True Story: A husband told his wife he was going the next day to possibly buy a Corvette. (Disclaimer: this did not happen in my house…) She read to him these words of Jesus:

“Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”

“Now, how do you think you’ll get to heaven if you buy a Corvette?” she challenged him.

After a short pause, he smiled, and said, “Fast!”

Not the Answer We Want

Ok, Jesus said these words, and they must have had significant impact because this story is repeated in three of the four Gospels. (Darn it! Why can’t he just say it once and leave it alone! Oh no, he has to drill it and make sure you heard it.)

More significant though, is Jesus gave this in answer to The Big Question, that is, what should I do to get eternal life? A rich man stopped Jesus on the road and kneeling before him, called him Good Teacher. The urgency in his finding Jesus and blurting out his question might tell you something about his spiritual insecurity. But note this, he asked what he should DO, how to secure his seat in heaven by earning it. Such was likely how he achieved whatever else he had in life. Why not heaven as well?

Jesus met him where he was. Reminding him of the six commandments surrounding relationship, this rich man could honestly respond he had been faithful in keeping them since he was a child. He had never committed adultery, taken someone’s life, stolen from another nor lied about another person. He had honored his parents.  

However, when Jesus said, “Sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me,” the man was very sad, for his wealth was considerable. Presented with the decision to choose between his money and his place in eternity, he walked away. It defined that despite all his position and status, despite all his “goodness” and good works, the first two commandments were what posed the problem. “Do not worship any gods besides me. Do not make idols of any kind…” (Exodus 20:3-4) And if he would not release his wealth for his relationship with God, would his relationships with others, even his parents, also be compromised?

Face it though; this story combines accumulated earthly wealth with an eternal sense of soul. If you can’t take it with you, why does it matter? Whereas there’s the tendency to compartmentalize how life is lived from what comes next, Jesus didn’t separate the two. What Jesus said wasn’t easy.

Look Jesus, we’ve got questions on this. You let the guy walk, but we’re the ones left to pick up from there. You want us to follow you? Then we need to wrestle with you on it.

Fair enough. Bring your questions:

Jesus, you only name six of the ten commandments. The man declares he’s obeyed all of them. All ten, or just these six? If he sold everything he had, would it help with the other four, the ones concerning a person’s relationship with God?

Or, if we divest ourselves of our worldly possessions, what would that achieve in getting a person closer to God or being a better person? Do possessions make or break a person? Or is it more about whatever might buy or sell a soul that’s the consequence?

Or how about this? Jesus, you said this specifically to just this one man. It’s not a blanket sermon on the mount to a multitude. Some say you meant exactly what you said to the rich man because it was central to this particular guy’s obedience to God and would show he believed in and had faith in you. So does everybody else have to sell all they’ve got and give to the poor as the way to demonstrate love of God? Isn’t having money ok as long as it’s not our god. That’s evident in how generous or wise we are with what God gives us, but it doesn’t necessarily mean cleaning out your bank accounts.

That then brings up the question of status and accumulated wealth, upper class rich to lower class poor. Depending on to whom you’re talking, it’d affect people differently. Suppose this guy did give it all away to the poor; how would that affect his family? Then again, are you asking the poor to do this as well when they have so little to begin with?

These are relatively short answers and thoughts to a very big question. The question is on eternal life. The situation is money and wealth. Is there a relationship between the two? We’re given a picture in which we can either deal with what God asks of us, or like the man in the passage, walk away.

Except Jesus did say this. Funny isn’t it, most of the time no one comes out and says we need to do what Jesus said as Jesus said it.

Back to Mark. Everyone has their opinion, but let’s also remember, later in the passage Jesus said that point about how it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

You see what happens here, and with so much else in the Bible, we MANAGE what God says.

Here’s more thoughts:

Jesus was known for speaking in exaggeration or hyperbole to get his points across. He didn’t really mean ALL. Whatever happened to the tithe, give ten percent and the rest is yours? Come on, Jesus!

Or, Jesus, how rich are you talking here? People richer than I am? We can all find someone in this world who has more money than we do.

Don’t forget, in first century Palestine corruption was rampant both among the Romans and in the Temple. So it’s the environment that’s the problem, not wealth. Keep your distance from corruption, sin, bad company and you’re fine.

Or look at it this way. His wealth wasn’t the issue, it was a spiritual problem with which Jesus was directing his comment. This guy is one of the Holier-than-thou figures, and Jesus only wanted to take him down a notch.

Don’t forget this either. It’s about call. God calls people to differing paths. Some are called to this kind of life. Just seek and follow God’s call and purpose in your life and leave your money where it’s federally insured. You’re fine.

Any of this make you feel better? Yep, we manage it well, likely better than our own money because God’s word would cost us more.

As a whole, our minds work overtime to soften Jesus’ message and make his words more palatable. That’s a nice way of saying how we get around it. As a society, we’re infamous for finding loopholes when regulations we don’t like are placed on us, aren’t we?

The Trouble with Jesus was he didn’t tolerate anything

getting in the way of complete devotion to God.

Maybe we need to stop trying to get around and explain this away. Maybe with this and so many other hard to take and understand Bible passages we need to instead lean in to what Jesus is saying about our relationship with God and our neighbors.

Selling all your have to give to the poor is something to keep in front of you and in front of you all your life. For some, to start down this path of following Jesus means a challenge to lifestyles. To start that process means looking at how we live and the impacts of our living on the poor. Life that holds this as its value is one that will not accumulate wealth, possessions and privilege of being rich but will hold and support those whom Jesus loved best, the poor, the vulnerable, the least and the lost.

Anytime you make a change to lifestyle you are divesting yourself of something that holds you and others back from fully experiencing the Kingdom of God. Is it like selling all you have? No… and yes.

True Confession

(I am one of those people for whom chocolate is a dire necessity, and the darker the chocolate the better. I’ve been like this since I was a child. I’m not happy if a day goes by, and I do not have some kind of chocolate. Yet, in recent years I’ve learned this small pleasure is not a small thing in the world.)

You see, cocoa beans harvested from places such as West Africa are done so through the use of child labor, children sometimes as young as five, and some of these children are actually sold into a modern-day form of slavery so as to profit everyone from farmers, the middle part of the supply chain, to the corporations who market chocolate in our local stores. Google “child labor chocolate”. It’s horrible what these children are put through. The history of chocolate production is literally on the backs of kids who are not cared for enough to have adequate food, living conditions or education. The Chocolate Scorecard will give you some direction for humane practices.

We’re only weeks away from Halloween. The question is how much will chocolate candy will be handed out to trick-or-treaters? Simply put, the challenge is, why should a treat for one child be a terror for another? Here’s my suggestion: don’t buy it. If you already have, take it back to the store and assertively say you’ve learned about the issue of child slave labor being used by chocolate producers and you’d like to exchange it for some other form of candy. You don’t need to give anyone a sermon, just express you can only buy slave free products.

Why does everything have to be a moral decision?

The truth is we build our lifestyles by supporting businesses who only measure the bottom line and who bank on how we don’t really care what they do or who it hurts enough to do without. But it comes down to this: we might not sell all we have to give to the poor, but we’d just as soon sell our souls rather than change our lifestyles such that the poor, the vulnerable, the least, last, lost, the children are not oppressed, sold into slavery, paid next to nothing or live in a world where disasters strikes every month if not every week.

“Then who in the world can be saved?”

If this sounds radical, it is. It’s just as radical as the disciples heard it from Jesus. Living like  this is just as hard as a camel going through the eye of a needle. Like the rich man, we are just as free to walk away from this message.

We lift eyes and hands to the heavens, and prosperous cultures and societies throughout the centuries also have asked, How is it humanly possible to care for one’s self and those to whom we have responsibility in life and still sacrifice all that is achieved in toil and effort for those who do not have?

Really? Jesus, what is all this work for? All this talk of money and pride and sacrifice of all your hard earned labor for others? Jesus, why do you do this, shoot surgical knives into the soul and take away what makes the heart beat?

When one realizes, “Everything is possible for God.”

Still, Jesus loved this man, this man who was greatly saddened by what Jesus said. What’s more, this man is the only one Jesus is said to have loved in the entire Gospel of Mark. None of us would ever say Jesus only loved this particular man. Because of his love, this message is not just to be applied to one person, and leave the rest of us are free to manage Jesus’ words, find loopholes, or walk away from what he meant. Jesus said to all of us, Sell what you have, give to the poor, follow me. That’s exactly what he meant.

Yet, what prompted Jesus’ love was the position the man was in, rich as he was, yet lacking one thing. What he lacked was not realizing and accepting the grace of God upon him, a grace that we know is centered in the life of Jesus Christ.

The verses following this passage describe Jesus once again telling his disciples upon their arrival in Jerusalem he’d be betrayed, sentenced, mocked spit, upon, whipped and killed. Jesus would give up all he had in life for the poverty of our souls. What he asks of us is comparatively little. Yet, on the third day following he’d live again. His resurrection, a reversal of death into life, makes possible these lifestyle changes to serve the poor as we reverse how we love. In all, this love is based and powered in grace, the grace Jesus was willing to give to this rich man and to all of us. That grace is the real treasure in heaven available to us if we accept what he said, Follow me, in all it means.

The man walked away. Just as significant, Jesus let him go. Jesus is radical in not only what he asks of us as in how much he leaves it up to us, lets us make the choice. Grace that is freely given is grace that is also free to choose and live into or not. Jesus is clear about what this will mean. Those who give up everything for his sake may have a tough time in it, persecution he even calls it. Yet, it will bring that for which the rich man asked, eternal life and the reversal of what we think we have to have to live.

To follow Jesus is a life of sacrifice to God in service for others. Yes, it’s tough, but one more word and promise he gave us. In this kind of reversal,

“Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

Mark 10:17-31

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The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings

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