Spiritual Hiccups - The Trouble with Wealth

A lot of people are familiar with the story of Jesus telling a rich man to give all he had to the poor and then follow Jesus.  This wealthy fellow is sometimes referred to as the "rich young ruler," although no such person appears in Scripture.  In Mark he is simply rich.  In Matthew he is young and rich.  And in Luke he is a rich ruler.  But regardless of how he is identified, many of us can stand at some distance from the story.  Jesus didn't say all rich people had to sell all they had, just this fellow.  Jesus didn't say I needed to sell anything.

Of course Jesus has more to say after the rich man goes away shocked and grieving.  He turns to his disciples and says, "'How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!' And the disciples were perplexed at these words."

I'm not sure why we aren't any more perplexed than we are.  Like those first disciples, we are prone to think of wealth as a blessing.  People pray to win the lottery or to get a better paying job.  We spend much of our lives trying to acquire wealth.  So shouldn't we be a bit befuddled to hear Jesus say that this wealth is a huge impediment to our being a part of God's new day, to being a part of God's redemption of all creation?

The standard American dodge on this one has been to say that we aren't really wealthy.  Only in America do people making hundreds of thousands of dollars claim they are "middle class," just as only in America would someone build the palatial mansion constructed by George Vanderbilt in Asheville, NC and call it Biltmore House.  Or as Vanderbilt sometimes referred to is, his "little mountain escape."

But in recent years, while we still like the label "middle class" we have lost much of our aversion to being wealthy.  TV commercials sell us financial planning products to help us "build wealth."  So as we seek to build wealth, or as we fret when our wealth disappears in the latest stock market decline, what are we to think when Jesus says to us, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"?  What is so bad about wealth?  Why is it so problematic for being part of what God is doing to remake the world?

One thing that strikes me immediately is how wealth separates us from the very people God is so concerned about, the poor and the vulnerable.  I've noted in this blog before how even Christian churches tend to segregate themselves by income levels.  But having wealth separates us from those without it in many other ways.  They live in different neighborhoods from us.  They shop at different stores from us.  Often they attend different schools from us.  Worse, we often presume these divisions are "their fault" just as we presume that our wealth is our doing.  And so when Jesus speaks of bringing good news to the poor, we tune it out.  Talk to us about personal salvation Jesus, not about the poor.

For many years, part of the genius of the American experience was that it tended to blur the differences between rich and poor.  One could have a small farm or get a job at the factory and make a decent living.  Of course the owner of that factory made a much better living, but the salaries were in the same universe.  But in recent decades, salaries for those at the top have soared while those at the bottom of declined.  And, as a group, those at the top seem absolutely intent on preserving the advantages that separate them from those at the bottom.  In essence, they seem hellbent on maintaining a situation that Jesus seems to deplore. 

One hundred years ago it was popular for Americans to think of our country as shining light on the hill, an embodiment of the new Jerusalem.  Clearly there was always a bit of hubris in such thinking, but just as clearly, we are moving further and further from any notion that the ordering of our society somehow embodies God's new day.  And making bellwether issues out of gay marriage or prayer in the schools only distracts us from Jesus' teachings on the kingdom, on God's new day. 

"How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"  Jesus doesn't say it's impossible, just very, very, hard.  And as our nation seems headed down the road of cutting programs to the most vulnerable in order to solve our national debt, we appear to be proving him correct.

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