Sell your possessions and give alms

All Baptized people are called to make Christ known as Savior and Lord, and to share in the renewing of his world. Now you are called to work as a pastor, priest, and teacher, together with your bishop and fellow presbyters, and to take your share in the councils of the Church... from the examination

laboring together with them and with your fellow ministers to build up the family of God?... from the examination

Sell your possessions, and give alms. from the Gospel

I feel like the rich man with this word from the Gospel. I find these words particularly challenging. Sell your possessions and give alms...where your treasure is, there also is your heart. The implication of this statement can either enrich or condemn. I find myself at this time hearing both.

I suppose I could moan and complain that those who originally heard these words did not have the troubles that I have. I could go on about taxation, Social Security, and the needs of my family. Easy for Jesus to do because he was a wandering, itinerant preacher (Beyond of course the incarnate Lord!) He did not have children to feed (in the temporal sense of course!) I can easily think of Scripture that challenges this "holy poverty." "The laborers deserve to be paid." comes to mind. I could even become a bit indignant as a clergyman. Has not countless congregations kept a man or woman in poverty by citing this scripture as an excuse for not paying him or her for valuable labor. Yet even amidst a pocketful of justification, the text is not calling for poverty. It calls for trust.

I believe that money in this context is a crutch. It gives the illusion of self control. If I put my trust in money, I am putting my faith in the proposition that I can control the universe. Maybe not the whole universe but my universe. I have fed into the facade that I am the prime mover. Like the shattering of glass, my faith becomes null in void in any crisis of note. In instants, this self dependence can come tumbling down in the face of famine, disease, unrest, and sickness. My treasure will be no treasure at all... only the hollow keepsake that it always was... an idol feeding my quest to control my universe.

Christ calls into dependence on him. God is to be our primary support. Our dependence is to be on him alone. He alone can remove us from the specter of death. He alone mediates us into communion with God. God from God, Light from Light. True God from true God. Begotten not made. Of one being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. The ramification of the preceding is that if it is true, there is no other thing needed. A candle by the light of the sun is dark. Why would I depend on self to trust if the very creator of the Universe invites me into fellowship?

I pray I never lose sight of that. I pray I never lose sight of the fact that as I have trusted God, that entity that I barely see, know, and understand, the greater my awareness of His mercy and love becomes. Taste and see that the Lord is good indeed.