Looking Out for Number One

Imagine you could have everything. Where would you put it? That’s just one observation on the problem of wealth. And it is a problem, no question about it. There was this rich guy once who ran up to Jesus, and asked him, “What must I do?”
And Jesus said the same thing every good Rabbi says, “You know the commandments? Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, etc….”
“Yes, yes!” the guy says, “I have kept these commandments since I was a boy!”
By this time, we’re picking up a sense of desperation. If he knows the commandments, and he keeps them, why is this guy running after Jesus? I mean, what more can he do?
So Jesus, looking at him and loving him—maybe because he too is sensing the anxiety that this man carries with him—said, “OK, here’s one more thing you can do. Sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow me.” And the man went away grieving, because he had many possessions.
Now, most of the time, I feel pretty smug about this rich man, because I know I am not him. I am not a man, and I am not rich by local standards. My car is old. I don’t even own my own mortgage. I buy store brands. I get some stuff at the secondhand store. This laptop computer I’m writing on has Windows XP! It’s like, four years old!
But the truth is, I have so much stuff I can’t walk a straight line across my basement. It’s full of possessions for which I have no immediate need. I thought about having a garage sale this summer, but the other people with whom I share this stuff, they vetoed the idea.
And I am haunted by a story I heard from Brian Sirchio, who goes to Haiti every now and then to get some perspective. He was working for the Sisters of Charity, being a barber because that’s what they needed him to be that day. As he was cutting a man’s hair they got to talking about the rich and the poor, and Brian asked him, “Do you think I’m rich?
“I don’t know you well enough to say,” the man replied. “Tell me, how many times a week do you eat?”
“Come again?"
“I mean, do you eat every day? Because if you eat food every day, you are rich.”
So. That changes my whole perspective on this grieving rich man who had a problem with possessions.
Now, the wealthy church tradition emphasizes the part of the text that assures us that with God, all things are possible. And the wealthy Protestant evangelist will rationalize that the man’s problem wasn’t his wealth but his lack of faith in Jesus—you see, the man was trying to be saved by his works.
But that is just too easy. I think we need to let this text keep us on edge. We need this text when we are tempted to believe that what Jesus wants most for us is to win the lottery. We need this text to remind us that Jesus did not say to the man, “Put a tenth of your gross income in the offering plate and don’t worry so much!”
Wealth, which is commonly viewed as a sign of God’s blessing by those who follow the prosperity gospel, is not so much a blessing as a burdensome temptation. It is the golden calf. Money provides the “daily bread” for which we pray, but money is also the thing which most threatens to replace God as our Lord and master.
The very first commandment: I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. Perhaps Jesus demonstrated that the man had not, as he claimed, followed all the commandments since his youth. He should have been looking out for Number One.

--Thoughts for Sunday, October 11.