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Give Yourself Away; You're Dying Anyway - Tenth Sunday of Luke

Over the last few weeks of Gospel readings, Christ seems to be making a pretty clear point about our attachments: they are bogging us down. But I think that it might be just a little too easy to draw simple implications from these passages.

Okay, so the rich man could have reached out to Lazarus, who was just sitting at his gate, and he didn’t because he was too occupied with his own stuff.

I get it. The guy last week hoarded his stuff in barns because he was trying to secure a good life for himself.

This week, it’s the rich young ruler that is way too attached to his wealth and can’t even think about giving any of it away. It seems like his possessions own him.

After reading these Gospel passages, you may be tempted to think that possessions seem evil, but the readings don’t say that. Nor are we all called to lives of monastic renunciation, with no property at all.

Christ is clear that having a bunch of stuff presents a unique set of struggles, but these struggles are born out of human impulses, things that we all struggle with in our every day lives: the need to buffer ourselves against death.

You see, I’ve been thinking about death a lot. Like way more than usual (which means a lot coming from me, because death is already a pretty regular topic on my mind).

I’ve been acutely aware that my life and the lives of everyone around me, the lives of everyone in the airport where I sit typing this, the lives of everyone at home, where I’m returning ­– all those lives will end.

And each of us ignores this reality every day.

We so badly want to believe that our lives truly are our own and that we can spend them as we wish, acquiring all kinds of things, storing them in our barns, refusing to give them away because it’s our life and our stuff!

Our wealth is security, our money is safety, our stuff is the only thing keeping us alive in a dangerous world. 

And we can do with them whatever we want.

Yet instead of being free to use our stuff, our obsession with possessions and wealth leads us to being enslaved by them, and led away from what really counts. 

In the Gospel readings over the last couple weeks (the rich man and Lazarus, the man who built more barns, and now the rich young ruler) we see, again and again, that these men, whose lives are governed by their stuff, have a startling lack of awareness of others.

These are men who are full of themselves. And it’s impossible to make room for others, to make room for God, when we are full of ourselves.

The problem these man face with their possessions is the same problem we face with a lot of other things in our own lives, whether it’s the impulse to talk about ourselves, offer advice, gossip, veg out with the television or Facebook, fill our lives with addiction ­­– whatever it is, the impulse we have is to buffer ourselves against encounter with God and neighbor.

Whatever our particular weakness, we forget that our life lies with our brother, not our stuff; and in all of these cases, Christ is begging us to remember this.

Yet we are afraid of loving our neighbor as Christ loves us because to love as Christ loves can only be done in the shape of the cross; to love is to willingly enter death.

And as I’ve mentioned before, if there is one thing I (and all human beings) possess, it’s a fear of death. Since love of neighbor is a cruciform reality (that is, a reality that tastes of death – the death of the self, the death of the will), it is no wonder that so many of us try to avoid it at all costs. We want to secure our own life for our own sake, not give it away for the sake of someone else!

After all, we worked hard to get what is ours, so it belongs to us! Plus, I’ve studied Clinical Psychology, so everyone should want to hear my advice! And besides, I’m not actually gossiping, I’m just concerned about the choices someone is making; that’s why I need to talk about it to you (just don’t tell anyone).

While all these impulses are understandable, and in some ways possibly even justifiable, the question that comes up for me is whether or not they are actually Christian. Are they manifestations of the self-emptying, cruciform love of God in Christ?

The more I think about this, the more I think the answer is a clear “no.” The love of Jesus must always bring us out of ourselves, it must always lead us into the self-emptying love that Christ demonstrates on the Cross.

In Philippians 2, we read:

 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

    did not regard equality with God

    as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

    taking the form of a slave,

    being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

    he humbled himself

    and became obedient to the point of death—

    even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:4-8)

 

In Christ, we see what it looks like to consider the needs and realities of others before our own; though being God, Christ did not come to be served, but rather to serve (Matt. 20:28).

He didn’t come with lightening bolts to demonstrate His power, but He came bearing a cross to demonstrate His love.

So, too, we are called to embrace this self-emptying, cruciform pattern of being. We are called to share our wealth rather than hoard it, to listen as least as much as we speak to others, to approach all people with true and selfless love. A love that doesn’t seek to grasp equality with God, but rather that empties the self, and gives it for the life of others.   

Too often we try to secure ourselves against death, against an encounter with our neighbor that demands self-emptying. In Christ, we are invited, along with the rich young ruler, to empty ourselves and to give ourselves away for the sake of our neighbor, trusting that as we do this, we will be conformed to the image of Christ.

And what could be better than this?

Christian is a Young Adult Ministries Coordinator for Y2AM. He is a husband, father, mover, shaker, coffee drinker, sandal wearer, and CrossFitter. Christian has his MA from Azusa Pacific University in Marriage and Family Therapy and is working toward a second MA in Children, Youth, and Family Ministry from Luther Seminary. Christian and his family live in Phoenix, Arizona.

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