Sell All You Have And Give To The Poor
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
(By Amanda Keene) - In his book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Shane Claiborne quotes the Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard: "The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly." This quote resonates with the internal struggle in which I have found myself entangled. This Thanksgiving, as I’m writing this article, I have found myself thinking about this quote and applying it to the culture we find ourselves in today.
Let’s take a look at Matthew 19; a passage that I think we all struggle with on some level. Basically, a man comes up to Jesus and asks him what good thing he must do to get to heaven. Jesus says to obey the commandments: do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal and so on. The young man had kept these commandments and still wondered what else he lacked. Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Verse 22 then says “When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” As Christians, we know what Jesus is saying here: sell your possessions and give to the poor. He said it simply so that we would understand, yet how is this played out in our lives?
This leads me to the internal struggle I was talking about earlier…what is my role? Am I selling all of my possessions and giving to the poor? Well, no. What does it look like to even do that? I am not sure. Tomorrow is “Black Friday,” which is the biggest shopping day of the year. Our society has become consumer driven, and the culture we have formed tells us that we need to have the I-Pods, the most up to date cell phones, and the most recent fashions. People will start off the Christmas season by buying present after present for loved ones and spending hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars in order to bring Christmas cheer. Does this fit with the words of Jesus? I have a hard time believing that it does, but I will be the first to admit that I don’t know what that means. Looking at my life in the context of this consumer driven society, I know that I need to readjust my way of thinking, re-prioritize what is important in my life and really meditate on Jesus’ words to all of us. Maybe instead of spending money on our friends and family, we can spend quality time with them. Maybe instead of buying tons of presents, we can give the money to those who really need it.
I pose these questions in order to inspire some thinking: Are we going to be those Christians who pretend to not understand the words that Jesus spoke just because we don’t want to take action and apply them to our lives? Are we going to be like the young man who chose to not follow Jesus’ words because he couldn’t part with the wealth that didn’t really belong to him in the first place? What does this mean for our lives? What does it look like to sell our possessions and give to the poor? It’s a lot to think about, but let’s think about it, talk about it and then act on it together as we move toward the Christmas season.
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