Will I Give Up Even This for Christ? - Homily on the Gospel of the Rich Young Ruler (2025)

“The rich man shall hardly enter the Kingdom of heaven.” That is, only with great difficulty. These are strong words from our Lord. So strong that even the Apostles who, as St. Peter testified directly after today’s Gospel reading, left everything to follow Christ—not simply possessions, but family, relatives, wife, children, lands, and property; everything!—even they responded: “Who then can be saved?!”

Let us not be so materially minded that we miss the deeper significance of today’s Gospel lesson. Let us remember that desert father who was scandalized by another desert father who owned various lands, farms, and cattle, only to be corrected by yet another desert father who rebukingly said that the monk who owned much was less attached to all his possessions combined than the scandalized monk was attached to a tiny little needle.

Let all of us—schema-monks, stavrophore-monks, rassaphore-monks, novices, clergy, and laity—seek the deeper meaning of today’s Gospel. Possessors of nothing, possessors of a few things, possessors of many things—listen to our Lord! One is not only rich by having, but by being attached. This is the lesson of the story just told from the desert fathers.

The casting away of material possessions is exhorted of us that we might focus our attention within on our spiritual possessiveness. Woe to the monk who owns hardly anything but is a slave to many masters in his heart—to self-will, pride, self-opinion—and thinks himself to be fulfilling Christ’s commandments more than “that negligent monk,” more than “that materialistic layman.” Here, be careful, vain and most materially-minded monk, lest you think yourself better than “that worldly bishop.” Do you not hear the Pharisee speaking through your own thoughts? Are you not worse than the Pharisee himself? For you constantly have his bad example present before you and have been given more knowledge of Christ than him.

What is worse than a monk who owns few material possessions while being unknowingly ensnared by great spiritual disaster?—the most deadly possessions, those cherished in one’s secret heart: wretched self-opinion, conceit, vainglory, pride, self-will, self-delusion, harsh judgment, spiritual blindness, and a host of other evils it would be too tiring to name now.

So, let each and every one of us apply the words of the Lord to our own self alone. St. Mark the Ascetic says that the one who is skilled in spiritual life applies the words of Scripture only to himself—no one else!

So, when we hear our Lord state how very difficult it is for a rich man to be saved, to enter the Kingdom, and to find eternal life, both here and there, let us hear the Lord speaking to our own soul alone—no one else!

Let us ask ourselves: what is the thing I most cherish in this life which is keeping me from perfection, greater grace, more complete union with Christ, spiritual peace, joy, and righteousness, in which the Kingdom of heaven consists?

Maybe there are many things, a multitude of things, many false idolatrous gods within us, keeping us from greater life in Christ. Let us then search ourselves and find the most prominent. For, if we focus on too many passions at once we will get overwhelmed. The Fathers encouragingly tell us, their little children, that the Lord has made the acquisition of virtuous dispositions and modes of being to follow a certain succession. We focus on acquiring one virtue. Thereafter, God sets another before us only when we are ready, lest we become overwhelmed and give up.

So, let us each honestly search ourselves and find that one thing nestled within our hearts which is the greatest hindrance to full communion with Christ, to that sweet familiarity of pure and simple converse with God free of a heavy-laden conscience, a care-filled mind, and a divided heart.

What do you find? Look at it! Look at how much you cherish it, value it, sacrifice for it, even worship it. Be honest. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it is painful. But it is there nonetheless. We must confront the truth now. It will inevitably be confronted later. So let’s take the easier path and make a beginning to dispossess ourselves of that which is cutting us off from Christ—before we depart from this life and it is painfully torn from us all the same and we yet remain apart from Christ because of our eternal attachment to that which we can never possess but eternally desire more than Christ all the same.

Again, many things may surface. Don’t look at them all! We cannot battle on many fronts. Focus on your greatest hindrance to Christ. Now, having found and identified it, look at it. Ask yourself honestly: “If Christ appeared to me now, and encouraged me to eventually give this up, lest I suffer incomplete life and communion in Him, would I even be willing to make a beginning to struggle to do this? Would I even dare make even a feeble prayer in my heart to ask Christ to help me begin?”

Let everyone here ask themselves this question. Yes, this is frightening. Yes, this is difficult. But this is so salvific, even if we just ask ourselves this question and have no intention to actually give our treasure up. It immediately elicits a response in our heart, a dread sense of deeper accountability to the Living Person of Christ our Lord.

Our salvation is not about doing this and that, although it involves this. Our salvation is not about fulfilling a moral code, although we must seek to fight against immorality. Our salvation is not about checking off a list of good deeds or simply confessing our evil deeds, although we must do good and forsake evil. Our salvation resides in the deepest chambers of our secret heart: where is our will, our whole heart, our fervent desire? Is it enslaved and inseparably chained to something other than the Sweetest Jesus Who has buried Himself within our hearts that we might abandon every hindrance to find Him Who is the Pearl of Great Price?

What is the wall hindering me from such an invaluable Treasure? Maybe it is some material possession, or a pastime, a hobby, some pursuit, a career, or some relationship. None of these are evil in themselves. In fact, if approached correctly they can lead me closer to Christ. But if they become idols loved more than God, they become evil. Maybe it is some seemingly innocent pleasure, some habit, or some hidden egotistical view of ourselves. Maybe it is our attachment to being right, or our sense of being respected, or of justice and order, or of entitlement, or desire for comfort, or desire that our meager knowledge and opinion on some matter is always the most knowledgeable. Maybe it is even our ascetic struggle, or frugalness, or false humility, or our supposed depth of spiritual experience.

I have provided several examples, but each of us needs to do our own work. We need to find that most wicked and prominent possession which ensnares our hearts, keeps it bound like a slave, and cuts us off from Christ. We need to hate it that it might not make us love anything more than Christ the Master. For He Himself has said that, if we love anything more than Him, we cannot be His disciples. That is, we cannot be true Christians in this life nor eternal communicants of Christ in the next life.

This is undoubtedly a cross. In St. Mark’s parallel Gospel reading of today’s Gospel from St. Matthew, the Lord not only tells the rich young ruler to sell all, give to the poor, that he will have heavenly treasure, and to follow Him, but emphasizes: having taken up your cross, follow Me.

Are we ready to begin to take up our Lord’s Cross in a new and deeper manner? Are we ready to confront ourselves, to expose ourselves a little more to the all-penetrating, all-seeing, all-knowing Light which is Christ? Are we ready to be honest with ourselves, to be honest with Christ Who already knows us better than we know ourselves?

How long will we hide from the Light because our evil deeds are cherished in darkness? How long will we fight against our own salvation and eternal life? How long will we try to serve two masters, when it is possible only to serve one and one alone?

How can we be saved? How can we make a good beginning? Truly, in our Lord’s words: “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible!”

Take courage, have no fear, rise up! Christ is with us more than we are with ourselves. Christ is for us more than we are for ourselves. Christ insatiably longs for our salvation, healing, wholeness, perfection, and eternal well-being an infinite amount more than we do for ourselves. “If God is with us, who can be against us” except our own selves.

Let us realize that—although our evil thoughts, desires, passions, sins, falls, deaths, habits, perishing, and disaster are so very close and intertwined with our souls, that they strangle us and are perceived to be more real than anything else—let us realize that Christ is even closer to us! But only if we call out to Him, confess to Him, reveal our heart to Him in simple honesty, and beg His help. This is the beginning of salvation, of entering the Kingdom, and of eternal life. Expose yourself in sheer honesty just a little more today to Christ the Light, and you are a bit closer to Him than the moment and breath beforehand. 

St. Mark’s Gospel says that Christ beheld the rich young ruler and loved him. Christ sees each one of us, longs for our true freedom, thirsts for our salvation and complete life in Him—not for His own sake, not just to shame the shameless devil, not for some other motive, but for our sake, and our sake alone, because He is the Only Lover of Mankind, as the Church constantly confesses.

If we make a beginning in asking ourselves what stands the most in my way and hinders me from Christ, we have made a beginning on the road to the Kingdom.

If we realize our powerlessness but have even a feeble intention to be rid of such a hindrance, we are on the way to the Kingdom.

If we struggle a little, make efforts, strive against our fallen impulses, and frequently beg Christ to help us, we stand before the door of the Kingdom.

If, by the grace of Christ—which was with St. Paul, as he testified in today’s Epistle—if, by this accompanying grace, which desires to be with us also and to labor with us, we can begin to hate that which stands in our way, hindering us from Christ, our foot is upon the threshold of the door of the Kingdom.

If, by God’s unspeakable grace, compassion, and love for mankind, we begin to love Christ even a droplet more than that which once hindered us from life in Him, we have entered the Kingdom.

If we persist in loving Christ and hating our idols, we continue to enter deeper into the Kingdom. This Kingdom is experienced even here and now. It consists of spiritual pleasure, the delight of grace, a joy the world cannot take away, a peace nothing can disturb, a noetic and spiritual light without end. May Christ grant us to make a good beginning. To Him, together with His Unoriginate Father and the All-Holy Spirit, be worship and praise, both now and forever. Amen.