The Rich Young Ruler

The Lost Treasure

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good - except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

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.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Mark 10:17-22

My secret has become a heavy burden. Hiding it from others, and more importantly, trying to hide it from myself, I hoped that the years would lighten it and eventually make it go away.

But it hasn’t happened.

This burden has become overwhelming; this secret is eating my life away. And now it is time for me to speak.

I hope you will accept that an old man tells you about his life story... or rather, that I tell you about those few moments that overturned my destiny.

But before I tell you about myself, I must say a few words about my people, my nation, my land, eretz Israel.

This land that God promised to our ancestor Abraham.
This land for which he delivered us from Egypt by his powerful hand.
This land for which he prepared us by giving us the law of Moses.
This land that he allowed us to conquer under Joshua.
This land that saw the exploits of David and the wonders of Solomon.

This land that we have polluted by turning away from the living God to worship idols.
This land from which God, in his justice, drove us out and exiled us to Babylon.
This land where God, in his grace, brought us back 70 years later.

This land, which today is only Palestine, a small province of the almighty Roman Empire governed by a pagan procurator for whom the God of Israel is only a source of trouble.

This land, from which God has never seemed so far away as today.

A young rabbi came proclaiming that “the kingdom of God is near.” He was from the north, a Galilean, as if something good could come from Nazareth.

He did not belong to any of the great schools of Jerusalem, but he taught with an authority that our religious leaders do not have.

And above all, he performed extraordinary wonders: the blind received their sight, the lame walked, lepers were cleansed, the deaf could hear, the dead even rose from the dead.

The crowds followed him, taking him for a prophet.

There were even whispers that he might be... the messiah!

I too had the opportunity to meet this young rabbi. This is how it happened.

I saw him as he was rebuking his disciples who were trying to keep the children away from him. Then he took these little brats on his lap and blessed them. He even made an example of these insignificant beings!

As if God cared about the little ones, as if He had nothing more important to do, especially in times like ours.

Was it because I thought I would receive from him a confirmation of the rightness of my religious commitment? After all, if he was blessing the children in this way, how much more should he approve of my conduct!

But perhaps it was because deep down my great piety left me with a strange sense of incompleteness... and it seemed to me that I could find in him that something I was missing.

So I came to throw myself at his feet:

“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” he answered, “No one is good - except God alone.”

What a strange answer.

Was he reproaching me for too flattering a greeting? Our rabbis like long greetings in public places. Was he reproaching me for addressing him, a man, by giving him a divine attribute? Or would he dare to call himself God and did he want to underline that this title “good”, that I had used to greet him, is precisely an attribute of the God of Israel?

And that I too should have come to this... blasphemous conclusion!

I don’t know... and he continued:

“You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

He had only quoted the commandments that speak to my relationship to others. He must therefore have belonged to the school of Rabbi Hillel, for whom the whole law is summarized in this one commandment: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”.

And he obviously hadn’t noticed... or rather... he had probably chosen to ignore the long fringes at the bottom of my garment as well as the large phylactery on my left arm; both of which underline my great attachment to this law of Moses that he had just quoted.

My first reaction was to get up and put this pretentious man in his place, who tried to teach me what I have always known. But at the same time, it seemed to me that he had not said everything. And this feeling that my faith was missing something made curiosity prevail.

I simply replied that I had kept all these commandments since my youth.

Then I added, “What else am I missing?”

He stops, visibly moved.

What happened next, and the words he said, I remember it like it was yesterday. And the years have only engraved the memory of those few moments more deeply in my mind.

I was still kneeling before him; he motioned for me to get up. He came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder, as one does for a very close friend. At that moment, it seemed to me that he was my brother.

He looked at me, for a long time... And in his eyes, I saw a light shining that seemed to come from heaven.

And never has God seemed so close to me...

He stops again, his hands are shaking.

Then he said to me in a soft voice, but full of authority:

“One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

He was asking me to choose between God and money... Why crush me with such an impossible demand?

Didn’t he understand that wealth shows God’s blessing? That this patrimony that belongs to me today, God himself entrusted it to my ancestors, who passed it on to me, so that I in turn could pass it on to my children? And that it would be disobedient to the God of Israel to squander it on a whim?

Did he not understand that with the present weakness of Israel we need all the resources we can get, if we are to have any chance of advancing that kingdom that he seemed to be calling for?

Did he not realize that we have already had enough of these so called messiahs who gather a handful of scoundrels, promising them a hypothetical treasure... only to bring them to a certain death at the hands of the Romans or to the lust of the Greek culture, which is not better...

And that all this contributed to weaken even more an Israel already so badly treated?

His request was impossible to satisfy.

I turned away from him, walking a few steps away.

I turned to look at him one last time: in his eyes I saw that light shining brighter than ever, his hand was still outstretched towards me.

Then I ran away, leaving as fast as my trembling legs would allow while tears were blurring my vision.

I was already trying to erase from my memory those few moments where the most complete joy, the feeling of an intimacy with God like I had never experienced before had been succeeded by the most profound despair...

This encounter has become a secret, my secret... I always wanted to hide its existence to my friends, to my family, and especially, to the religious leaders of Israel. But inside myself, the memory of it has only gnawed at me and the years, the decades that have passed have only made the weight of this secret more crushing.

Could I have done anything differently?
Should I have acted differently?

You who are listening to me, don’t judge me too quickly... You too will be confronted with this choice, sooner or later.

Oh sure, we know the rest:

How the uproar over the Galilean rabbi grew, so much so that our people, in order to preserve our nation decided to hand him over to the Romans.

How Pilate, the procurator, for fear of a riot and to preserve his status as a friend of Caesar, condemned him, an innocent man, to death by crucifixion.

How his followers, in the weeks that followed, proclaimed everywhere that he had risen.

The curious thing is, when you think of it, that neither our people nor the Romans could ever show his body... This would have immediately stopped this crazy rumor at once.

Instead, the situation got worse. The danger of a Roman intervention was growing every day; an intervention that would have meant the end of Israel.

Something absolutely had to be done to calm this unrest.

Acts 6:8-8:3So we decided to strike a blow by sentencing Stephen, one of their own, to be stoned to death.

I was there in his last moments, just before he was pushed off the cliff to crash on the stony ground before they would finish him off by throwing a heavy rock on him.

At the last moment, he turned towards his executioners and cried out with a loud voice: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

And in his eyes shone the same light that I had seen shining in his master’s.

Instead of calming things down, they only got worse. Acts 9So much so that one of our own, Rabbi Saul, abandoned us to join their ranks where he now calls himself Paul.

What would have happened if I too had joined the Way?

Could I have brought my wealth to the feet of those who followed the Galilean Rabbi and whom they now call apostles? Acts 4:36-37As did Joseph, the one they call Barnabas?

Would I too have been able to face persecution and even death?

Could I have embarked with them on a boat to proclaim to the ends of the world the good news of a... crucified messiah?

Could I also have had in my eyes that light that I saw shining in theirs?

I hear that they still tell my story, that they call me “the rich young ruler”.

I am no longer young: my hair has turned white and my back has arched. I am an old man now, who goes down to Hades to join his ancestors.

It is true that I am rich and I sometimes feel that money is the only reason why people are interested in me. To tell the truth, my fortune has become insipid, since I met the young rabbi. That money is now just an overwhelming burden, a curse, a prison that separates me from the light.

As for my name... They don’t remember it. And I wonder if anyone will ever know it?

I’m just a miserable old man.
I have spent my life chasing a worthless treasure...
May you not make the same mistake!