Go, Sell All You Have, and Give It to the Poor

(Luke 18:18-27) (28th Sunday after Pentecost)

“Go, and sell all you have, and give it to the poor; and come and follow me.”

If you are a normal Christian, you’ve heard this command which our Lord gave to the rich young man who came to Him with a question, and wondered if this command applies to you; and, if it does, how it applies to you. Here’s a news flash: The command does apply to you; and to everyone who would be a follower of Christ.

Now, does this mean that you should go home today and have a garage sale, bring the money that you get from it to the church, or to some charity, and then head off to spend the rest of your life at a monastery? Maybe. The path to which our obedience to this command will lead us is going to be different for each one of us. At its heart, however, the point is the same: Those who cannot part with their possessions, and the power or comfort that are derived from them, are the slaves of their possessions; and will find it difficult, at best, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever it is that you have and cannot sell or give away possesses you – and clinging to it can prevent you from rising into the presence of God.

See, the rich young man asked the right question, the question each of us needs to be able to answer, not only in words, but in the direction of our lives: What must I do to inherit eternal life? Our Lord tells him, “Keep the commandments”; and lists some specifics. The rich young man responds that he has kept all the things our Lord mentions from his youth. But there is more; and we, because of the circumstances in which we live, are at risk of being misled by our possessions, as was that young man. After all, if we think about it on the basis of a “standard of living,” we are much richer than he could possibly have been.

OK: What if the command was, go, sell half of what you have, and give it to the poor, and follow me? I don’t think we’d really do much better. I think most of us can’t even begin to imagine ourselves being able to obey any command of this sort that takes more than 10% of what we have; and probably less. So let’s look at things from another angle.

Suppose you have a serious illness, or are involved in a serious accident. Even with a good medical insurance plan, let’s say that the cost to you is such that you’re going to have to sell everything you have in order to pay for the operation and the rehabilitation that will be needed afterwards. Could you do it? I mean, it’s now a question of your life. If you don’t have the operation, you’re going to die; so, wouldn’t you go and sell as much as you could to raise the money needed to save your life? What if it wasn’t you, but a member of your family, that needed the money for an operation?

OK, granted, it’s a hypothetical question. But it’s easy to see that we’re much more likely to be able to seriously contemplate selling all that we have in order to save our lives – right? Why, then, do we find ourselves unable to do what is needed to save our souls? If the holy martyr Paramon refused to make a sacrifice to an idol in order to save his life, why is it so difficult for us to “sacrifice” some of our material blessings to meet the needs of others?

Brothers and sisters, we are given the discipline of giving alms and making offerings to help the poor, and to support the needs and work of the church, so that we may begin to be set free of the pernicious attachment to our possessions that can lead us into the soul-destroying passions of greed, and envy, and the love of money, which our Lord teaches is the root of all evil. Let us take care to examine our lives, and ask ourselves about our relation to our possessions. Let us examine the way in which we live, and see if we might not set ourselves to do more to help the poor, using what God has given to tend to their needs, using the things that are valued and valuable in this world to store up for ourselves a treasure in heaven. It will do us no good to keep all other commandments if we do not also labor to keep this one. Trusting in God, Who has given us every bit of wealth we enjoy, let us devote ourselves to using in His name that part we can to help those in need: to the glory of His name, and to the salvation of our souls.