Seventh Day: Stranded on His Wealth
And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, even God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and mother. And he said, All these things have I observed from my youth up. And when Jesus heard it, he said unto him, One thing thou lackest yet: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. But when he heard these things, he became exceeding sorrowful; for he was very rich. And Jesus seeing him said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to enter in through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.—Luke 18:18-25.
A fine young man, of clean and conscientious life, but with unsatisfied aspirations in his soul. Jesus invites him to a more heroic type of excellence, cutting loose from his wealth and devoting himself to the apostolate of the Kingdom of God. It was a great chance for a great life. He [pg 124] might have stood for God before kings and mobs, and ranked with Peter, John, and Paul as a household name. He did not rise to his chance. What held him? Jesus felt it was his wealth. A poor man would have had less to leave, and might have left it cheerfully. So Jesus sums up the psychological situation in the saddened exclamation that it is exceedingly hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom where men live in justice, fraternity, and idealism.
Have you noticed that in recent years an increasing number of this man's grandsons are trying to cut loose and find the real life, eternal life? Can you name any?
Study for the Week
Evidently the dangers connected with property were much in the mind of Jesus. He seems to have emphasized them more fully and frequently than the evils of licentiousness or drunkenness. The modern Church has reversed the relative emphasis. Why?
Of course we must not look for the methods or viewpoints of political economy in his teachings. His concern was for the spiritual vitality and soundness of the individual, and for the human relations existing among men. He was interested in property only in so far as it corrupted the higher nature or made fraternity difficult. But let no one underestimate the importance of these considerations. These things are the real end of life. All the rest is scaffolding. We should be farther along if the economic and social sciences had kept these fundamental questions more sternly in sight.
I
Plainly Jesus felt that the acquisitive instinct, like the sex instinct, easily breaks bounds and becomes ravenous; there is even less natural limit to it. It absorbs the energies of intellect and will. As with the rich fool, the horizon of life is filled with chances to make the pile grow bigger. Life seems to consist of money, and the problems of money.
People are valued according to that standard. Marriages are arranged for it. Politics is run for it. Wars are begun for it. Creative artistic and intellectual impulses are shouldered aside, fall asleep, or die of inanition. Property is intended to secure freedom of action and self-development; in fact, it often chains men and clips their wings. This is what Jesus calls “the deceitfulness of riches” and “the darkening of the inner eye.”[2]