SIRACH 17: 24-29/ MARK 10: 17-27
The pursuit of happiness is key and essential to the human person. As such, when humans run after riches to meet their personal needs, it is understandable. In fact, these riches are God's gift to humans. However, the danger in these riches is that they could become an obstacle to our salvation race. The young man who turned down Christ’s invitation in our gospel reading today, found it difficult to part with his possessions. He was possessed by his possessions. That is an instance where one’s wealth could actually be an obstacle. The young man in our gospel reading this morning was unable to give himself wholly to the service of God because of his wealth. We too as Christians, have a lot of things as obstacles on our way which prevents us from serving God in spirit and in truth. So when the first reading tells us "be converted to the lord and give up your sins...return to the Almighty and turn aside from wrongdoing..." It speaks of those things that prevent us from serving God. Wealth, sins of the flesh, infidelity in our different state of life, to mention but a few. We are invited to forego all these things and share in the life-style of Jesus. A life of dependency on God. The invitation to discipleship as found in the gospel reading is to be followed by detesting evil and returning to a God whose mercy and forgiveness is so great for those who turn to him. Let us bear in mind that, it is not as though riches or wealth are bad in themselves. They only become bad, when they take us away from God who is our first beginning and final end. In the concluding part of that gospel reading, we were told he went away sad. This means that, when we are held back from accepting God's call to discipleship by the things of this world, we would definitely go through life unhappy. Let us therefore pray that God would free us from all that enslaves us especially our passions! Amen.
The pursuit of happiness is key and essential to the human person. As such, when humans run after riches to meet their personal needs, it is understandable. In fact, these riches are God's gift to humans. However, the danger in these riches is that they could become an obstacle to our salvation race. The young man who turned down Christ’s invitation in our gospel reading today, found it difficult to part with his possessions. He was possessed by his possessions. That is an instance where one’s wealth could actually be an obstacle. The young man in our gospel reading this morning was unable to give himself wholly to the service of God because of his wealth. We too as Christians, have a lot of things as obstacles on our way which prevents us from serving God in spirit and in truth. So when the first reading tells us "be converted to the lord and give up your sins...return to the Almighty and turn aside from wrongdoing..." It speaks of those things that prevent us from serving God. Wealth, sins of the flesh, infidelity in our different state of life, to mention but a few. We are invited to forego all these things and share in the life-style of Jesus. A life of dependency on God. The invitation to discipleship as found in the gospel reading is to be followed by detesting evil and returning to a God whose mercy and forgiveness is so great for those who turn to him. Let us bear in mind that, it is not as though riches or wealth are bad in themselves. They only become bad, when they take us away from God who is our first beginning and final end. In the concluding part of that gospel reading, we were told he went away sad. This means that, when we are held back from accepting God's call to discipleship by the things of this world, we would definitely go through life unhappy. Let us therefore pray that God would free us from all that enslaves us especially our passions! Amen.
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