Friends, today’s Gospel is the story of the rich young man. The rich young man has a deep desire to share in everlasting life. He is hungry for the infinite good of the Spirit. He knows what he wants, and he knows where to find it. Jesus is the infinite good that the soul wants. He is God’s own self made flesh.
If you want to live in friendship with God, there are certain things that you must cut out of your life. Friendship with God means a life of love; therefore, those things that egregiously violate love have to be eliminated.
Jesus looks at him with love and says, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” God is nothing but love, straight through, and therefore the life of friendship with him, in the richest sense, is a life of total, self-forgetting love.
But at this point the young man tragically balks. The spiritual life, at the highest pitch, is about giving your life away, and this is why his many possessions are a problem.