The Young Man with Many Possessions
Being Found by the Better Way
The story we know as “The Rich Young Ruler,” for some reason, has not been of much interest to me for the last few years. I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe I needed a break from it in order to see it afresh. Regardless, a thought I was messing around with while contemplating the story again was this: Sometimes we think, ‘If I only had more, I could do much more.’ But what if the truth was that what we have might be keeping us from what the Apostle Paul calls the Better Way? Love. I think it is when we are curious enough to lose the things we think we need the most that the Better Way will actually find us.
The young man’s interaction with Jesus is often explained as Jesus teaching a masterclass on how following the Law to its minutiae is not enough, that finding perfection through it is impossible. Fair enough.
But…
To Jesus, the Law is obviously a crucial entailment of apprenticeship to him. After Jesus unpacks what the young man’s gotta do “to have eternal life”, he points to the Law, specifically some of the commandments inscribed on those tablets the writer of Exodus calls “the work of God.”1 However, there is a greater concern to Jesus than just the moral implications of keeping of the commandments. We see this when Jesus tells the young man to keep the commandments and the young man says:
“I have kept all these… What do I still lack?”
And the response: “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”2
You see, Jesus’ main focus in this conversation is love for people, and he got to the heart of what was hindering the young man from stepping into a life of radical love. Sure he had the discipline to pay homage to Moses and his ancestors by upholding their customs, but Jesus always digs into our deeper desires and (though tenderly) exposes what we really want.
Being found out for our true desires, especially when they’re centered on our quest to be perceived as good while hoping to hoard our wealth, stings. In fact, it is grievous. It’s ok to name that. When Jesus said, “Go, sell your belongings and give to the poor,” we are told that the young man “went away grieving, because he had many possessions.” We don’t have to pretend that we don’t wrestle with this tension. I know I do.
Let me just name it: I struggle with what Martin Luther King Jr. called a “concern about making a living than making a life.” Making a life, though a beautiful vision, costs us something. It requires affection and intimacy that step past the initial step of living charitably with our money. It dives into the water of genuine care and compassion. It takes the uncomely living conditions of those around us seriously and refuses to succumb to the suggestive whispers of wealth.
Switching up our bank accounts to match the type of love I believe Jesus is commending here is a grievous experience indeed. This grieving is not merely because we are tested by virtue of giving away our things. It’s because of our inability to separate our present material belongings from our future security and success. We don’t only do this with our possessions. We do it with our worth as human beings. With our reputations in our respective communities. I’m always reminded of Peter Parker believing he was nothing without his suit. We operate with this type of mindset. And this is why the grief stage of following Christ’s principle of love is so hard to get past. Because, If I don’t continue to build on this wealth I got, then how can I accomplish my dreams? What suits do we wear that we feel we are bankrupt without?
Listen I get it. We live in a world where money is necessary to survive. But, we are fooling ourselves if we think that it’s through earning large sums of money that we’ll be able to bless and love hosts of marginalized people. We may soothe our consciences with philanthropic practices, but we won’t be formed by true love and nearness to our neighbors. We won’t have the imagination to dream ourselves out of a life of incessant indulgence. We won’t prioritize the needs of the harassed if we’re focused inwardly first. We don’t just luckily happen upon this call to love the poor.
It’s by looking to Jesus, the One who told the rich young man “Follow Me”, and by noticing the disinherited of our time, that we find the answer to how we’ll make it through even when we aren’t stacked with bands. Calvary was the place where Jesus showed us love was more powerful than dominance and material acquisition. The cross not only tears the veil, but it also reprioritizes the goals of our wallets, namely our solidarity with and provision for the poor. Jesus, the One who emptied himself so that we may know God is our Exemplar of calming the chaotic circumstances of disenfranchisement, racism, eviction, and greed. It is there, in the face of Jesus and in the mud with the oppressed, that the Better Way, Love, will find us.
What if the thing the young man lacked was the curiosity to take Jesus up on his offer to love the poor and to follow Jesus? What if his grief wasn’t strong enough to let him walk away from Jesus? Now lest one think I believe the Better Way of Love is a mere romantic and feasible option, I deem it important to note that this is not the case. I’m often frustrated by the stifling of my imagination when I’m riddled with the fear that comes with not knowing if I have enough to support myself, let alone to love the dispossessed. Sometimes I feel like I fall into a project-centered love that is more focused on making my own empire than it is listening to and loving the brokenhearted. The New Testament, in explicating the Kingdom of God, says it is possible for us to be “rich toward God.” And that’s what I want.
Exodus 32:16b
Matthew 19:20-21