Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
13 October 2024
Readings: Wisdom 7:7-11; Psalm 89; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark:17-30
Listen to the full Homily on SoundCloud
In today’s Gospel, Jesus encounters the rich young man who wants to know what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to keep the commandments.
He has kept them from his earliest days. What more could be asked of him? What more could be asked of any of us? Jesus looks steadily at him and loves him. So too he looks steadily at each of us and loves us. Just stop there for a moment. Do you actually believe that? Jesus loves you and wants to help you inherit eternal life.
Jesus wants to help you here and now to live a better life so that you might inherit eternal life. Jesus wants to help us as a community to extend justice and peace to those in our world most deprived those things so that the Kingdom of God might break in, here and now.
Jesus says to the young man: ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me.’ Being wealthy, he could not bring himself to do it.
Scripture scholar Brendan Byrne observes: ‘Had all followers of Jesus taken this way, abandoning all natural family ties to live simply as the “family of God”, the messianic community gathered around faith in Jesus would hardly have survived beyond the first generation.’[1]
The point of the encounter is for Jesus to highlight that none of us can enter the Kingdom of God on our own good works or our own good character. For us on our own, it is impossible. ‘It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The good news is that everything is possible for God.
When I was a Jesuit novice, this scripture passage was a favourite for young novices wanting to commit themselves to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience – a life of simplicity and availability. One of my fellow novices was a retired businessman in his late 60s. He enjoyed taking some of his fellow novices to Tatersalls Club from time to time – with permission from the novice master, of course.
Whenever this scripture passage was read at community prayer, our novice elder delighted in telling us that the eye of the needle was a small gate on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and as for getting your camel through the gate: he had it on good authority that ‘it could be done, with a little bit of manoeuvring’.
Scripture scholar Morna Hooker says: ‘It is only the extraordinary inability of commentators to appreciate the hyperbole and humour in the illustration that has led them to suggest… that the eye of a needle should be enlarged to an imaginary gate in the wall of Jerusalem .’[2] If we’re honest with ourselves, all of us from time to time think it can be done with just a little bit of manoeuvring.
In our troubled world and with our polarised politics at the moment, so much seems to be impossible. Not even the most adept bit of manoeuvring seems to help. During the week we marked the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel. Our parliament could not reach agreement on how to express condolences. Just as with the Voice referendum a year ago, our political leaders could not see their way clear to an agreed position. The politics of division is driving us all further apart.
We Australians need to wake up to ourselves. The Middle East conflict causes divisions in the United Kingdom at least as great as the divisions here in Australia. While our political leaders could not reach any form of agreement, the UK Parliament conducted a very civil debate with the Speaker introducing the Prime Minister to make his statement to the House:[3]
‘Before I call the Prime Minister, I am sure that the House will wish to reflect for a moment on the fact that this is a solemn day. It marks the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on Israel. Dozens of hostages are still in captivity, and the conflict has claimed thousands of innocent civilian lives. Today we should come together to remember all those who have been affected. I call the Prime Minister.’
After the Prime Minister presented his statement, the Leader of the Opposition said: ‘I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement.’ In response the Prime Minister said: ‘I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his words. On an occasion like this, it is important that we speak with one voice across the House’. At the conclusion of the debate the Prime Minister said: ‘The House is at its best when it speaks with one voice.’
We heard nothing like this in the Australian Parliament. Julian Leeser who did more than any other member of parliament to seek bipartisanship in last year’s referendum spoke with conviction as a Jewish member of parliament having a strong commitment to human rights and the rule of law. Responding to our Prime Minister’s proposed motion on the first anniversary of the Israel attacks, he asked:[4]
‘What do you do to achieve bipartisan support? You recognise that this side of the House and that side of the House are coming from different perspectives on this issue. You respect and acknowledge that difference, but you try to work through that difference, and, if you can’t work through that difference, you leave out words in the motion. Have in the motion the things you can agree on, not the things you can’t agree on.’
The leaders of our parliament could not do so. They found it impossible. They were not for any manoeuvring that might bring about a shared commemoration.
Allegra Spender, the Member for Wentworth, spoke for many Australians when she said:[5]
‘I was not part of the bickering of the major parties that has led to this divided House today, and I am so disappointed. I condemn October 7. I condemn the actions of Hamas. I mourn the Israelis that have died. But I also mourn the innocent Palestinian and Lebanese civilians that have died. These people are somebody’s children. I wish that we as a parliament could come together and lead in a united way. I would have supported this motion had it been separated into two motions—one on October 7 and one recognising the pain that the last year had brought—even on separate days. We could have found a way through this, and I am once again disappointed by this House and the politicisation of this issue, because the country is looking for us to come together. The country is hurting. There are people who have lost friends and family across our communities. They are hurting, and we are not helping these people.’
She went on to say: ‘On the record—because I know this is politicised—I do support Israel’s right to defend itself and its right to respond right now. I do not support a one-sided, imposed ceasefire on Israel. I’m entirely clear on this. But, of course, like so many other people, I pray for peace. I believe the only way we will get that, ultimately, is if we have two states living next to each other. This is a peace that I pray for, and I wish to God that this parliament could actually make a contribution towards it.’
The failure of our political leaders to find common ground on last year’s referendum and now on an appropriate motion to commemorate the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks highlights the impossibility of so much that should be achievable if we are to help the Kingdom of God break into our lives here and now.
As the letter to the Hebrews puts it in today’s second reading: ‘The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword; it can judge the secret emotions and thoughts. No created thing can hide from him; everything is uncovered and open to the eyes of the one to whom we must give account of ourselves.’
Let’s pray with the psalmist:
Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
In the morning, fill us with your love;
we shall exult and rejoice all our days.
Give us joy to balance our affliction
for the years when we knew misfortune.
Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
Show forth your work to your servants;
let your glory shine on their children.
Let the favour of the Lord be upon us:
give success to the work of our hands.
Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!
Since the start of 2024, Fr Frank Brennan SJ has been serving as part of a Jesuit team of priests working within a new configuration of the Toowong, St Lucia and Indooroopilly parishes in the Archdiocese of Brisbane.
Frank Brennan SJ is a former CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia (CSSA). His latest book is An Indigenous Voice to Parliament: Considering a Constitutional Bridge, Garratt Publishing, 2023 and his new book is Lessons from Our Failure to Build a Constitutional Bridge in the 2023 Referendum (Connor Court, 2024).
[1] Brendan Byrne, A Costly Freedom, St Pauls, 2008, p165.
[2] Morna Hooker, The Gospel According to St Mark, London: Black, 1991, p. 243.
[3] See https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-10-07/debates/D011AA57-3CC8-4CBB-84AF-40A6CF71552A/AnniversaryOf7OctoberAttacksMiddleEast
[4] House of Representatives, Hansard, 8 October 2024, p. 6
[5] Ibid, p. 12.
