“What keeps you and me knowingly, unknowingly, consciously, or unconsciously sad, because we’re possessed by what we possess—our possessions?” Father John Unni posed this question in a homily three years ago standing before his congregation at St. Cecilia Parish in Boston’s affluent Back Bay. “There’s no U-Haul after a hearse.”
This introspection serves as a catalyst for this week’s conversation on “Preach” with Ricardo da Silva, S.J., where John reflects on his 2021 homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. “I like what that guy is saying, but I find it even more challenging three years later,” he admits. “I’m wrestling with these readings in a different way, a deeper way.”
After 21 years at St. Cecilia, John—once a high school English teacher and a part-time landscaper—is known for his thought-provoking preaching but also for being something of a “long-form” preacher. Although this approach defies prevailing wisdom, people flock to hear him in the parish and online. The secret to capturing his congregation’s attention? “This message isn’t coming from Johnny—it’s coming from Jesus.”
Scripture Readings for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
First Reading: Wis 7:7-11
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 90:12-13, 14-15, 16-17
Second Reading: Heb 4:12-13
Gospel: Mk 10:17-30 or 10:17-27
You can find the full text of the readings here.
Homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, by Fr. John Unni
First of all, no matter who we are and how much we have, whether it’s money, possessions, houses, cars, clothes, whatever it is, I’m gonna put out a blanket statement. We’re all rich. First of all, just living in America. Not everybody is rich, but in general. I don’t consider myself rich, but then, when I think about it, I’m rich, not sleeping on the street. I’m not down the corner of Mass and Cass. I pay my bills, whatever small bills I have. Do you know what I’m saying? I eat well too.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that back in 2016 or 2015, the Globe did a story on the average net worth here in Boston. People of color, black people, African American people, white people. I thought it was a typo. The networth of the average white person in the city of Boston: $250,000. The average net worth of a black person in this city: $8. I thought it was a typo. How, how, how did they figure that? How can that be? 8. 250,000. So not everybody’s rich, but what I wanna focus on today is not exactly how much is in the bank account or how much we have. It’s what we do with what we have.
And in the end, do you and I leave this life or experience life like the kid in the gospel, walking away sad because we were possessed by our possessions? And trust me, I feel like I’ve been convicted by my own words that I’m gonna say in a few minutes, that I said at the five o’clock mass. And this isn’t meant to be convicting like this. It’s meant to be motivating. And it’s meant to actually, I hope, help us to see what these scriptures are saying to us in 2021. So I’m gonna start off with a question.
What do you hope to inherit in this life? Think about it. What do you want to inherit? What’s coming up?
Don’t say it out loud, but you know, just think about these things. You guys can say it out loud at home. You know, money, paintings, jewelry, houses, cars, land. What do you hope to inherit on the list that may have just come up? Did eternal life figure into the top three or the top five of the top 10? It didn’t when I first unconsciously responded, what would I wanna inherit? And yet, what’s the first question? The kid in the gospel asked Jesus today. Good teacher. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Do you ever think about that as a reminder? We are just moving through eternal life. It doesn’t start, the clock doesn’t start ticking once you take the last breath. We’re in eternity right now, right? We’re finite people. We’re born, we die. There’s a beginning. There’s an end. The concept of eternity. Like, well, what were we before?
I don’t know. Who will we be after? I don’t know. But I believe those words of Jesus that say, I never, ever, ever would’ve told you that I was gonna prepare a place for you if I wasn’t. And when I come back again, I’ll take you with me. So that where I am, you also may be. I believe those words. I believe there is something else. Yes, there’s different stuff in life that challenges us on this level, makes us doubt and wonder, is there anything? Is it just over after the last breath? But do you believe those words from Jesus? And if we do believe in eternity, this 100 years, give or take on this earth, is a pinprick when you think of it in light of eternity. So there’s a way to be, and Jesus models the way to be. In his three years of public ministry between the ages of 30 and 33, he showed us how to be you take care of each other, you forgive each other.
That was his number one issue. If you ask me, you feed one another, you work for justice, you go to the margins reminding people of their goodness, beauty, dignity and worth. Because you know it about yourself. You share all the stuff that we’ve learned from our parents and along life, he shows us the way to be. And somehow that way of being is connected with an eternal way of being. That’s why he says to the kid, you wanna inherit eternal life. You want to get what the kingdom of God about eternal life is about. Go sell all that stuff that’s holding you back that you don’t even know. You think you’ve obtained all this stuff. You think you’ve worked hard for all this stuff, which you have, but it’s not it, it’s actually encumbering you on some level, unless you use it in the right way. That’s how I hear him speaking to me.
When eternal life does all this stuff, you’ll have more houses and mothers and brothers and fathers and sons and sisters and daughters and everything and all that can, oh, you’ll have persecutions too. There’s gonna be a cost to this, but you’ll have more than you ever desired. So second question is, what holds you and me back from fullness of life in the way that Jesus intends it? What keeps you and me knowingly, unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously sad? Because we’re possessed by what we possess, our possessions.
I just had a conversation after the eight o’clock mass with a good friend of mine, a buddy of mine—love him. Classmates in the seminary, eventually left, got married. He says, only, you’re not gonna believe this. I have so much stuff that I know. I’m like, I’m in the same boat. You know, where like, like, hang on to everything. I’ll read that book again. I remember when I got that shirt 20 years ago, who gave it to me? And I have such great emotions, I mean, come on. There’s somebody who needs a shirt. John, you’re not gonna read that book again. You barely read it the first time. What’s going on there in that dynamic? Huh? I don’t know. Does anybody else wrestle with this? Storage units? Tell me that’s not the fire alarm. And that’s somebody’s phone. It’s oh. Or is that the time limit? Frank, you, you shut me down here.
So what is it to be interested in inheriting eternal life? What does that even mean? What do you and I pray for? What do you pray for? Do we pray for material things or riches? Pray for money. Pray to find the right person, the right life partner. Do we pray to win the lottery? Do we pray for health, for ourselves and for others?
These are all things that we pray for. But if we’re interested in inheriting eternal life, do you and I pray for and desire the deeper things that we heard about in the readings today? The wisdom to know what’s important and what’s not. I love that first reading. Have you ever prayed for wisdom? Anybody ever prayed for wisdom? Forget the lottery. Pray for wisdom. I prayed in prudence. I prayed, and wisdom was given to me. God wants nothing more than to give you and me what we need. We can’t always get what we want. But if you try some time, you just might find (laugh).
God always gives us what we need. I prayed and wisdom was given me, to make the right choices in life. Be with the right people, do the right things. I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred wisdom to scepter and throw, in other words, to power. I deemed riches. Nothing compared to wisdom or any priceless gem. Uhuh, all gold in view of wisdom is like sand, silver, like mud, even beyond health. And comeliness, comeliness, whatever. I mean, who uses health and beauty? Health and beauty. Aisle three. Rite aid, right? Health and beauty, even beyond health and beauty. I loved wisdom. I wanted wisdom. We’re always praying for health. I chose to have wisdom even more than light, because wisdom never yields to sleep and darkness. And then at the end it says, and in doing this, all good things came together to me, in her countless riches. Wisdom is gonna bring me all that. Have you ever prayed for wisdom? Try it.
Wisdom helps us to go deeper. As the author of the Letter to Hebrews says, wisdom is God’s spirit. It’s living, it’s effective. It’s sharper than a sword. It penetrates between soul and spirit. Joints, marrow and ligature. It’s able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart. Nothing is concealed. I wanna have that kind of a mind, that kind of a spirit and soul, that kind of a faith. Don’t you? We wanna pass that on to our kids and our grandkids, that they can reflect on the deepest levels, make the best choices, the healthiest choices in life that we can see what’s important and what’s not. How to use what we’ve been given and worked hard for in the best ways. That young man was stuck. He was stuck on the surface. Good teacher. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Well, you know, the first, I think Jesus had an attitude.
I still don’t understand. How about he goes, good teacher. Why do you call me “good teacher?” I could just see him with a little attitude. You know, like nobody’s good but God alone. You know the Commandments like I was. And maybe this is just my interpretation or misinterpretation of how Jesus looked at him, because later it says he looked at him with love. I thought, I saw the kid as, um, I’m dating myself in this reference as Eddie Haskell. Hello, Mrs. Cleaver. Hello Mr. Cleaver. Right? Good teacher.
Don’t call me good. You know, the commandments don’t do this, this, this, this, and this. Oh, I’ve been doing those. My whole, you see, when we were young, we get the rules and the regulations we like, you know, we, we, we like that it’s easy. We know what the rules are. We know what to do, what not to do. And we follow them. Jesus wants him and us to go deeper in our relationship and not just be good rule followers. Don’t just follow the commandments. There’s one thing that you’re lacking, pal. Go sell all that you have. All that’s possessing you give it away to the poor, then come and follow me. And his face fell. ‘Cause he had many, many possessions.
We like to stay on the surface and keep things transactional, but that’s from the younger portion of life. As we get older, we gotta go deeper. Can’t just follow the rules. We don’t throw the rules out. But it’s not just about that. That’s when Jesus looks at him with love and invites him to go deeper. You want eternal life. You can’t do it on the surface. Genuine wisdom for what Jesus is talking about costs everything that one possesses. And as I stand here in the middle aisle saying this, I’m telling you right now, I am holding back. I’m not totally, don’t let the robes and the roll fool you. Oh, he’s a priest. He’s giving up everything. Uhuh not even close. We don’t. It’s the thought level.
What possesses you and me? What keeps you and me from going deeper with Jesus in this invitation of today’s gospel?
What has a strong grip on you and me that keeps us from going deeper and following him in this way? As he says, that is why it’s so hard for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. And once again, it doesn’t matter what’s in our bank accounts, all that kind. We are all wealthy on a lot of different levels. We live in America. We have stuff even more challenging if we have a lot. That’s why it’s so hard because these things can possess us. But what if we use them as tools to help others? “When you and I hold onto power, control, and security, that abundant riches can bring, it’s antithetical to the vulnerability, the receptivity, and the risk that abandoning oneself to Jesus and to following him requires,” says Sister Barbara Reed.
I don’t know if I wanna make myself that vulnerable. We’re taught in life, Make sure you don’t have financial insecurity. Make is challenging. Is it not? It is challenging. It’s not impossible. She says, if we’re rich, it can be difficult, exceedingly difficult. It’s really what we do with our possessions, our money, and our wealth. St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, would say, be detached. He uses the words, “have a holy indifference that keeps us detached from being consumed by our stuff or a desire for wealth or poverty, fame or infamy.” And be connected with whatever opens us to serve and give greater glory to God.
So once again, how do we use who we are and what we have for the greater glory of God for helping people? St. Francis, you know what he did? He went in the middle of the town square in Assisi. His father was a rich guy. He had a big business. The kid was gonna inherit the business. He goes off like a hippie, Frank of Assisi, right? Goes off, comes back with his crew, stands in the middle of the town and starts to strip, strip, strip buck naked right there in the middle of town. His father is beyond, because it wasn’t just the act of what he did. He was basically disowning his inheritance. And then he followed Jesus in the way that he did.
It warns us that the desire for more, more, more Lord of the Rings, “my precious,” be it of goods, prestige, luxury power. It can divert us from our greatest potential and greatest inheritance.
And then lastly, we don’t know about this kid in the gospel. He might have gone away sad, but we don’t know what happened afterwards. He might have come around at some point, said, Hey, it took me a while. I really love that stuff. I really have to go through all my belongings and go through everything. And maybe he came around or maybe he thought to himself, Jesus is a nice guy, but I’m staying on the surface. I’m just gonna follow the rules. He’s, he’s nuts. So this week we might not all be called to be St. Ignatius or St. Francis, but whoever we are, let’s evaluate what we own. Everything from our material goods to our money, to our desire for more.
Let’s even evaluate our good health, our sound mind, and our independence. Stuff that I take for granted all the time. And does what we have and own free us to live and give and to help others? Or does it tie us down in fear and loss? Secondly, what’s the inheritance from this life that you and I are looking for? Do we want to go away sad and rich? Remember, there’s no U-Haul after a hearse, usually in a funeral procession, right? Or do we want to go happy ‘cause we’ve been generous? And then third and last this week, whoever we are, pray for the gift of wisdom. Let’s not go away sad from this life during it. And at the end.
