My Treasure

I don't believe that the passage in Mark (10:17-31) actually is talking at all about the need to be with the poor. Instead, I believe that Jesus is asking the rich man to lay down the things that are keeping him from full commitment and discipleship to him. Since this man happens to be rich, and it was probably evident that this was a major part of his life, it was easy for Jesus to test the man's faith to see if the commandments he has kept were true to the spirit of the law or whether the law was simply being held for personal gain, for entry into heaven.

Jesus told the rich man to go and sell everything and give it to the poor. I would speculate that Jesus fully knew that the man would not do this - maybe because he was in love with his wealth or maybe giving it to the poor was the kicker. Maybe he despised the poor, or even more, despised the idea of giving his wealth to the poor.

I am guessing that I am more wealthy than 90 to 95 percent of the rest of the world's population, and every day I think about new ways that I can make money. That is a pretty daunting statement considering what we are discussing here and the passage in Mark. Yet I still don't believe that money is really the issue here. Instead, for me, it is simply having the time to consider anyone outside of my normal circle of friends, family, or general influence. I believe I can justify this statement by looking at the decisions that we have made over the last couple of months. When someone has stumbled into my life - I think specifically of Daryl and Deloise or the decision to become foster parents - it has been easy for me to welcome and make those we would consider "the poor" into our everyday lives.

But it is beyond my bumbling and stumbling into people where I become lackluster in my commitment to being with the poor. At certain times, I am wrapped up in my job and other times I am trying to figure out ways to get out of my job. I am writing business plans to start a new cafe and maybe a new web hosting business, all with the idea that one day I will have the time to spend with the poor because I will have made it to that place.

This is where Jesus' words challenge me. Sometimes I believe that if I would have gone running up to him and asked what I had to do to receive eternal life, I'm guessing that Jesus would have said, "Put your plans away and either 1) Go spend time with your family, 2) Go hang out with Keith and his gang and fix someone's roof, or 3) Just sit and pray for a while. So where does that leave me and all of the things that I believe I am supposed to be doing? I have no idea. So now I'm stuck. Dead in my tracks.

So for the last portion of this paper, I have to ask the questions a little differently that they were given to me. Instead of "What is a painful expeirence you have had related to money and the poor?" or "What is a life-giving experience you have had related to money and the poor?", I have to begin thinking about how this really applies to me and ask, "What has been painful or life-giving about giving of my time to - in this case - the poor?" To this, I will say that I only have to look back to my experiences with Daryl and Deloise to point to an example that had both wrapped into one.

They were a challenge to us because - as I've stated before - we simply did not believe that they were allocating their money well. We didn't approve of the way that (especially) she had lived her life and left children behind with her mom and her sister. We just didn't know how to talk with her or even where to start to begin to bring her along into the type of life that we thought God might have for her. The bittersweet joy in this situation is that she now has a new baby boy and we were able to be a bridge for her while she and her fiancee were trying to find a place to call home. Even further, though, we can't help but to think that if we are to maintain a relationship with her and Daryl that we might end up as guardians or even parents of this new baby boy. Who knows?

In my case, it is the maintenance of this relationship that will be the issue. I think, from time to time, that I need to call Daryl and have dinner with he and Deloise, but have never done it. It is as if I am shirking a responsibility that I have from God to them because I am too busy to do anything with them, to try to "with"ness to them by simply being a friend.

This isn't an easy situation and it doesn't make a lot of sense in my day-to-day life to be thinking about these things. Daryl and Deloise really - in my surface estimation - don't have anything to offer me. And yet there is this burden. Maybe this is a practical answer that Jesus has given to me to my question of what I must do to gain eternal life...