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My grandfather, a wealthy man, saw Prohibition coming and laid in a vast supply of liquor, which he stored in his cellar. Then one day he came home and discovered thieves had made off with his entire stock. My mother told me it was the only time she saw the old man cry. To the extent anyone can sympathize with the plight of the wealthy, this circumstance might do it. As it turned out, of course, a thirsty man could walk into any speakeasy in the land during Prohibition and buy himself a drink. Still, nobody likes to see a grown man cry.
So far as I can determine, my grandfather was not a particularly religious man. The Old Testament patriarchs, like my grandfather, were a pretty well-heeled bunch; indeed, it was generally assumed in those days that fortune smiled on you because God did. However, the early Christians did not equate riches with godliness – quite the contrary in fact. They took their cue from Jesus, who famously said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. He told a parable about a rich man who had so much he wanted to tear down his barns and build even bigger ones to store all his grains and goods. His philosophy, quite explicitly, was to eat, drink and be merry. But God spoiled all his fun by telling him, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” The moral of this story, as Jesus told it, was this: "Take heed, and beware of all covetousness; for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
Jesus’ attitude toward wealth served the church reasonably well in the days when its members were still being fed to the lions. But then the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the established religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, and suddenly the most privileged members of society were also becoming pillars of the church. The monastic movement arose in reaction to the growing worldliness of the faith. But in time the monastic orders became the biggest landholders in Europe, and the church was widely scorned for its excesses.
So the problem remained: How do you lay up treasures in heaven while you are busy laying up treasures on earth? The answer Jesus gave to the wealthy ruler in the gospel story offers cold comfort to those who would have it both ways. “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor,” he said, “and you will have treasure in heaven.” Most of us, of course, do not consider ourselves wealthy, as such things are now reckoned. Yet by almost any measure, those of us living in 21st-century America are wealthy beyond the dreams of anyone in Jesus’ day. How many of us would trade in our cars and air conditioners for a life of luxury in the first century, much less sell everything for a shot at treasure in heaven? The gospel story notes that the ruler went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
No doubt there is survival value in our instinct to acquire possessions, just as there is survival value in our craving for sweets, which can be stored in the body as fat to nourish us during lean times. Make no mistake: the underlying motivation for our acquisitiveness is fear – the fear that we will not have enough. But we are misguided if we imagine that our possessions are an antidote to fear. We buy a shiny new car and fret about dings and scratches. We worry that thieves will break in and clean out our liquor supply, so we install expensive security systems. We watch helplessly as our 401(k) plans are ravaged by a wayward economy.
There can be no peace until we realize that the answer to our prayers is not more but less. We don’t have to be afraid. “Do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'” Jesus instructed. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” You don’t need a lifetime supply of liquor to protect you against teetotalers, as my grandfather discovered after thieves cleaned out his cellar. If you are thirsty, you can always walk into any speakeasy and buy yourself a drink.
Mark 10:25
Luke 12:13-21
Luke 18:18 – 23
Matthew 6:25-34
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