A God Who Questions. Leonard J. DeLorenzo

out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.’” He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

      — Mark 10:17–22, NAB

      The rich man asks an important question, and he asks it of the right person. He is looking for the life that is not fleeting, and he petitions this increasingly famous teacher for help. But how far is he willing to go to receive what he seeks? He calls Jesus “good,” but it appears that he has a preconceived notion of what the “good” is. In this encounter with Jesus, he is confronted with the stark and potentially liberating truth: Jesus himself establishes what the good is, in obedience to God the Father. He cannot be fit into our own categories; rather, we must fit into him.

      Jesus follows his own question with a further response, a recitation of the commandments; but it is obvious that he does not recite all of the commandments. In particular, he offers the man the commandments of the second tablet, not the first. The second tablet concerns those commandments that, elsewhere, Jesus gathers in the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12:31). What he doesn’t offer the man are the commandments concerning love of God. At least, he does not give him those commandments right away.

      The rich man observes the commandments of love of neighbor; at least he does not harm anyone. This is no small feat. Yet, Jesus wants more not just from him, but for him. In one of the most beautiful and important phrases in all of Scripture, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” before telling him the one truly necessary thing — the very thing he is lacking. He must let go of what he clings to and give alms to the poor. The rich young man wanted to invest in what would yield eternal life. Jesus tells him to invest himself in those who can never pay him back: the poor. This is not a shrewd financial calculation; it is a commitment of himself. He must transfer his heart from the things he treasures in this world to the treasure of heaven. The rich man cannot control this investment; he has to trust.

      As Gary Anderson clearly and compellingly explains in his book Charity,⁵ to give to the poor is an act of fidelity to God. It is equal to all the commandments. Why? Because in giving alms you forsake providing security for yourself and entrust yourself to the security God provides, which is divine charity. To give yourself away in this manner is a definitive way of saying: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you alone are God, that your name is holy, and that this world is your creation. You hold me, so I may give freely to the poor, whom you love. In giving to them, I give myself to you.”

      In this, the love of God is hidden in the love of neighbor; it is by the love of God that the love of neighbor becomes complete.

      We do not know what became of the rich man. What we do know is what he looks like right then: he is sad, as his mind moves to his many possessions. Actually, it might be best to say that his heart rests on his many possessions. These are his security, his foundation, his love.

      We also know that his “face fell.” He stops looking at Jesus; he no longer gazes on his face. Walking away, he hides from the Lord, putting his many possessions between himself and the look of the one who loves him. Will this man ever stop hiding behind his treasures and seek the face of the one he once called “good”?⁶

      In love, Jesus has told him the one truly necessary thing: eternal life is a matter of the heart. Let your heart rest in God alone, and then you will receive the treasure awaiting you in heaven. You, rich man, have to choose to allow yourself to love God, to abide in God’s life. That is what’s good.⁷

      Prayer Good and gracious God,liberate my heart so I may love you.

       Chapter 3

       Who do the crowdssay that I am?

      Once when Jesus was praying in solitude, and the disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They said in reply, “John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, ‘One of the ancient prophets has arisen.’” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said in reply, “The Messiah of God.”

      — Luke 9:18–20, NAB

      Perhaps there is no greater threat to our own security than the gods we create out of our own expectations. These gods constantly swirl in our hearts and masquerade in our imaginations. There is the god of my own convenience; the god of my condition; the god of my hidden agenda; the god of my private religious worldview. These gods get broadcast far and wide by the “crowds,” who present a divine image that serves some end that they or we or I seek for their or our or my own purposes. The gods the crowds proclaim are always different faces of “the god of my own choosing,” however, that god may look from one person to the next or in one age to the next. We worship the god we expect, who fulfills the end we covet. That end may be prosperity and favor, or collective self-improvement projects in which we become “the best versions of ourselves,” or the assumed justification of a particular set of prejudices. The great threat to our security is presuming to know God according to our own expectations of him, instead of learning how to receive God as he is. We become slaves to our own smallish expectations, trapped by the self-generated images we create. We love nothing more than the power to make our own gods.

      Jesus asks a question about the crowds and hears what he surely already knows: the crowds seek to put him in his place. To them, he is at best a prophet of God as they expect God to be. They have imagined a god, and this man fits in that view. The crowds may even be willing to listen to Jesus all the way to the boundaries of their own expectations. But if he were to step out of place and break from their expectations, they would surely reject him in the name of the god whom they expect.⁸ What the crowds expect, they worship.

      Journeys of penance, such as the ones we undergo on a pilgrimage, including during the season of Lent, are in part about being cured of our idolatrous views of God. We are to be loosened from the god of our own expectations so as to receive the God who says “I am.” Jesus reveals the God who creates us and redeems us and invites our worship for our own good. He reveals God not just by what he says or by what he does, but rather by who he is. Receiving Jesus rightly is how we receive who God is. We may want to say this and that about who Jesus is so we can put him into context, but we only receive him as he truly is when we allow him to provide his own context. His prayer is his context, because that is where he is at home in his Father’s love — not merely as a prophet but as the Son.

      It is a curious thing that, at the beginning of this passage, Jesus is “praying alone,” and the “disciples were with him.” The other voices are not there; the crowds have been left behind.⁹ The disciples are gathered into Jesus’ solitude. Here the disciples hear the Father’s singular voice and the Son’s singular response. The disciples listen, and when Peter speaks, he speaks in truth.

      We often say too much and listen too little. But the spiritual life — life in Christ, as Saint Paul says¹⁰ — is born in the valley of humility, a place where we must first learn how to receive, being schooled in the dialogue of prayer between the Father and the Son that is free of “what the crowds say.” That dialogue unfolds in Jesus’ solitude; only when we are silent can he welcome us in. Away from the crowds, we learn how to cease making gods who fit our image and conform to our likeness — the gods we expect. Within this sacred space God creates, remaking us in his image, conforming us to the likeness of the beloved Son.

      By the end of Luke’s Gospel, the addiction to the savior we expect on our own terms seems to be the very reason the first witnesses to his resurrection cannot recognize the Risen Christ. Those two downtrodden disciples on the