Reflection:
Luke teaches more about wealth through a brilliant pairing of the rich ruler and Zaccheus, along with two minor contrasting characters, the children and the blind man. Literarily, this is one of the most impressive of Luke’s sections, notable especially because we have Matthew and Mark’s use of the rich ruler periscope as contrasts. Threading its way through this section and intersecting with the theme of wealth is the motif of childlikeness. Luke begins this section with Jesus affirming ‘infants.’ By selecting this word ‘infants’ over Matthew and Mark’s less specific word ‘children,’ Luke heightens the contrast. Those who would enter the kingdom must enter like ‘infants.’ By using contrasts with the rich ruler, the blind man, and Zaccheus, Luke highlights qualities of a disciple like teachability (the rich ruler is not teachable), persistence (the blind man calls out like a child), and status-unawareness (Zaccheus, who incidentally is short, and climbs a tree like a child). Luke also uses the term ‘infant’ to suggest that one enters the kingdom community as an ‘infant,’ i.e. by being ‘born again’ into it.
The rich ruler is not an ‘infant.’ Luke does not describe the rich ruler as ‘young,’ as Matthew does; rather, Luke suggests a greater physical difference in age between the rich ruler and the children. So when the ruler answers how long he has kept the Mosaic Law by saying, ‘since my youth,’ Luke gives us the impression that this may have been a long time ago. This ruler is no longer young, and the physical portrait is an outward reflection of the spiritual one. Furthermore, the ruler is invested in the Mosaic system; he has built up lots of ‘currency’ in which he is ‘an adult.’ This is partially evidenced by his adherence to the Mosaic commandments; however, Jesus does not criticize the rich ruler for actually failing to live according to the commandments and for being self-deluded, or for doing it with improper motives, or for lying about the matter. Jesus’ strategy is not to raise the rich ruler’s awareness of his shortcomings relative to the commandments. Rather, Jesus’ strategy is to break his real tie to the Mosaic system: his property and wealth. The ruler is unwilling to part with his ancestral land inheritance, and other forms of wealth, which is given legitimacy by Moses. The cost to the ruler would not only be exacting on himself, but would also have profound repercussions on the ruler’s relationship with his parents and his children. Selling his property would mean no land to pass down to his sons, no dowry to give to his daughters, and a renunciation of the wealth passed down to him by his own family. Jesus is once again calling for an utter break from traditional family and land ties that can only be called ‘disinheritance.’
Jesus did not see this challenge as a unique one tailored to the particular materialism of this particular individual. Five aspects of this episode demonstrate this. First, Jesus warned about the rich universally having difficulties entering the kingdom (18:24-25). Second, the disciples understood Jesus’ conditions to be universal (18:28). Third, Jesus’ affirmation of his disciples’ disinheritance requires a universal reading (18:29-30). Fourth, the coupling of the rich ruler with Zaccheus (19:1-10), who as a tax collector did not gain his wealth through the Mosaic system, who was indeed able to renounce what he had in favor of Jesus’ larger kingdom concern, makes clear that this episode was aimed for a wider audience than merely the rich ruler alone. And fifth, Jesus has already made it clear in Luke’s Gospel that materialism must be renounced as a pre-condition of discipleship; that language and concept are repeated here. While it is possible to casually read Matthew’s and Mark’s rich ruler episodes and conclude that Jesus understood this conversation as pertinent only for the rich ruler, with Luke this is much more difficult.
Jesus calls the rich ruler into his own community, a community that shares wealth generously with one another as it follows Jesus’ teaching to do so. This is apparent in 18:29-30, when the disciples recall their own precarious situation: ‘Behold, we have left our own homes and followed you.’ Jesus’ response is affirming and reassuring. He does not offer a pious metaphysic about God providing nor does he promise supernatural signs as a reward for such disinheritance. Instead, he speaks of a tangible community and tangible support. When his disciples are concerned about their own homes and means of social support, Jesus promises them ‘many times as much at this time.’ He says, ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.’ This does not necessarily mean that Christians formally own property communally, but that resources are to be generously shared to a significant degree across the Christian community.
Zaccheus represents one who surely knows the teaching of Jesus on these matters and responds in kind. Although separated from the rich ruler episode by the story of the blind beggar outside of Jericho, Zaccheus is a contrast to and counterpoint of the rich ruler. Zaccheus, as a chief tax collector who sits atop the entire tax collecting bureaucracy and profits from it, is probably the richest person mentioned in the New Testament. His correct perception of Jesus is foreshadowed literarily by the healing of the blind beggar – the one who sees Jesus outside Jericho signifies the one who sees Jesus inside Jericho.
One significant difference is that Zaccheus’ wealth did not come from the Mosaic system. It came by oppression. Since he has ‘pimped’ his own community, Zaccheus must also deal with alienation from his native Israel. This might be why Zaccheus is more willing to part with his wealth than the rich ruler was, and why he offers fourfold to anyone he has defrauded. Zaccheus cares about setting matters aright with Israelites who could lodge complaints against him. He becomes a person who cares about the reputation of Jesus and the community represented by Jesus; he seeks to be reconciled with anyone for Jesus’ sake. Much could be said about this. Perhaps those who think that God blessed them with wealth are sometimes the slowest to part with it? Furthermore, if we recognized the injustice and oppression through which much of our wealth comes, I suspect that Christians in the U.S. would be much more willing to give it away. And if we cared about being agents of reconciliation and Jesus’ table fellowship practice as much as Jesus would have us care about it, much would change about us.
As challenging as these statements are, they are still more positive and reassuring than certain other statements about forsaking everything at once; one way to reconcile the two statements is to regard our entrance into the body of Christ as entailing that we hold all our possessions loosely and regarding them as everyone’s. In this way, one’s household and kin will be multiplied, not just immediately stripped away, because of one’s membership in Jesus’ body of followers. This statement by itself cannot be taken that absolutely everything is to be held in common in the church community, nor can it be taken to mean that resources distributed by the church is the exclusive means by which God rewards us for our own giving, it is an indication that the church is to share its life with others in various forms and in various degrees. Christians are not automatically entitled by some divine law to other Christians’ resources, though individuals in the community do have the responsibility to share, and extreme poverty among some must always elicit a response from others.
Therefore, we must read Jesus’ promise of ‘many times as much’ in 18:30 a bit cautiously. Jesus was probably envisioning a dramatic increase in how many people became his followers and demonstrated this kind of care for one another, but not permanent financial stability as such. And any discussion of Jesus’ community must take into consideration how that community was to be similar or different to that of the rest of Mosaic Israel. Mosaic Israel was once a stationary community with ties to its ancestral land. The church is not a stationary community and it has no such ties to a geographic area, which perhaps explains why Jesus promised food, drink, and clothing (Lk.12:22-29), but not shelter and stability. Furthermore, Israel’s sabbaths were to testify to God’s abundant material provision for them (Lev.25). The dependence of the Christian on God, however, will certainly result in abundant spiritual provision, but probably in minimal to adequate material provision. This, I believe, properly considers Jesus earlier teaching, ‘Blessed are you who are poor’ (6:20).
At this point, a glance ahead at the church community in Acts is appropriate. Although a Christian enters a believing community that has certain resources available, one is not to approach others with an attitude of entitlement, demand, or dependence. That would contradict other statements taught by Jesus. Even Peter respected Ananias’ and Sapphira’s decision to not sell everything they had (Acts 5:4). This arrangement is somewhat different from the Law of Moses, which instituted various means for ensuring the relatively egalitarian use of Israel’s land, including the kinsman-redeemer law, the jubilee law, and the emphasis on justice in the court. And here is the crux of the issue: Israel had a blessed land unique among the nations, but the church does not. Aside from caring for people’s basic needs, there is therefore no comprehensively normative arrangement of economic resources to reference, and correspondingly, no fixed system by which to arbitrate all financial disputes. This is the probable reason why Jesus refused to arbitrate between the brothers fighting over their family land inheritance (Lk.12:13 - 15).
We also know that land and property, the most valuable commodity of ancient times, were not simply kept within the Christian community and redistributed. When we glance at Luke’s portrayal of the early church, we find that many early Christians demonstrated a very surprising attitude towards land, possessions, wealth, and work. The first converts sold their property and possessions (Acts 2:45), the apostles and surely other Christians had nothing of their own, even to give away (3:1-10), more converts sold their lands and houses (4:34), Barnabas sold his plot of land in order to give the money to the apostles to use as they saw fit (4:36-37), and Ananias and Sapphira sold a portion of their property for the proceeds (5:1). Presumably many other Christians did as well. A new attitude towards wealth and stability had emerged.[1] If the Didache reflects in any way the practices of the early church, then we have in early Christianity a very fluid, mobile community.[2] What explains this type of behavior? It is true that Jesus commanded an ethic of sacrifice on behalf of others in the church community; the reasons he gave were often pragmatic, for instance, that there were people in need. But even this does not totally explain the phenomenon. Jesus’ commands also seem to go beyond these situational instances because needs could have been met in other ways that developed a more stable church community. Certainly the early Christians took Jesus as meaning more than that. One scholar notes that in ancient Greece, sharing, not selling, of property did happen on those occasions when the rich were afraid of revolt or social unrest by the poor.[3] These actions served to stabilize Greek communities. What we find in Acts, however, goes beyond this and in a real sense threatens it.
In Luke’s writings, which are supposedly oriented primarily to Hellenistic apologetics and Gentile Christian communities, we find a model for assisting the poor that would have surely come under a sharp critique: This selling of property to give away the proceeds tends to de-stabilize communities! If Jews in Israel, who were known as rarely voluntarily parting with their ancestral lands, sell their property and give away the proceeds, what would this mean for Greeks and Romans? It means that since Jesus effectively severed the unique relation between Israel and her land, by extension, and precisely from this moment of historical-theological transition, Jesus challenges everyone else’s desire for material security and stability, Greek, Roman, or otherwise. Because Israel was the chosen people, uniquely selected to partially live the life intended for humanity from the creation, they were given a taste of the abundance and the shalom all other nations tried to acquire by cities and planning, warfare and bloodshed, oppression and labor. When Jesus stripped Israel of this privilege and declared its end, he did not just overturn Israel’s claim to its land, although he did at least that. He also reiterated and reinforced God’s judgment on every other people’s attempt to secure their place in creation, for Gentiles attempt it by tooth and nail, walls and laws, whip and assembly line; they resist God’s curse on creation by building their great civilizations, which is what Genesis 1 – 11 tells us if we perceive its polemical nature.
[1] We must be careful of the popular view that overstates the impact of these practices in order to neutralize their relevance. The popular view suggests that the Christian ‘community of goods’ described in Acts created an economic crisis for the Jewish Christians later. Justo Gonzales (Faith and Wealth) ably refutes this view.
[2] For those scholars in favor of an early date for the Didache, i.e. 120 A.D., see G. H. Box,
[3] Alexander Fuks, Social Conflict in Ancient Greece (E. J. Brill: Leiden, Holland, 1984), p.52-189. Beckaert may be correct that Fuks exaggerates the occurrence of this phenomenon, but the point in relation to Luke’s writings still stands: Jesus’ followers sold their property and land on behalf of the poor, something that was unknown in both the Jewish and Greco-Roman worlds and impractical if the church’s only concern was to empower the poor.
