“Teacher’s Pet”
by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Twenty-Eight Sunday in Ordinary Time
I was a bit of a teacher’s pet growing up. I did really well academically from kindergarten through high school, and let’s just say it went to my head. I thought I was hot stuff.
I remember in 4th grade always volunteering to clap the erasers outside. For those of you who are scratching your heads, before there were whiteboards and SMART Boards in every classroom, teachers used to write with chalk…never mind.
I remember in 6th grade in Orchestra, my conductor got frustrated with the second violins and I raised my hand and exclaimed, “Make them tap their foot!” Side-note, I took out my cello the other the day for the first time in about 8 years, and I’ve still got my chops. Well maybe not for Beethoven any more, but I can still play a pretty mean scale!
In high school, I took all AP and Honors classes, belonged to about 6 clubs, ran track, was in the Orchestra, and got my Eagle Scout award. I did all these things because I met with my guidance counselor, and just like the young man in the Gospel this week, I asked the question, “Good teacher, what must I do to get into a good college?”
The rich young man asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus starts listing the commandments, and the man thinks to himself, “Yes! I’ve got this in the bag. I’m totally the Teacher’s pet here. Apparently I’m the model disciple. Jesus must be so proud of me.” He proceeds to say, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.”
Jesus says, “You’re just missing one thing…”
The young man thinks to himself, “Great! That’s like a 99%. Still an A, but I’m going for a perfect score here, so I better find out that one thing that Jesus wants me to do.”
Jesus tells him, “Okay here it is, do this and you’ll have that perfect score: go sell all of you have, give the money to the poor, and come follow me.” And the rich young man goes away sad, for he had many possessions.
Jesus has this ability to look at us (in love) and pick out that one thing we’re not willing to let go of. He says, “I appreciate that you go to Mass and that you gave money to an old lady once and that you’re generally staying out of trouble. But I want your heart. I want your life. I want your love. I want you to sacrifice anything that gets in the way of that, and trust me you’ll be much better off.”
What’s that “one thing” in your life right now? When Jesus looks past all the things you’re proud to show off and says, “I want that.”, what comes to mind? It really all comes down to trust.
Maybe you’re reading this and thinking that you’re far from the rich young man in the Gospel, and that there are a thousand things Jesus would tell you to change. But that’s not usually how he works. He usually starts with just one.
I like to think that the rich young man went home, opened a big bag of Doritos, and watched half a season of his favorite sitcom on Netflix while he did some serious thinking. I like to think that the next day he went back to Jesus and said, “Teacher, you’re worth it. I’m ready to follow you now.”
Being a teacher’s pet is mostly about our own egos anyway. So let’s give Jesus all we have; both the resume-worthy and the things we’re lacking in, and let him fill in the rest with some good-old-fashioned grace. And like Jesus says in the Gospel, we’ll receive a hundredfold in return.
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