Do you remember, Jacob Marley? He is a character in the Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol.” He is the deceased partner of Ebenezer Scrooge who appears to Scrooge on Christmas Eve wearing a long chain, clasped around his middle, “made of cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought of steel.” He tells Scrooge that he wears the chain he forged in life and that he now wanders the earth because in life his spirit never went beyond “the narrow limits of our money changing hole.” – a vivid warning to Scrooge about attachment to money.
The Gospel presents a well-intentioned young man striving for perfection. He is on the right road, observing the commandments but Our Lord invites him to take a step further to attain his desired goal: “Sell what you have and give to the poor.”
But the young man was so tied to his riches and possessions, he went away sad which caused the Lord to say, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” The rich young man’s problem lay not in his possessions, per se, but rather in his attachment to them. He did not keep the right balance or proper focus on material things.
What about us? Do we realize how easily our possessions can possess us? We can easily get caught in a vicious cycle. Wants become needs and what once was a little splurge or bonus can become an essential—something we must have. When this happens, God and others have less and less space in our lives. Let us be careful. Any good thing can become an obsession when it starts to dominate our life, control our attention, or distract us from our purpose and vocation.
Fr. Henri Nouwen aptly describes this Gospel challenge: “Jesus asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the center of our attention, to change our priorities…He in no way wants us to leave our many-faceted world. Rather, he wants us to live in it, but firmly rooted in the center of all things…What counts is where our hearts are.”
We know where the rich young man’s heart lay. Where is my own heart?
