Post-feast of Theophany; the Holy Martyr Polyeuctus (249-51)
Read
James 1:19-27; Mark 10:17-27
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Why is it hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of God? Because they place their hopes to something other than God. If you look up to the word “rich” in the dictionary, you’ll words like “much,” “plenty,” and “abundance.” All these words describe having lots of something, having more than enough. Whatever we have (money, time, family, friends, sex, food, etc.), we want to have enough – and a sure way to have enough is to have more than enough. But God asks us to trust him, so when we have less than enough, we know that HE is still enough.
During Liturgy, we often hear the Beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Who are the poor in spirit? They are people who recognize the poverty of their own resources – both internal and external. They see that these things cannot satisfy them. Neither our material resources nor our immaterial resources (whether external, such as family and friends, or internal, such as a sense of worth, confidence, and accomplishment) can provide satisfaction. None of these things count for much when we stand before God. So what to do? Like the rich man, Jesus is calling us to give our resources away. We can literally do this with our wealth, when we give it to the poor; doing it with our internal resources requires more creativity. But either way, in giving away what we falsely place our hopes in, we learn that God, the giver of all good gifts, is enough.