The rich young man test

In Matthew 19:16-22, there is a great, yet pretty terrifying interaction between Christ and a rich, young man.  In it, the young man asks God what he must do to be saved.  Jesus lists several portions of the law, including ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’  The young ruler boldly says that he has kept these, which Jesus doesn’t challenge (wow!).  Beyond that, Jesus calls the rich young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor.  And with that the rich young man walked away dejected.

I have been thinking about this a lot the last couple weeks.  I think that materialism is one of the chief challenges to the church in the US.  Given that, I have really been struggling through how I would respond if Jesus showed up at my work today and asked for the same thing from me.  Sadly, I would fail the love your neighbor as yourself test (thanks to God for grace), but I think an honest assessment of how easily I would give up my house, emergency fund and 401k, speaks volumes about how opened handed we are to God.  I think that God put this story in the Bible not to be allegorical or symbolic, but rather to put reality on the concept of how much we have turned over to God.

Sadly, I feel I would act much like the rich young man.  I rest in the grace found in Christ, but I think that those of us who are given much should certainly repent regularly of our / my desire to make earth our home.