Give Your Possessions to the Poor

This past Sunday, while at my home church, my pastor preached from Matthew 19:16-30, where a rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to have eternal life. The man has already kept the commandments, so Jesus tells him to sell his possessions and give to the poor. The man was so attached to his possessions, he could not obey this instruction, so he walked away grieving because he could not enter into life.

So, what is our obligation as Christians? Are we to make Jesus’ words to this one young rich man a literal and universal standard to follow? No. Instead, we should follow the example set forth by the early church in Acts 4:32-37, where the believers sold their individual possessions to help a need in the Christian community. In other words, they cared more for the needs of one another than for their own possessions. That is what Jesus was calling the rich young man to do, but he clung to his own possessions.

The rich young ruler, when asking Jesus what to do to inherit life, was given the answer to sell his possessions and give them to the poor – which would include the weak, the deprived, and the helpless. The demand to share his wealth with the poor would be evidence of this rich man’s anxious anticipation of the Kingdom of righteousness, as well as demonstrating that a fundamental change has taken place in the rich man’s heart. This man, however, was too attached to his wealth to embrace the action demanded by the Gospel.

Jesus encountered another rich man – a wealthy tax-collector named Zacchaeus, who, after encountering Jesus, gave half of his possessions to the poor and used the remainder of his wealth to compensate those to whom he had done injustice by defrauding them. Instead of concentrating greedily on himself, he now understands his responsibility to spread justice to the underprivileged and oppressed.

The issue of wealth and poverty is not just an issue of the Gospels or the New Testament; this theme runs throughout the whole of scripture. God is portrayed as one who cares for the poor and disenfranchised in society, and his people are called to reflect that care and concern. There are numerous texts which directly deal with the response of God’s people to wealth and poverty and countless others which indirectly deal with the oppression caused by wealth. Here are a few examples in the Old Testament (hold your mouse over each reference to be able to read the passage):

• Exodus 21:2
• Exodus 22:21-25
• Leviticus 19:9-10
• Deuteronomy 27:19
• Proverbs 14:31
• Proverbs 19:17
• Proverbs 21:13
• Proverbs 22:22-23
• Isaiah 11:4
• Isaiah 10:1-4
• See God's Heart for the Poor for a more complete listing.
  

In his sermon, “The Use of Money,” John Wesley spells out three guiding principles which must function together: “Gain all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.” Wesley encourages Christians to gain all they can without hurting oneself or one’s neighbor, through honest means. He then encourages them to save all they can by eliminating unnecessary expenses which “gratify either the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life.” Finally, if these first two are done alone, then there would be nothing special about Christians. Wesley calls Christians to give all you can, meaning giving all one has to God by helping the poor and afflicted. Wesley urges his listeners to provide for the needs of themselves and their families, and then giving the rest to the poor.

It is important to note that Wesley does not prescribe simply donations to the poor but life with the poor. Since his early days at Oxford to the last years in his life, Wesley regularly visited the poor. He understood such visits as a means of grace, embodying the message of the Gospel by doing good to the poor. Spending time with the poor was not an accident; it was an intentional decision which Wesley made to turn away from the wealthy in order to minister to the poor. Visiting the poor was, for Wesley, a means by which the socio-economic barriers of his day could be broken down.

In his book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster identifies ten controlling principles for outwardly expressing the spiritual discipline of simplicity.

1. Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status.
2. Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you (i.e. something which elicits undisciplined compulsions within you).
3. Develop a habit of giving things away. This includes de-accumulating.
4. Refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry. Often “new” features seduce us into buying what we do not need.
5. Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Many things in life can be enjoyed without possessing or controlling them.
6. Develop a deeper appreciation of creation.
7. Look with a healthy skepticism at all “buy now, pay later” schemes.
8. Obey Jesus' instructions about plain, honest speech. Make honesty and integrity the distinguishing characteristics of your speech. (Do what you say you will do.)
9. Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others. In a world of limited resources, does our lust for wealth mean the poverty of others?
10. Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God. The central point for the Discipline of simplicity is to seek the kingdom of God and the righteousness of his kingdom first and then everything necessary will come in its proper order. Everything hinges upon maintaining the “first” thing as first.

Jesus sums it up with these words from Matthew 6:21: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”


For more of an in-depth consideration on what the Christian response is to wealth and poverty, click here to read my paper.