Reading Luke Together #39 – Sell All You Have
You have to love the way Luke presents Jesus and reveals who he is in a simple, one-on-one, face-to-face encounter – which may be his way of nudging us to have our own one-on-one with Jesus. One of the most striking, and baffling conversations is found in Luke 18:18-27. A rich ruler (Matthew 19 adds that he was “young”) asks what everybody wonders about, but no one asks out loud very often: How do I inherit eternal life? I like his choice of “inherit,” for an inheritance is all gift, utterly unearned.
But he pivots quickly and declares himself a great earner. The commandments? “All these I have observed since my youth.” I chuckle, and wonder if Jesus did, over the guy’s simple naivete. Especially the way Jesus gets to the heart of the commandments (like killing = anger, adultery = lust), who for a moment could claim I’ve always kept God’s commandments? Was he flattering himself? Putting on a façade to impress Jesus? A lack of self-awareness?
I wonder if he’d answered differently if Jesus would have replied differently. To this one with the sheen on spiritual confidence, Jesus tells him “One thing you lack. Sell all you have and give it to the poor.” Remember Jesus had told busy, distracted Martha, “One thing is needful” (Luke 10:41). A therapist will tell you that a divided self reaps troubles. Is it focus? How many songs and poems and novels and miniseries and movies dramatize the frustrations of not quite finding that one thing, but then the joys of finally finding the one thing? Dorothy comes home to Kansas. Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone. Andy escapes Shawshank. The rich young ruler turned away sadly. Annie and Sam meet atop the Empire State Building.
I’ve overheard Christians coping with Jesus’ command, “Sell all and give it to the poor.” We dodge things by saying He meant it for that guy alone. Or, Jesus can’t mean this literally. Or, I have to provide for my family! Or, The economy would crumble if people did this. Or…. on and on. I’m struck by Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thoughts in The Cost of Discipleship, as he imagines us saying “In spite of Jesus’ word, I want to remain rich, but I will become inwardly free from my riches and comfort my inadequacy with the forgiveness of sins and be in communion with Jesus by faith.” Bonhoeffer admires the rich ruler for exiting: “This young man was sincere in going away. He parted from Jesus, and this sincerity surely had more promise than a false communion with Jesus based on disobedience.”
Bonhoeffer points out that everywhere else in the world, “where commands are given the situation is clear. A father says to his child: go to bed! The child knows exactly what to do. But a child drilled in pseudo-theology would have to argue thus: Father says go to bed. He means you are tired; he does not want me to be tired. But I can also overcome my tiredness by going to play. So although father says go to bed, what he really mean is go play.”
Hard not to think of St. Francis of Assisi, and many less famous Christians, who read these words and said OK, and got rid of it all. The question for us is, Do we simply ignore Jesus and go play? Do we try to dig in and finally understand how attached we are to things, and to more, and to their promise to deliver, and how our self-esteem is wedged in there? Do we loosen our grip, not on some extra change, or even on what the world might admire as a generous donation? Can we fundamentally alter what we have and think we need and how to get it and more, and become a zealous give-away artist?
Take note of the man as he exits. Luke adds that he was “sad.” Did he realize then he was sad? Did he have some hunch he’d just missed the love and hope of his life? Jesus, crazily but mercifully, adds that for the haves, getting into the kingdom is like a camel (they’re big and gangly) somehow squeezing through the eye of a needle (absurdly tiny) – so evidently it’s not gritting your teeth and trying way harder, but it’s trusting God’s Spirit to do in us what we cannot do ourselves.