Letting Go of Captivity

In this thought-provoking sermon, Daniel McInnes dives into the story of the rich young ruler to explore themes of self-awareness and spiritual captivity. He challenges us to look within and be truthful with ourselves, highlighting the ways in which we can become trapped by our own dependencies. McInnes uses historical anecdotes to illustrate the importance of honesty and reflection on our spiritual journeys.

Transcript

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our gospel reading today was the story of the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler came to Christ and he said, kneeling before him, what must I do to be saved? And Christ said, well, after saying, you know, why are you calling me good? Only God is good. But he says to him, well, you follow these commandments. And he says, 'Well, I've done all those things since I was a youth.' He says, 'Well, if you want to be perfect, then go and take everything that you've got, sell it, and give everything to the poor, and then come and follow me.' He walks away sad because he has many possessions.

So, we're talking about someone who has come to Christ probably because he realizes maybe that he lacks something. In fact, he says, "What more, what do I lack?" He says, "I've done all those things. What do I lack?" And Christ points out that lack. But the rich young man, it was difficult for him to know what he lacked. He's rich. Rich people tend not to hear opposing opinions very much or don't hear very much about themselves. They're perhaps not really that good at looking at their own hearts and understanding what's there.

By way of a kind of an analogy, this is a story that I read recently. There was a general in the Sengoku jidai, that's the warring states period in Japan, where all the local areas were in constant warfare. His name was Nagamasa. He had this custom of once a month he would get all of his senior retainers, all of his senior samurai. He'd bring them into a meeting and they would have this meeting. The deal was this: he and they swore an oath that they would not get angry no matter what was said. Right? Now, the reason why he did this was because he wanted their real opinions about him; they were allowed to say. If they thought he had a fault, they could say it. And he wasn't allowed to get angry. If they thought any of his policies were wrong, they could say that and he wasn't allowed to get angry. All right? So if any of them saw him getting slightly angry, they'd say, "Aren't you getting angry?" He'd say, "No, no, there's no anger in my heart." Right?

The point was that he was wise enough to know that there were just many things about himself that he could not see. And because he was rich, well, he's in this case a general, but he's in charge of a castle and everything. He has the power of life and death over every one of the people in that room. On any other day he could say to one of them you go and commit suicide and they would have to do it. So he needed that time when people would speak to him the truth where people would say things to him that he would never hear at any other time because of his position.

And I think that might be what's happening here with the rich young ruler when he comes to Christ. He says, "I've done all these things since my youth. I've followed all of these laws, you know, I've done it all." But he still kind of realizes he lacks something. And Christ immediately says to him probably the one thing which is going to wake him up and say, "Really? Are you really followed all you've really followed, you know, the law as well as you say you have?" He says, "Go and sell everything you've got and give it to the poor." And he can't do it. He can't do it.

It's not really—I mean we could say oh that's terrible or whatever. I mean come on. How many of us if we had that kind of money would do it? I think this is just Christ saying to him come on. You need to start looking at yourself more carefully than what you've been looking at so far. Be more truthful with yourself. You're not that good. All right. You could be living a life more holy. You could be living a life that's more faithful. You could be doing those things, but you're a bit deluded.

So, here's a chance for you to wake up. Let me point out one area at least where you're not living the way that you could be.

So, that's one thing I think that we can get out of this story. The other thing is, of course, his heart is in captivity. In this case, we can see his heart's in captivity to his riches. He doesn't have the ability to just let go, to say, you know what? Yeah, I could just sell everything and give it to the poor. Right? He doesn't have the ability to do that. He's in captivity to his riches.

Now, the story is about the rich young ruler. So, we could talk about riches, but we could also talk about just about anything else, right? Anything that we can possibly be in captivity to would also, I think, come up in this story just as well. All of us are captive to something. We talk about in the Orthodox church, we talk about the passions. We talk about things that are driving us that we don't really control because we have become slaves to them. All right? That could be money, could be possessions, could be food, could be drink, could be sex, could be all and any kinds of things. Christ is not saying here that riches are wrong. There are very many wealthy people throughout history. If you read the scriptures, you'll find many wealthy people and the Bible says they were greatly blessed. It's not the wealth that's the issue. The wealth is not the problem. The problem is the captivity to it.

And there are many things in life that are exactly like that. They're not in and of themselves wrong, but when we become captive to them, then they become real problems for us. Because when we become captive to things, we can't really give all of ourselves to God. We can't give of our lives completely to Christ and to other people because we're trapped. We're trapped in this little circle of whatever it is that we're captive to. So I think today this story is telling us to look more carefully, be more truthful with ourselves.

We are constantly surrounded by people who will tell us mostly what we want to hear, right? Not because they're bad people or anything like that. I'm not saying anything like that. It's just people don't like to hurt other people's feelings and whatever. We're very likely for the most part to hear lots of things that we want to hear about ourselves. But I think just like Nagamasa, sometimes we need people to speak to us and say, you know, this is not really right. Okay, what you're doing here, we need that kind of thing.

So, how do we do that? We're not going to be like Nagamasa and have meetings and have all of our family tell us how bad we are, right? We're not going to do that. But life will do it because life often throws up all kinds of situations where it becomes really clear that we are not living the way that we ought to. And when it happens we need to pay attention, not just say ah well you know that's I'm just a human being so of course these things happen and just pass it off as just you know, well you know that's just how human beings are. We need to, our failures, when we recognize them, we need to take them kind of seriously and say, "Well, okay, what am I going to do about this?" Go to confession. Talk to the priests. Talk to your family. Say, "Am I really like this? What could I do differently?"

So, we can do that kind of thing. All right? We can always be on the lookout. And of course, you know, we're going to come across people who will exactly tell us, you know, what's wrong, right, in various situations. So there's no lack of opportunities to find out the true state of our heart if we're really really watching and listening and looking. So I just want to encourage you today through this story of this rich young ruler that, you know, of course we have these things. We get trapped by things and our hearts are not where they ought to be. But we delude ourselves. And so I just encourage you to pay attention.

Pay attention to all the little things in life that are telling you where it is that you need to do something, where it is that you need to work on that thing, to give something up to whatever it is that you need to do so that we can turn and be closer to Christ and become more faithful ministers of Christ to the people around us. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.