God provides all that we need. The first reading says if we choose wisdom, all other riches come to us. The second reading says God’s word is living and effective. The gospel tells the familiar story of the rich young man.

Is it a sin to be rich? We might well ask the question. So much of the gospel teaching seems to focus on the perils of acquiring wealth. The parable of Dives and Lazarus, as well as the man counting on his abundant storage in the barn, gives us a sense that the rich are damned, the poor blessed.

As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?”

Many years have passed since the market crash that triggered the Great Recession. How soon most people forget—but not me. I was one of the many Americans who lost pretty much everything, and I was forever changed by it—for the better.

It’s Sunday morning. You can tell. People flood to their place of worship and kneel before the symbols of all that brings them joy and happiness in their lives.

A doctor I know finds today’s gospel about the rich man going away sad the most disturbing of all Jesus’ stories and parables. He has notes and comments scratched alongside these verses in his Bible, and his personal journal is filled with pages of reflections about what it takes to follow Jesus.

Have you ever felt like a camel? I did several years ago. My family and I were on a long-awaited vacation to Italy where my wife and I had studied together in our junior year of college. Back in college I traveled all over Europe with just a small backpack and not even a credit card to my name.

To help us become closer followers of Christ, we confess our failings to our merciful God.

All through our life Christ is calling us. He called us first in Baptism, but afterwards also, whether we obey his voice or not, he graciously calls us still. If we fall from our Baptism, he calls us to repent; if we are striving to fulfill our calling, he calls us on from grace to grace, and from holiness to holiness, while life is given us.