Sometimes it seems that Jesus just can’t give a straight answer. “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Sounds simple enough. It could even be multiple choice: Do I do A, B, C, or D? Or all of the above?
But no. Jesus answers the question with another question. Then he begins preaching, and when he does get around to answering, his answer leaves his own disciples perplexed, to say nothing of the others who heard him.
On another occasion, someone asked him about paying taxes to Caesar. Should we pay, or not? It’s a simple yes-or-no question; but Jesus doesn’t give a simple yes-or-no answer. He asks whose image is on the coin. It’s Caesar’s, of course. Then he says, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”
Um, is that a yes, or a no?
At his trial, Jesus is questioned by Pilate. “Are you the king of the Jews?” Again, a yes-or-no question. Jesus’ response: “You say so.” You say so?
It’s almost as if Jesus doesn’t want anyone to know the answers to the questions they ask. But how can that be? In scripture, he is often referred to as a teacher, as he is in today’s scripture, and what teacher wouldn’t want to answer the students’ questions?
It could be that he’s taking his cue from the politicians. Politicians never seem to be able to answer a question straight, do they? Then again, I have heard journalists ask their questions in such a way that the question already presumes a certain answer; or they’d ask a question that is so loaded with implications and an understanding of the situation that any answer given would give the impression that the one answering had the same understanding as the one asking the question.
I remember one time overhearing an argument that some neighbors were having. It wasn’t a particularly fierce argument, just the normal type of argument that all families sometimes find themselves in.
But what made this argument different is that, at one point, one of them said to the other: “Do you realize how stupid you are?” I was just a kid at the time, but I remember being impressed by the question in the same way that a chess aficionado might be impressed by a particularly good yet surprising move on the chessboard.
“Do you realize how stupid you are?” How do you follow that? It’s a simple yes-or-no question, and yet there is an implied understanding within the question, and both a “yes” answer and a “no” answer would confirm that underlying assumption. How do you answer that? Do you say, “Yes, I do realize how stupid I am,” or do you say, “No, I don’t realize how stupid I am?”
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus did not answer right away, and when he did answer, his answer left the disciples perplexed. Could there be an underlying assumption, an implied understanding, in the question that Jesus was unwilling to buy into?
Jesus began by asking “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Eternal life does not come from Jesus, but from God. The question implied that what is good comes from Jesus, that eternal life comes from Jesus. Right away, Jesus turned the attention away from him, and on to God.
But there is a more significant underlying assumption in the phrase, “eternal life,” an implied understanding that Jesus confronts and challenges in his response. It is an underlying assumption that I think most of us share with the man who ran up to Jesus and asked him the question.
The assumption is that life is measured in days, weeks, months and years. We plot our lives on a timeline. At one end we have our birth, a very fixed point somewhere in the past. For me, that fixed point is at January 26, 1971.
From the point of our birth, that timeline extends horizontally—we almost always think of our timelines as horizontal—until we reach the present day, the present moment. We can continue drawing that timeline into the future, but from here on we have to use a dotted line, the way a map might show a road under construction. The dotted line represents our hopes and our expectations, but nothing is certain. The dotted line shows this.
Eventually we know that the line will end. At some point, life, at least as we know it, will end. There will be a final dot.
Well, like us, the rich man who came to Jesus didn’t quite believe that. Or at least, he hoped it wasn’t true. He wanted to believe in eternal life. He wanted that final dot to be as far away as possible. And possibly, at this point in his life, he was beginning to realize that even all his riches could not keep that final dot from approaching.
So he asked Jesus about it; but what Jesus said to do was startling and surprising to one so used to acquiring security through wealth.
“Sell what you own,” he told the man, “and give the money to the poor.” Then, when the man walked away, sad, Jesus said to the disciples: “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven.” And the disciples were perplexed. Because, after all, doesn’t having money help one secure a long life by providing all the necessities one needs?
What’s happening here is that Jesus is thinking of life in a completely different way. For Jesus, life is not simply a timeline stretching across a page. That one-dimensional understanding of what life is, is not something that Jesus buys into. Even the phrase “eternal life,” in its historical context, refers to more than just a life whose timeline stretches on forever. A timeline that stretches on forever is still just a one-dimensional line. And who wants a one-dimensional life?
For Jesus, and for scripture in general, life is about much more than that, and even the phrase “eternal life” refers to life that exists in three dimensions. That’s Jesus’ understanding of life. It is life lived to its fullest. It is life filled with infinite joy and meaning and purpose.
A one dimensional timeline is not an adequate depiction of life as Jesus envisions. To depict life as Jesus understands it, you need your 3-D glasses, because it extends in all directions. There’s depth to it. It is a life of wholeness; a life in which shallow greed is replaced by deep generosity.
Yes, how we use our money is an important part of receiving life in 3-D. There’s not much depth to the life of a stingy miser; his life is shallow. But a person who is generous with money, and generous with time, finds a life that is fuller than they could have imagined.
When I was a student at Chapman University, the campus chaplain came to me one day with an unusual request. “There is a former professor who lives across the street from campus,” she told me. “He’s old, and his health is declining. People have been staying with him, but we have a couple of hours this week and next with no one scheduled. Are you available to sit with him at home for a couple of hours?”
Later that day, I found myself in his living room. I don’t remember what we did; I think we may have talked some, but I also think he spent most of the time asleep.
His name was Paul Delp. The house was small and sparsely furnished. I think the living room was just big enough for a couch, a small TV, and perhaps a chair. This did not surprise me, though, because I had heard some things about Professor Delp.
He graduated from Chapman in 1928, although it wasn’t called Chapman then. He started teaching at Chapman some time in the 30s, and taught for some 40 years.
He was, as far as I could tell, strongly committed to two things, even in his old age: his students, and peace. The reason he lived in a small house with few luxuries—a house that I believe was owned by the university, which rented it to him at what I would guess was something far below market value—was because he had decided to give as much of his own money as he could to the school for scholarships.
Some people even thought he was a bit beyond normal. He deserves at least a little comfort at the end of his life, I heard them say. But that’s not what Paul Delp wanted. He may not have been able to be in the classroom any longer, but he still found meaning and fulfillment in his life knowing that his savings would help students, especially those studying philosophy or peace studies.
Paul Delp, I believed, was living in the kingdom, the kingdom which Christ said is very difficult for the wealthy to enter. It is the new world to which Christ calls us all. Professor Delp gave of himself, following Christ’s example, and he believed that his life was richly blessed because of it.
Before I graduated from Chapman, I experienced what was for me one of my most memorable college experiences. I was invited to an informal lunch with Betty Williams, a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ireland who was visiting the campus. And for close to an hour, I and a small handful of students were able to engage in some wonderful conversation with her.
I didn’t realize at the time that her trip to Chapman was made possible by money given to Chapman by Paul Delp. Today, the Delp-Wilkinson Peace endowment continues to provide financial assistance to students, and continues to support the Peace Lecture Series that brings prominent peacemakers to Chapman to speak and meet with students.
Pretty much everything I know about Paul Delp, I’ve told you. It’s not much, I know; but in thinking about life lived in 3-D, it was Paul Delp who came to my mind. He wanted to live a life that meant something, and he did. There was depth to his life—it wasn’t one-dimensional. There was a fullness and a richness to his life that many lives today are lacking. And a major reason for that is that the way he used his money was consistent with the beliefs he held to be true.
His life stands out to me, because so often in our society, our beliefs and our use of money are not consistent. And if our beliefs and our use of money are not consistent, then we are torn apart inside. Because deep down, we know that our money is, in a very real way, an extension of ourselves. It was our labor, our life’s energy, that was exchanged for that money. We went to work, we gave our life’s energy to the company, and the company gave us a paycheck. Or, we gave our life energy to housekeeping so that our spouse could get a paycheck. Either way, the money we received represented the energy we had spent.
What Jesus is saying to the rich man is that life isn’t just about moving the dots farther apart. It’s about using your life and your life’s energy in ways that add wholeness and meaning, and fullness, and richness to one’s life. It’s about using your life and your life’s energy for the things you believe in deeply.
That is how you live a 3-D life. That is how you find a life that is eternal, yes, but also as life that is abundant, a life of joy and deep satisfaction. That is what sets you on the path of blessing.
And that is why stewardship is about so much more than helping the church meet its budget. It’s about living out your beliefs. It’s about finding true happiness. It’s about living in the kingdom of heaven. It’s about living life in 3-D.
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