Today’s Gospel reading in the Eastern Church is from Luke 18: 18-27. It should be a familiar story to most people with even a passing knowledge of the Bible. A young ruler comes to Jesus and asks the question that is on all of our minds (at least, those who believe that God exists and there is life after this life.)

Luke 18: 18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The answers one might get to this question are as various as the kinds of flowers you can find in the world:

“Live a good life.” “Accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.” “Follow the commandments.”  “Do good to the poor.” “You must be a member of (insert a church, denomination, or religion here)” “Fast every day during Lent.”  And so on and so forth.

Jesus says, “You know the commandments,” to which the ruler replies that he has kept all the commandments from his youth.

Yet what does Jesus tell the ruler, and more importantly, why?  The account of this story in Mark 10 is revealing of the heart of Christ:  Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Jesus sees into the heart of this man. He sees what others do not see – that while this man is very careful about the outward observances, his heart is not right. The challenge Jesus issues in response is designed specifically for that ruler in order to being him face to face with his true condition – money is his god. The rich young ruler is doing all the right things outwardly, but he is missing the heart of the faith – that God is to be our all in all.

I went to Confession this morning. For any of you who have read my postings, what I will say next should be no surprise. After I confessed my sins, Father Alex talked with me about the fact that I have a lot – A LOT – of anger issues that I am dealing with. I may present myself pleasantly on the outside, but deep within, there is anger residing that sometimes comes out in the most embarrassing and inappropriate ways. More than once I have said something in haste that five seconds after it left my mouth, I wished in vain I could grab the words and shove them back inside.

Now – what is the connection here?  It is this: during the homily, I realized that just as the ruler’s god was his money, my sense of self-righteous anger against the world and people in it is my god.  Example:  yesterday we heard about the death of President George H.W. Bush. My first response was considerably less than charitable, knowing some of the things he has been involved with to establish globalism and the One World Order.  I went online and made several postings regarding what I consider the hypocrisy of making a saint out of this man, which is what all the media outlets are doing now. In my heart of hearts, I muttered, “Yeah, he’s probably in hell right now, that no-good, rotten $#@#$)(^!!”

But am I allowed that luxury of indignation by the Christian faith  I profess to hold?

NO!

Back to Matthew 5 again:  Matthew 5:43  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,“

Not only do I have this command to pray for those who have done evil, either to me or others, but given the wretched life of evil I lived between eighteen and twenty-two, who in the world am I to condemn anyone?? When I condemn another person for doing evil, I am really saying that the person I was should have received no mercy either. And make no mistake about it, I not only was evil – I loved it! I reveled in evil until the time that it began to kill me and I wanted out. That was God’s way of getting my attention and bringing me to repentance without violating my free will. How then do I not want the same mercy on President Bush – or any person who is trapped by sin and doing evil – that I was so desperate for myself? Such an attitude is raging hypocrisy of the worst kind.

This anger has been in me for far too long, and like the rich young ruler, it is a god to me. It is a kind of pride that, like the Pharisee looking at the Publican says, “Thank God I’m not like that guy. I don’t do all the evil things he has done in his life. I’m not a drug user, pedophile, adulterer, fornicator, thief …..etc.”  Oh, really?? In the deepest part of my heart, I know that if the Holy Spirit took His hand off me I would run back to the sins I loved and pursued so ardently. So would we all. It is God’s mercy alone that I am not what I used to be.  How then do I think myself worthy of being angry against any other person, especially those trapped by their sins and in the deepest parts of their heart, crying to be set free?

I don’t know what to do with this god that has such a stranglehold of hypocrisy in my life. Certainly I will continue to pray about it, confess to Christ this utter failure of charity, and seek means by which to kill the beast living within. This is what my spiritual director is trying to teach me – the same lesson Christ was trying to teach the rich young ruler:  let go of everything and simply trust in me. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful. *

I went to Confession. I hope that it – along with the continuing counsel of my spiritual director, will somewhere down the road help me to topple this idol in my life.

• * Some theologians have speculated that this was the young Saul, who would later be at the stoning of Deacon Stephen in Acts, and then be converted to the Apostle Paul.