One more thing
This week's awesomeness comes from Luke 18:18-25:
These verses are a good illustration of how good people can always use improvement. The rich ruler had done everything right in the commandments. He'd lived a good life. He wanted to keep living a good life, and to have eternal life. He asks Jesus how he can make that happen. Jesus basically says "OK, if you've done everything you've been told to do, and you're still looking for more, here's something that should work and keep you busy."
As it turns out, the man was a wealth hoarder. If money is the electricity that powers civilization, this man was a fully charged battery, sitting on a shelf, going flat. In a land parched for water, he was a stagnant pool. Money comes in, but not much goes out. I don't know if that makes Jesus an economist, or a closet socialist, or whether it was just an issue in this particular man, but Jesus' answer to "give up everything and help the poor" made the man sad.
Nobody knows why the man was sad, but we can guess. Maybe he really liked his money and wanted his righteousness to accessorize his wealth, rather than the other way around. Money has a way of becoming addictive. I know a lot of people who are wealthier than they think they are, but who complain as though they were poor, because they need greater and greater amounts of wealth to get their fix. Maybe this guy's wealth was what gave him the power to be a leader. Giving up his money and house and possessions would cost him his status and probably his friends.
Or maybe he hated poor people. Back in the day, people thought poor people were poor only because they were lazy or had brought a curse on themselves. Poor people didn't deserve money like rich people did, even if the rich folks were born into it and the poor worked long hours. He might have thought "Why should I give up what is rightfully mine, just to help those who don't deserve it?"
Or maybe his wealth and power was a kind of commitment. It was all he ever knew, probably since childhood. Leaving that would be like Abraham leaving his family, or Moses leaving Egypt, or Noah climbing into the ark amidst the derisive laughter of his doomed neighbors. He might as well have been giving up who he was.
Or maybe he realized how much harder it is to be righteous when you don't have your wealth to pay the price of others' sins. If you can afford to buy a hundred loaves of bread a day, you don't care if your neighbor walks off with one of them. But if you can only afford to buy one loaf of bread, and it's all your family has to eat, and then your neighbor tries to take it, it's hard not to kill him. Maybe his sadness was a realization that now he'd be playing for keeps, that the chips in the game represented real money, and that he had skin in the game. He's not in the stands anymore with a ceremonial robe; he's down in the pit with the other gladiators, and he's about to discover that he never really knew how to fight.
But this lesson for us isn't just about wealth or difficult decisions. It's about Jesus and our relationship with God. The rich ruler could have stayed a rich ruler for the rest of his life and still been more righteous than most people around him. The fact that he had cash flow problems of an unusual sort didn't somehow make him someone we can all look down on. If anything, he could look down on us for not having the foresight to ask Jesus what we could be doing better.
The ruler asked for what would make him a better man, and Jesus answered him. The problem was that the rich guy wasn't prepared to do what he was asked. He had no idea Jesus would ask him to do something more difficult than he'd ever done, something so demeaning. And now he was stuck in the position of publicly disobeying the God he'd faithfully served all his life. It would have been better for him if he'd never said a thing, or stopped after Jesus' first response.
People talk with God so callously sometimes. They're constantly saying "Yes Lord Yes Lord," "I'll do anything, Lord," "Use me Lord," and "Tell me what you want Lord" without considering that his response could cost them everything. They want to hear his first response ("You're good.") and not his second one ("Die and let me reinvent you.") If you want to be righteous, and you want to ask God how to be a better person, that's great. Just make sure you really want to hear the answer before you ask. There's always one more thing.
A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
These verses are a good illustration of how good people can always use improvement. The rich ruler had done everything right in the commandments. He'd lived a good life. He wanted to keep living a good life, and to have eternal life. He asks Jesus how he can make that happen. Jesus basically says "OK, if you've done everything you've been told to do, and you're still looking for more, here's something that should work and keep you busy."
As it turns out, the man was a wealth hoarder. If money is the electricity that powers civilization, this man was a fully charged battery, sitting on a shelf, going flat. In a land parched for water, he was a stagnant pool. Money comes in, but not much goes out. I don't know if that makes Jesus an economist, or a closet socialist, or whether it was just an issue in this particular man, but Jesus' answer to "give up everything and help the poor" made the man sad.
Nobody knows why the man was sad, but we can guess. Maybe he really liked his money and wanted his righteousness to accessorize his wealth, rather than the other way around. Money has a way of becoming addictive. I know a lot of people who are wealthier than they think they are, but who complain as though they were poor, because they need greater and greater amounts of wealth to get their fix. Maybe this guy's wealth was what gave him the power to be a leader. Giving up his money and house and possessions would cost him his status and probably his friends.
Or maybe he hated poor people. Back in the day, people thought poor people were poor only because they were lazy or had brought a curse on themselves. Poor people didn't deserve money like rich people did, even if the rich folks were born into it and the poor worked long hours. He might have thought "Why should I give up what is rightfully mine, just to help those who don't deserve it?"
Or maybe his wealth and power was a kind of commitment. It was all he ever knew, probably since childhood. Leaving that would be like Abraham leaving his family, or Moses leaving Egypt, or Noah climbing into the ark amidst the derisive laughter of his doomed neighbors. He might as well have been giving up who he was.
Or maybe he realized how much harder it is to be righteous when you don't have your wealth to pay the price of others' sins. If you can afford to buy a hundred loaves of bread a day, you don't care if your neighbor walks off with one of them. But if you can only afford to buy one loaf of bread, and it's all your family has to eat, and then your neighbor tries to take it, it's hard not to kill him. Maybe his sadness was a realization that now he'd be playing for keeps, that the chips in the game represented real money, and that he had skin in the game. He's not in the stands anymore with a ceremonial robe; he's down in the pit with the other gladiators, and he's about to discover that he never really knew how to fight.
But this lesson for us isn't just about wealth or difficult decisions. It's about Jesus and our relationship with God. The rich ruler could have stayed a rich ruler for the rest of his life and still been more righteous than most people around him. The fact that he had cash flow problems of an unusual sort didn't somehow make him someone we can all look down on. If anything, he could look down on us for not having the foresight to ask Jesus what we could be doing better.
The ruler asked for what would make him a better man, and Jesus answered him. The problem was that the rich guy wasn't prepared to do what he was asked. He had no idea Jesus would ask him to do something more difficult than he'd ever done, something so demeaning. And now he was stuck in the position of publicly disobeying the God he'd faithfully served all his life. It would have been better for him if he'd never said a thing, or stopped after Jesus' first response.
People talk with God so callously sometimes. They're constantly saying "Yes Lord Yes Lord," "I'll do anything, Lord," "Use me Lord," and "Tell me what you want Lord" without considering that his response could cost them everything. They want to hear his first response ("You're good.") and not his second one ("Die and let me reinvent you.") If you want to be righteous, and you want to ask God how to be a better person, that's great. Just make sure you really want to hear the answer before you ask. There's always one more thing.
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