"Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said, "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
This is the climax of a little story in Mark's gospel where an earnest young man with a privileged background is unable to go further along the path of righteousness than he has already travelled, and leaves Jesus, crestfallen.
Jesus follows up this encounter by warning his disciples that it is harder for someone rich to enter God's kingdom than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The disciples are like, "Woh! Who's ever going to get in then?" Peter says that he's left everything behind already, and Jesus implies that he's made the grade.
Read the passage, if you haven't already, and tell me if that's the way it strikes you.
If you're agreeing with me so far, then let me tell you, we're both wrong.This story is not about doing something so hard, so remarkable, that God will be pleased with us and let us into heaven. Really, it's not.
How do I know? Because there's plenty elsewhere in the Bible that tells us that this isn't how it works. We're fooled by the question the young man asks: "What must I do...?" Truth is, we can't do anything to deserve the gift of eternal life, God offers it to us without strings attached.
So there we are. Let me say it very simply. You don't need to give up all you have to get into heaven.
But wait a minute, didn't Jesus say, "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." (Matthew 5:40) I remember reading that passage once, then answering the door to a homeless man who looked at what I was wearing and said "That's a nice jumper, can I have it?"
I stared at him for a minute, then went upstairs, got an old jumper out of my drawer and gave him that instead.
Did I do the right thing?
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