Possessions in Hearts and Heads

 

Introduction

(The call)

In the twelfth chapter of Luke Jesus tells a parable of the foolish rich farmer who builds bigger and better barns and bins, but then dies before he can enjoy his abundant life. Then he points   to the   wise birds of the air that have neither barns nor bins but are fed by the Father in heaven.  He points also to the wise lilies of the field that don’t labor nor spin but are more beautifully bedecked than King Solomon himself. “So don’t live in fear, little flock,” Jesus exhorts us. “It has pleased the Father in heaven to give you the kingdom.  Go, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor” (Lk 12: 22-34).  In the fourteenth chapter of Luke the exhortation or call to renunciation is stated in very absolute terms:  “You can’t be my disciple, unless you renounce all your possessions” (Lk 14: 33).

 

The problem

(A sweeping call)

Such an absolute and sweeping exhortation or call presents a problem, especially if we believe the gospel is trying to say something serious here.  It’s obvious that in our society it’s impossible to get along without possessions or things. It’s obvious too that none of us fathers and mothers are going to imitate the birds of the air and the lilies of the field who neither work or worry about food, clothing, and shelter “because the Father in heaven already knows you need these things” (Lk 12: 31).   Furthermore, let’s admit it, none of us are inclined to give up those wonderful things which are the fruit of human progress, and which make our lives both human and pleasant.  “You can’t be my disciple, unless you renounce all your possessions”  -- that indeed is a problem.

 

We can do one of two things with the problem: we can dismiss the exhortation or call as not really serious.  But if we take a flippant attitude toward Scripture here, where do we stop? If, however, we are too pious to take a flippant attitude, then there’s another way out: we can farm out the gun-ho exhortation to renounce all. That is to say, we can hand it over to a chosen few, to a restricted group of “specialist” in the church, called monks and nuns, and let them take care of it for us. The Protestant Reformation charged the Catholic Church of salving its conscience by farming out the call to Christian perfection to a chosen few, thereby creating a double standard in the church: a maximum standard for the few who are really serious about the following of Christ, and a minimum standard for all the rest of us.[1]

The solution

(Defining “possessions”)

But if we believe that Scripture wants to say something serious to us in the call to renunciation (so often repeated in the New Testament), and if we believe that all are called to follow Christ, then we are left with no alternative but to take the call seriously, and to try to make some sense out of it.

 

Perhaps it is the materialist in all of us that makes us view  “possessions” only as things (“stuff”) in our hands: electronic toys, jewelry, cars, gadgets, food, clothing, shelter, etc.  Believe it with all your might, there are possessions, which are not things in the hand but rather things in the head and heart. There is “stuff” in our heads and hearts, which far more deserves and demands Christian renunciation than any thing in our hands.

Ideological possessions

There are ideological possessions. That’s a big word which      simply means “stuff” in people’s heads and hearts  -- “stuff” that teems with agenda that is either life giving or lethal.  We think immediately of that unspeakable and deadly ideological possession in Nazi heads and heads (that lethal lie) that only the tall, fair, blue-eyed and blond (i.e. only the "master-race") has a right to live. That Nazi possession in heads and hearts teemed with agenda that eventually ignited the ovens of the Holocaust and turned six million people into a burnt offering.  Of such possessions Jesus says, "Get rid of them.  You can’t be my disciples if you don’t.”

 

Political possessions

There are political possessions too in people’s heads and hearts that call for renunciation. Republicans have their mental possession: “Democrats always want to get your money and spend it.”  Democrats too have their mental possession: “Republicans never have any compassion.” And so there’s always gridlock: the work of the nation never gets soundly done. And there’s always fighting for the party instead of for the people. Of such possessions Jesus says, "Get rid of them.  You can’t be my disciple if you don’t.”

 

Theological possessions

There are also theological possessions in people’s heads and hearts, which make us dead sure of everything about God and the church, and which give us pat answers about divorce, human sexuality, artificial birth control, homosexuality. There are theological possessions which harbor and   foster   the very spirit of exclusion in the very House of God who is the common Father of all: i.e. church teaching about women and about ordination; proud and haughty church attitudes which look down on non-Catholics or non-Christians. 

 

Looking back now we Catholics blush at some of our other mental possessions which were quite petty but which caused a fury after Vatican II:  the wars we waged over communion in the hand instead of in the mouth, or communion standing instead of kneeling, or communion from a lay person instead of a priest, or communion from a woman instead of a man. Or the wars we waged over priests and nuns not looking like priests and nuns.

 

The great anger incited in some by Vatican II is this: it said and wrote all the things that directly or indirectly, sooner or later, endangered all these mental possessions in the church. Jesus says    even to us, the church, and especially to us, the church, "Get rid of your possessions. You can’t be my disciple if you don’t.”

 

Emotional possessions

There are emotional possessions in people’s heads and hearts that call for gospel renunciation. Here, I believe, we have saved the best or rather the worst for last. In the former Yugoslavia, Catholic Croatians and Orthodox Serbs keep clutching on to their most prized possession: their anger toward and even hatred of each other.   In the Middle East, Palestinians and Israeli also keep clutching on to their most prized possession: their anger toward and even hatred of each other. You know, you can ask anything of us human beings, you can ask us “to have faith that moves mountains,” you can ask us “to give away everything, even to deliver our bodies to be burned,” but by gum, don’t ask us to give up our prize possession: our anger.

 

We’re no longer speaking about Nazi’s or Democrats or Republicans or devotees of the Council of Trent or of Vatican II, but about ourselves. And we’re speaking now about a possession that plagues everyone one of us: our anger. Very often it is anger about something, though not petty, isn’t all that earth shattering; matters could be many times worse.  Furthermore, it is an anger that has us constantly engaged in angry self-talk, not just momentarily, but also through the weeks and the months, and even at times through the years: if we’re not always talking about it to others, we’re always talking about it to ourselves.  And very often the anger concerns something about which we can do nothing, even though we might be the kind who doesn’t give up easily.

 

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” a friend said recently to me. Then she added: “So let go.  Give it up.” That sounds like gospel renunciation.   Whenever I catch myself now in angry self-talk (which is often), I say to myself: “Let go.”  I will have to keep saying that over and over again through the weeks and months ahead, because the road back is a long one. My friend also said, “We are our best friend” (a positive version of  “We are our worst enemy”). Let go, and you’ll become your best friend. She also said, “We create our own happiness.” Let go, and you will be creating some of your own happiness. She said all that in about two minutes, and it all hangs together.

 

Conclusion

(Not off the hook)

In Christian tradition this renunciation of possessions in our heads and hearts has always been called “spiritual poverty.”  “Blessed are the poor in spirit” is one of the great beatitudes. Being inwardly poor is really the important thing; it comes first.   But it automatically spills over into being outwardly poor as well.  So after all is said and done, at the end of day, we are not really off the hook:  material poverty is still part of gospel renunciation.  We are still summoned to be not only inwardly poor but outwardly poor as well. We are still summoned to reject extravagance, consumerism, and materialism.  We are still called to be spiritual people. We are still called to be brothers and sisters of Mother Theresa of Calcutta and St. Francis of Assisi. We are still called to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.


[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran minister murdered by Hitler (whose statue was enshrined by the Anglicans in Westminster Abbey Church, on July 16, 1998), wrote in his book, The Cost of Discipleship,  "God showed Luther though the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a chosen few.  It is a divine command to all Christians without distinction."