“Yes”

A Homily for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

He only needed to say “yes.” But sometimes saying “yes” can be the hardest thing to do. Jesus looked at him and loved him and that look of love is the safest place any of us could ever hope to find ourselves, but even in the context of love a true “yes” might still be a difficult thing to utter.

It’s disturbing really. We all tend to walk around most days of our lives operating out of a sense that it’s all on us. And as much as that weighs us down, it also gives us an undeniable and addictive sense of control and unless something comes around that totally collapses that delusion of control, that delusion of control can be mistaken for reality.

The young man, in the gospel today, runs up to Jesus, he runs in strength, under the steam of his own self-satisfaction, and he says to Jesus: Look at everything I’ve done well! I’ve kept the commandments, I keep the rituals and rules… nobody does it better than me. And Jesus says to the young man: “That’s great! No, really, that’s great! It’s no small thing to do such things well by your own sustained effort! But I need from you only one thing, the one thing necessary.”

One of my favorite teachers on prayer is a British Carmelite nun, who wrote under the name Ruth Burrows. Burrows is bracing and direct when it comes to the life of prayer. At one point in her writings she says: “Stop giving God what God never asked of you!”

Now there may be many things that I’ve tried to give God that he never asked of me. But one very fundamental thing I think we all try to give God that God never asked for is this sense that it’s all up to us. We’ve got to do it! And we’ve got to do it right! And God says to each and every one of us: I never asked that from you! I only ask one thing from you… the one thing necessary: Just say “Yes!”

Jesus says to the rich young man: “That’s all fine. Your rule-keeping, your commandment obeying, your purity of ritual. But now give me the only thing I want from you. The only thing I’ve ever wanted from you. Say “yes!” And be ready to let go your self-satisfaction, your sense of control, and let me act in you, act on you, and act through you.”

But the young man’s face fell and he went away sad. He’s not a bad man. Actually, I imagine, he’s a lot like each of us. It’s all fine, we say. Even the stuff that isn’t fine… I’ll put up with it. Just don’t take away my deep delusion that it’s all on me. That I’m in control.

Every day Jesus looks at you, he looks at me, with Love and he asks of us the same thing: Is it today? Are you ready today to let go your deep delusions of self-satisfaction and control? Are you ready to let go your self-defining goodness which you measure out by how well you obey the rules, follow the laws, and keep the commandments? Will you abandon all that fruitless certainty and let me be the force by which you live? I only need one thing from you. Only one thing is necessary. I need your “Yes.” Don’t worry. It will feel impossible to you. But nothing is impossible with God!

Years ago, the spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, wrote the following line that has always stayed with me. Most of us, Nouwen writes, live our daily lives preferring a “bad certainty over a good uncertainty.”

So, every day of our lives Jesus is asking each one of us: Is it today? Is today the day you will finally abandon your bad certainty for a good uncertainty? Is today the day you finally stop giving me what I never asked of you? Is today the day you finally say “yes.” Is today the day you finally discover the one thing necessary… the one thing, the only thing, God ever wants from any of us. The one thing necessary is you… it’s me.

Jesus is always asking us: Will today be the day you finally make that simple and yet utterly difficult “YES!”