I may be carbon dating myself, but some of you seniors may also remember the song "The Look of Love," written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. This 1967 hit tune was sung by English pop singer Dusty Springfield. One day while I was thinking about the first line of this song, "The look of love is in your eyes," I was prompted to jot down some thoughts about Jesus. What's the common link between this song and our faith?
Recall the parable of the rich man in Mark 10:17-31:
"As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before Him, and asked Him, 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus answered him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: "You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother."'
"He replied and said to him, 'Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.' Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, '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.' At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, 'How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!'
"The disciples were amazed at His words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, 'Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.'
"They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, 'Then who can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.' Peter began to say to him, 'We have given up everything and followed you.'
"Jesus said, 'Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.'"
These verses traditionally reflect on the obsession of possessions which can lead to materialism. Our society has the need to feed greed. Everyone wants the biggest and the best. The rich young man knew what to do, but his riches got in the way. In other words, he couldn't hand over the goods to the poor and follow Jesus.
But just as importantly in these verses, Jesus describes what love is and what love does. The text states that Jesus looked on the young man, and He loved him. This was a deep love, a love that required action. After His look of love, Jesus told the young man what he lacked. Jesus could have given the man a pat on the back and sent him on his way with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Instead, Jesus told him exactly what he needed to do, with no sugar coating of the truth.
To love someone isn't always easy. When a family member, relative, friend, neighbor or acquaintance questions how they can have the hope of eternal life, we must tell them what they lack. As it says in Romans 1:16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then Greek."
Barbara Case Speers is a writer who lives in Hickory.
What we think is the right road
How shall I live? Whose advice shall I heed? Who are my heroes? There are many competing voices out there, and they all want me (or my time and money). But the coolest guides are the most publicized ones, for they have the "right" causes, the latest clothes and the flashiest homes. It's hard to argue with personal "beauty," financial success and the glitziest awards for TV shows and the movies.
But it's the wrong road
We rarely hear it said, even from pulpits, that among the tasks of genuine education is that of helping students (and all of us) to find genuine heroes to emulate. "Imitate me," St. Paul told us, "just as I imitate Christ" (1 Cor 11:1).
A long time ago I had a summer job in a cemetery. With a couple of others, I mowed the lawn and dug the graves. (We could not use a backhoe.) One of the workers was an older man, Mr. Beckwith, who had worked in the cemetery for decades. He knew where all the bodies were buried – literally. Mr. Beckwith, however, was an alcoholic, and he used to drink his lunch. So that the boss would not see him imbibing, he often wandered through the cemetery at lunch time and, occasionally, I would accompany him, asking questions about the town's history. Mr. Beckwith enjoyed reminiscing, and he had many stories to tell. As we walked through the cemetery, he would occasionally point to graves and mutter one of two phrases: "good guy" or "bum." Now here was the marker of someone who had died three or four or even five decades before, and Mr. Beckwith was summarizing his life in one or two simple words.
I drew a number of lessons from Mr. Beckwith. Among them was the importance of not being a bum, a "good-for-nothing person." Worship false gods; imitate the wrong example; choose perfidious heroes – and we become good for nothing; that is, we are "good" only to the extent that we are nihilists, believing in nothing.
So much modern moral chaos flows from our blindness about whom to choose as our guide, our guardian, our governor. Before the question of who is worthy of our greatest trust, modern education often stands mute. Having nowhere else to turn for a roster of heroes, we look to Hollywood to supply us with the latest in fads, fashions, fancies – and "moral instruction." That "moral instruction" is invariably a license to do whatever we choose as long, of course, as it does not complement the "antiquated, authoritarian, bigoted, judgmental, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, imperialist, racist, misogynist" traditional Christian faith. The prophet Isaiah explained: The glitterati "call evil good and call good evil. (They) turn darkness into light and light into darkness. (They) make what is bitter sweet, and what is sweet (they) make bitter" (5:20).
There are more than 50 New Testament verses about following Christ the Lord. Get that wrong, and we get everything else that matters wrong. Appoint anyone else as our governor, guide and guardian, and we submit ourselves to false teachers, phony gods and fraudulent "values." St. Paul, for example, tells us, in First Corinthians, to maintain the traditions he handed on, and he emphasizes the critical importance of knowing that the "head of every man is Christ" (11:3 RSV).
In the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch offer this insight about St. Paul's charge to us about that sacred Tradition, explaining that it "refers to the Gospel as it was delivered to the early Church in person or in writing by the inspired apostles. The divine origin of Christian tradition gives it an authority not shared by merely human tradition, which is often unreliable and can be in conflict with revealed truth."
This "conflict with revealed truth" is sharpest precisely in the matter of whom we choose to be our guides, our teachers. As Cardinal Robert Sarah has written: "Nowadays there is a massive indifference among many people with regard to the Gospel and the moral behavior it demands; is this not a way of sacrificing little by little to the idols of selfishness, luxury, consumption, and pleasure, which are sought without limits and at any price? This form of pleasure could kill the soul without attacking the body. The spirit of evil that opposed our martyrs is still at work."
There are around us today legions of false teachers. "Many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled" (2 Peter 2:3), and "because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold" (Mt. 24:11 RSV). Following the examples of the wrong teachers leads to our being "good for nothing" and in exulting only in what is evil (see Romans 1:25).
Finding and following the Master Teacher is what makes life worth living, for "how happy are those who respect (God's) decrees, and seek Him with their whole heart, and, doing no evil, walk in His ways!" (Psalm 119:2 JB)
Deacon James H. Toner serves at Our Lady of Grace Church in Greensboro.