Tuesday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

What Does It Mean to Give Up Everything?

Peter says something rather extraordinary in today’s Gospel: “We have given up everything and followed you.” We might hear that and think, Well, that certainly doesn’t describe me. Most of us haven’t given up everything. We have homes, possessions, bank accounts, families, and responsibilities. So is Jesus really telling every Christian that we have to walk away from all of that? No. But He is asking something every bit as serious.

Today’s Gospel continues directly from yesterday’s encounter with the rich young man. You may remember what happened. He was a good man. He wanted eternal life. He had kept the commandments. But when Jesus invited him to go further, he discovered that there was something he simply couldn’t let go of. And that’s what leads Jesus to say what we hear today: “It will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven.” The problem wasn’t simply that the young man had possessions. The problem was that his possessions had such a hold on him that he couldn’t let them go—even for Christ.

And that brings the Gospel very close to us. The question isn’t simply, “Do I own things?” The deeper question is, “Is there something in my life that I would not be willing to surrender to God?” For some people, it may be money. But it could also be my plans, my comfort, my need to have things my way, a resentment I don’t want to release, a relationship that is pulling me away from God, or even my time.

Peter says, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Those last words are important: “and followed you.” Giving things up by itself doesn’t make us holy. We let go of things so that nothing keeps us from following Christ. And maybe that’s the question this Gospel gives us today: What is the one thing in my life that I would have the hardest time placing completely into God’s hands?

Then comes perhaps the most important line in the whole Gospel: “For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Jesus knows that letting go isn’t always easy. He isn’t asking us to do it simply through willpower. He’s asking us to trust Him enough to loosen our grip on whatever keeps us from following Him.

So perhaps our prayer today can be very simple: Lord, everything I have is ultimately yours. Don’t let anything I possess, anything I desire, or anything I refuse to let go of keep me from following you.