Scripture, I looked at some of the Church Fathers and what they said about this passage. I was especially struck by the words of St. Theophylact of Ohrid, who essentially summarizes St. John Chrysostom in most of his commentary. Here is what he said:

Because the ruler was a lover of money, the Lord promised him treasure in heaven, but the ruler did not give heed, because he was a slave of his money. Therefore when he heard what the Lord had asked of him, he was sorrowful. For the Lord had counselled him to deprive himself of his wealth; yet that was the very reason he wanted eternal life in the first place, so that he could live forever enjoying his many possessions.

This was very interesting to me. I had never heard this idea, that what the young man was hoping for was eternal life with his riches intact. In other words, he had a very comfortable life and wanted it to go on like this forever.

So what is the problem of the rich young ruler? It is not only that he is possessive with his wealth. That is certainly true. But he also manifests a fundamental misunderstanding of what eternal life is actually about. And because he misunderstood eternal life, he was sorrowful when Jesus said that entrance into eternal life requires giving away your wealth. This is very hard for people who have wealth. St. Theophylact goes on to say this:

Because the rich man was sorrowful when he heard that he should give up his riches, the Lord said, as though He were marvelling, “How hard it shall be for them that have riches to enter into the kingdom of God!” He did not say that it would be impossible for those with wealth to enter, but that it would be difficult. It is not impossible for such as these to be saved. Those who give away their riches are able to obtain the heavenly things above. However, this is difficult, for money is stickier than glue and it is hard for a man to free himself when he is held fast by money.

Money is indeed stickier than glue.

So what is the way out of this problem? I think if we simply say, as Jesus did, “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me,” without any of the further teaching Jesus gives, many of us will find our money stickier than glue and will go away sorrowful. Certainly, the fact that most Christians who can indeed afford it do not give even the tithe, the minimal 10% that is the Scriptural starting point, shows how sticky our money can be and how easily we feel sorrow when asked by Christ to give it.

So how do we unstick ourselves from being held fast by money? It takes seeing clearly what eternal life truly is. For one thing, you really cannot take it with you, so this should be obvious. It doesn’t matter what your portfolio of wealth looks like when you die. There is no rollover to an eschatological 401k for those with big retirement accounts.

Even more than that, though, we as Orthodox Christians have a vision of what life eternal actually is about. It is very clear from the Scriptures, from the divine services, from the writings of the Church Fathers, from the holy icons, and so on. So what is it? I will tell you what the Scripture says.

Eternal life, Jesus says, is to know His Father and to know the Christ Whom He sent (John 17:3). It is to be raised from the dead to life incorruptible (John 5:25-26, 1 Cor. 15:53). It is to become sons of the resurrection, sons of God, and equal to the angels (Luke 20:36). It is to have stewardship of the whole cosmos in the age to come (Heb. 2:5). It is to be put in charge of angels (1 Cor. 6:3). It is to have every evil and selfish thing we have done burned away and every beautiful and holy and good thing we have ever done given eternal reality (1 Cor. 3:12-15). It is to join the ranks of all the angels and saints to be co-enthroned with Christ (Rev. 20:4).

Do you see how small was the vision of the rich young ruler? He wanted this life, and he wanted this life with his wealth, but going on forever.

Only someone who is wealthy in this life could hope for that vision of eternal life. Someone who is poor, who struggles to survive, if you asked him whether he would like this life to go on forever like this, would almost certainly say no.

But here is the great secret: If we have wealth, if we have none, if we are somewhere in between, the path to the Kingdom of Heaven is the same. That path is the path of self-sacrifice, the path of humility, the path of giving and not taking, the path of loving action and expecting nothing in return, the path of worshiping Christ and not ourselves. Everyone can do that.

It may not be money for someone that is stickier than glue, but for this young man, it was. Whatever is sticky for us, though, whatever is holding us fast, holding us back from living in this life the way that is required for the unspeakable glory of the next – it is time to give it up, to hold it loosely, to hand it over to Christ.

The only thing you have to lose is something you are going to lose anyway. But what you have to gain is something you can gain only through losing, only through giving.

So let’s not go away sorrowful when we hear this call. Let us go forth and, with a clear vision, seek eternal life.

To God therefore be all glory, honor and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.