A Homily for the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Wisdom 7: 7-11 Hebrews 4: 12-13 Mark 10: 17-30
When I was a boy, a large hole appeared in our neighbors’ yard, just to the right of their doghouse. Over the course of a week, it grew steadily larger. Had the father of the household not filled it in, it eventually would have been large enough for an underground laboratory and communications center. His boys and I were building a tunnel, like the ones we had seen on the ’60s television sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.”
If you remember the series or have encountered it in reruns, you surely recall a scene from the opening credits. Corporal LeBeau emerges from a tunnel by lifting a doghouse, complete with a German Shepherd, off the ground like a door. We might not have achieved those dimensions, but that was our goal, something akin to the Batcave in a Kansas backyard.
That is the thrill of childhood, looking for an enchanted world, a mythical creature or a magical adventure just around the corner. Put some blankets over a picnic table, and you have a covered wagon. Nail a few boards in a tree, and the Swift Family Robinson are on their way! And you only need to tie a bath towel around your neck to become a caped crusader.
But as we grow older, we no longer expect the world to be enchanted, which prompts the question: Did the world change or did we? Did the disenchantment begin with us?
A very earnest young man runs up to Jesus with a question, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17). When Jesus reviews Israel’s commandments, the youth can honestly respond, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth” (Mk 10:20). He is a “do-er,” and his heart is in it. Work hard, set the world right! He is all over it.
But Jesus raises the ante. In place of earnestness, he asks for enchantment. He tells the youth,
You are lacking in one thing.
Go, sell what you have,
and give to the poor
and you will have treasure in heaven;
then come, follow me (Mk 10:21).
Enchantment over earnestness, because Jesus is not asking for a public works project, however useful this young man’s riches might be for at least a few poor people.
No, Our Lord is asking the young man if he believes in enchantment. Because if there is still something magical about the world, something worth exploring, you are only going to discover it if you step out of the regular world, out of your routine. This is what Jesus asks of the young man: to become a kid again.
Kids do not count worldly treasures. They treat the world itself as a treasure, a place breaking into magic at any moment. So, for each of us, the question is this: What do you want more? The world’s treasures or an enchanted world? With one choice, you hoard everything you can. With the other, you fling it away.
St. Francis of Assisi gave away his money—even more so his father’s—to the poor. Whatever social good his act did was limited, but what suddenly became unbounded were Francis’ hands and, most especially, his heart. Francis chose enchantment, and what is enchantment other than the conviction that the world is more than it appears?
In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, his guide to perfection or—to employ our current metaphor—“enchantment,” St. John of the Cross posed the question as one of freedom, a liberty that comes from throwing open your arms.
It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. For even if tied by a thread, the bird will be prevented from taking off just as surely as if it were tied by a cord—that is, it will be impeded from flight as long as it does not break the thread. Admittedly the thread is easier to rend, but no matter how easily this may be done, the bird will not fly away without first doing so. This is the lot of the man who is attached to something; no matter how much virtue he has he will not reach the freedom of divine union (I.11.4).
Do you sometimes wonder where God is? When was the last time you looked under a doghouse, up a tree or in a church? Observing the mandates of religion is a good thing, but it is not the same thing as learning to fly, building a Batcave or simply seeking out a quiet corner for a bit of enchantment.
Every time we pray, if we really pray, we go looking for enchantment. We ask the world to break into something more than itself, to reveal its hidden depths. We ask the great sorcerer of souls to step forth. For too many folk, prayer is only petitions thrown into the void. If only they could sit still and wait for the enchantment to begin.
Perhaps you still lack one thing, but that one thing makes all the difference in the world: enchantment.
