BE MORE OF A LITERALIST

WEDNESDAY AFTER FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT 2015

I pray my title got your attention. Today is Mark 10:17-31—the rich young man! If you are familiar with the Bible you are probably familiar with this scene. A rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life…Jesus gives him the answer…sell everything and give it to the poor.

It is easy for many of us to mock literalism—it leads to fundamentalism (see below my thoughts about that, but they do not pertain to the main point). It is a mistake to avoid first looking literally at what the words say…taking the words seriously encourages us to have a positive disposition to God’s Word. So often people immediately dismiss the literal meaning, or they spiritualize it—creating some sort of holy fog about it. When Jesus tells the rich young man to sell everything the “immediacy of literalism and poverty come together. There is no ambiguity…no impediment except for our ongoing acquiescence…” (This is from an article on the Pope Francis…and how he embraces poverty more than other popes).

So how much stuff do I need? How much more could I give away…wow that is an uncomfortable thought!

The point in this today is to let the word literally hit you—enjoy it—wrestle with it—do not be so quick to dismiss it—after all it is God’s Word—and guess what, you may actually change and do something about it—like be more mindful of the poor.

***Fundamentalism—this is a bit of me ranting, but we are all fundamentalists. By that I mean we all, in our core, have a set of beliefs, that when people cross over them we react. We may react politely, but we react. The label “fundamentalist” is a pejorative term used to cut someone off at the knees…when a person uses this label, I immediately think less of the “labeler” because it tells me that they do not know themselves…they are unaware that they, when they level that label, are doing so because their “fundamentals” have somehow been violated—they are in essence being their own version of what they call fundamentalists—and by that they mean closed minded opinionated people. [And yes I know historically this term first appeared referring to a group of Christians, but we are long past that point rhetorically.]