Today's service and gospel reading reflected that in a lot of ways, both on an individual level and a societal one, because just as I often need spiritual encouragement to help me not give into the darker impulses buried within my heart, society needs material encouragement to do the same and not mirror the worst within us.
The gospel read was from Mark, chapter 10, verses 17-31:
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
On an individual level, this passage (as suggested in today's homily) is encouraging us to let go of the things that bind us and prevent us from repairing our broken relationships, with ourselves, with our neighbours, and with nature itself. Salvation isn't about following the right rules, but about the quality of our hearts and our relationships. On one side of the needle is us and all of the things that we carry with us and are unable to put down. And on the other side is our neighbour. The more we have, the more we tend to cling to what's "ours," the tighter our grasp to our possessions and privilege and sense of self. And we cannot pass through the eye of the needle unless we have the ability to put those things down and walk through unencumbered, to share our wealth and our love with others. I think that's why Jesus, when asked which of the commandments was the greatest, replied, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Mark 22:34-40).
And while many Christians tend to view this as only applying to ourselves and a decidedly otherworldly goal, I think it has implications for the here and now as well. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is among us (Luke 17:20-21). He also said that one cannot serve both God and Mammon, i.e., Love and Money (Mt 6:24). And if that's the case, then the quality and shape of our material social relations and the various ways they condition our actions and morals and culture are just as important as the quality and shape of our hearts and minds. Unequal social relations will logically give rise to inequality; and a system that operates on the logic of things like property rights, maximization of profit, and growth for the sake of growth will logically give rise to an unequal system that prioritizes owners over labourers, profit over people, accumulation over equal distribution, etc. You can serve God or Mammon; and capitalism conditions allegiance to the latter. Equalizing social relations, on the other hand, would go a long way towards helping us get back to the spirit of Acts 4:32-35—hence in order to help repair our broken relationships, we must not only repair our hearts but the material foundation that our society is built upon.
Maybe it's a moral failing on my part that I need such inspiration and encouragement every now and then, but I don't think so. We all have our own coping mechanisms and support systems, some less skillful than others. And Marx wasn't being entirely derisive when he wrote, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" (A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right). The material world we have created, along with the social relations dominating it, often feel heartless, soulless. And in the teachings and example of spiritual teachers like Jesus, the Buddha, etc., I see so much heart and soul and expressions of hope for making ourselves and our world better. They saw many truths about the human condition that we tend to forget or are coerced to ignore, and it's good to be reminded of them from time to time. I don't want to be like the man who grieves because of his craving and clinging and broken relationships; I want to be like the person who rejoices in love, compassion, and generosity.
