At that time, Peter said to Jesus: Behold we have left all things and have followed Thee; what therefore shall we have? (Mt. 19:27)
Dear Brothers and Sisters
My Very Dear Sons,
The Gospel sometimes speaks to us of economic matters. There is, for example, the parable about the servants, who receive money (talents) from their master. The foolish one hides away the entire sum, fearing to lose it. The wiser ones invest and earn a double profit for the one they serve. More often the lesson of Christ’s teaching in this domain has to do with what a man does with his own earthly goods. The Lord tends to be rather uncompromising in this area: what is basically asked of us is to lose it, all of it-to the very last dime. Jesus simply will have nothing to do with us, if we insist on keeping half. “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me …” (Mt. 19:21)
The same teaching is stated more succinctly in another parable, the one about the treasure that a man finds in a field. In order to enter into possession of this treasure, he must first sell everything he has. Elsewhere in the Gospel, the precious pearl is obtained in similarly, ‘reckless’ manner, that is to say following a certain radicalism that would seem to contradict earthly prudence. But, of course, the Gospel ever transcends our earthly calculations. It is a higher law. It involves a better economy.
Now Saint Peter, especially before the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, before he was strengthened by the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, had a particularly down-to-earth sense of things. Having managed somehow to fulfill this requirement about selling everything (although he seems to have retained a few nets…), he would like now to see about the reward—and without having to wait too long about it. Behold we have left all things and have followed Thee; what therefore shall we have?
One might expect the Lord to point out the rather self-centered nature of the Apostle’s request. ‘Peter, why dost thou seek thine own profit? Trust thou in Me, and all will be of profit for thee.’ Instead, Christ makes a most surprising promise: He guarantees a return on Peter’s ‘investment’ of one hundred times the principal. “You that have followed me…shall sit on twelve seats judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold…” (Mt. 19: 28-29) In our day a person is fortunate to earn five percent on any investment, and here we see evangelical poverty earning a profit of one hundred times the initial stake!
The worldly-wise will smile at all of this, pointing out that such transactions have nothing to do with the real world. The monk in reply might humbly point to the thousands upon thousands of men and women, who, across the Christian centuries, have abandoned family, lands and possessions to receive the literal and (quite) mathematical hundred-fold in return. Leaving behind the one-acre lot in town, or even the one-hundred-acre farm, here they live in a monastery possessing many hundreds or thousands of acres. Having left one brother at home, they join one hundred brethren wearing the monastic cowl.
In order to parry this unexpected argument, the skeptical man, slightly irritated at this point, will counter with what he esteems to be a telling and peremptory remark. ‘All right, you can boast of all these things that the monastic community might have, but what joy is there in possessing these lands as part of an oversized family, as a pawn in the monastic army? I would prefer,’ he says, pushing home the rhetorical steel point, ‘my own little acre of land’. In answer to this the monk states very simply, “Brother, you are close to the Kingdom.” In effect, having a hundred acres instead of one is really no decisive advantage. The mere multiplication of things is no blessing by itself. The promised hundred-fold is just a small part, in fact, of a more considerable acquisition. The real bargain here is concluded with the last words of Jesus’ reply to Peter: “… [he] shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess life everlasting” (ibid.) Now we are talking seriously. Here is the bargain worth our human toil and tears.
But what if you are not a monk or a nun? In a time of economic uncertainty, the more pressing need of earthly possessions seems to oblige us to postpone the ‘eternal life’ dimension, as our day-to-day existence forces us to ‘make ends meet’. The Christian living in the world (but not of the world) cannot afford literally to sell everything. From this perspective the hundred-fold appears rather elusive, and the eternal recompense a somewhat distant dream.
The answer to this profound enigma of human existence is, simply, that the Beatitude of the poor in spirit is primarily spiritual and that any man, woman or child, with the grace of God, can live this spiritual adventure. Anyone can give up attachments to earthly things in favor of the Kingdom of Heaven, even if he or she must continue to be a home-owner. As a wise man once remarked, “Everyone should be a little bit monk, and monks should be monks entirely”. All of us, monks and those left back in the world, can be part of what Jesus promised Saint Peter; all can belong to the great ‘bargain of the stars’ which is simply a Christian thing before it is monastic. “For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Mt. 6:21).
So, let us invest wisely; let us imitate the monks and nuns of past centuries, accepting to become “fools” for the Kingdom. Let us even accept the hundred-fold in this world, that is to say a certain accumulation of material wealth, if that is somehow necessary for God’s plan for our family–large or small—as long as we never forget where truly our treasure of eternal life is stored. It is only after acquiring this evangelical poverty that we will once again be able to wonder at the stars and “see a World in a grain of sand, And a Heaven in a wild flower” (William Blake, Auguries of Innocence), as one poet puts it. Living in such a manner, it will not be so difficult to “render unto Caesar, Caesar’s shiny little coins and unto God (with interest) the investment He has made, that is to say our very lives, created in His divine image.
Amen. Alleluia.
