If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me

 Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them.  But Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."  And He laid His hands on them and departed from there.

Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?"  So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good?  No one is good but One, that is, God.  But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."  He said to Him, "Which ones?"  Jesus said, " 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' "  The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth.  What do I still lack?"  Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."  But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

- Matthew 19:13-22

 Yesterday we read that, after His teachings on forgiveness, Jesus departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.  And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.   The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?"  And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?  So then, they are no longer two but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."  They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"  He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery."  His disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry."  But He said to them, "All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given:  For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.  He who is able to accept it, let him accept it."

 Then little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them.  But Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."  And He laid His hands on them and departed from there.  My study bible explains that the disciples rebuked the mothers for bringing little children to Christ both because their manner was "unruly" and because they thought (according to a commentary by Theophan) that children "diminished His dignity as Teacher and Master."  But Christ rejects this thinking.  Instead, He sets little children as an example of those who inherit the kingdom of heaven.   Children, my study bible says, are invited to participate in the Kingdom through prayer, worship, baptism, chrismation, and Communion -- even as example to adults.  See also Thursday's reading, in which Jesus used a little child as an example of humility required of those who are greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and of all those who must be received in His name and cared for by His disciples.

Now behold, one came and said to Him, "Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?"  So He said to him, "Why do you call Me good?  No one is good but One, that is, God.  But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."  He said to Him, "Which ones?"  Jesus said, " 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother,' and 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' "   The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth.  What do I still lack?"  We note that (unlike the Pharisees in yesterday's reading, above) this man doesn't come to test Jesus.  But neither does He completely understand Jesus through faith.  He calls Him "Good Teacher," and this is how he sees Christ.  Jesus' response does not deny that He is God, but is designed to lead the man to this understanding.  In His response, Jesus first goes to the Law and the commandments received through Moses.  But this young man is already aware that formal observance of commandments isn't enough.  This does not make one righteous before God.  Rather, he has an earnest desire for eternal life and senses that there is something that he still lacks.   Thus, admirably, he continues to press Jesus for an answer.

  The young man said to Him, "All these things I have kept from my youth.  What do I still lack?"  Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."  But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.  To be perfect, my study bible tells us, one must willingly sacrifice all and follow Christ.  There is nothing gained unless this sacrifice is freely given.  For each person, the specifics of how one follows Christ will be different on a "particular" level.  For this rich man, because his wealth has such a grip on his identity and place in life, his hope is to sell and give away his possessions.   St. John Chrysostom is cited by my study bible.  In his commentary, he states that giving away possessions is really the least of Christ's instructions here.  To follow Him in all things is a far greater and more difficult calling.

We have to ask ourselves, "What is faith?" in the context of today's reading.  Christ asks something startling of this rich young man, which we can all agree is exceedingly difficult.  In the context of society, most likely he is defined by his great possessions and his status in life, and that of his family.  He wouldn't be the first, and certainly not the last, no matter what the economic structure of a country in any time and place, whose life would be so defined by what he owned.  Clearly he is a highly moral young man.  He follows all the commandments named by Jesus.  We cannot call him merely selfish nor self-centered.  But he lacks perfection, and perfection is found in an identity that is not necessarily that which is given us by the world and our worldly circumstances.  Perfection calls to us through faith.  What Jesus gives to this young man is the gift of holiness, of participation in the Kingdom, and that Kingdom calls us out of our worldly understanding of ourselves to something more.  It is only there we find "perfection."  Let us make note that Mark's Gospel tells us that Jesus gives this advice because He loves the young man (see Mark 10:21).  The command to sell all that he has is not given as rebuke nor test; it is given as a gift and an invitation of welcome to greater riches than the young man can understand.  He will have treasure in heaven, an exchange that is richer than what he thinks he owns, which can disappear in a day.  (If we consider the coming destruction of Jerusalem, we can imagine what happens to this young man and his class, particularly if he is a landowner.)   But there is, more importantly, no doubt that Jesus' call to "follow Me" is one that will take this young man outside of the life which he knows, and outside of the identity he knows of himself.  To follow Christ is to leave everything behind in one sense or another, and particularly those things to which we are most attached.  This, in such a context, eventually and surely becomes a call for each of us.  We may find ourselves even coming back to the life we know, but as different persons, for the call to "follow Me" means that life becomes an experience of participation in a Kingdom that will define how we relate to our world.  Jesus' call to this rich young man is one that breaks him off from what defines himself, and seeks to give him primary relationship to Christ first before all things in this world.  Our relatedness to Christ is meant to take priority, but also to come between ourselves and all else as mediator.  It is Christ as "the way, the truth, and the life" that gives us our lives back in a sacramental form, even made holy by the life and presence of the Kingdom and our participation in it.  This is the lifelong journey that starts with "follow Me."   It is an invitation into the love and holiness that defines and underlies this Kingdom He brings into the world and shares with us.  Jesus' instructions to the young man will be followed by countless numbers of saints to come, those who seek holiness and make the most extraordinary commitments to a life of devotion to God.  But His words to "follow Me" are for each one of us; and on this journey of faith we will each find things of which we need to let go as identity, so that He can give us the image in which He has created us and in which we conform to the things of the Kingdom, even as we live our lives in this world.   We are drawn into a place we can't define ahead of our experience of its grace, we are called to holiness which will most likely look nothing like what we expect and perhaps even think is desirable.  As St. Chrysostom says, each will be called in one's own way, and the struggle for us is simply to answer "Yes."