What Am I Willing to Give Up?

There’s a well known story in the gospels about a rich young man who approaches Jesus and asks him how to get his hands on the golden ticket—that is, eternal life. Jesus tells him to stick to the 10 commandments, and the young man claims that he has those under control. So Jesus looks him up and down, and with razor sharp insight He goes for the jugular. “Sell everything you’ve got, and give it to the poor.” The words hang in the air between Jesus and the rich young man while the young man takes in the shocking instruction. He puts his hand in his pocket to feel the soft leather of his wallet. Deeply chagrined, he drops eye contact with Jesus and he slowly back-pedals home towards his lake-side Galilean condo with his Mercedes Benz chariot parked in the garage. For he was very rich.

And Jesus turned to his disciples and said “It’s difficult for people who are stinking rich to turn their lives over to a Higher Purpose. It’s like trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle.” At which point the disciples either slapped their knees and laughed at Jesus’ hilarious joke, or they swallowed fearfully, wondering what THEY were going to have to give up someday.

I don’t think Jesus is inherently against people having money. In this particular case, Jesus just knew that the young man’s wealth was what was keeping him from really being able to serve God and man with whole-hearted, undistracted dedication.

Right now, tens of thousands of thirsty Haitians are scooping up cloudy water in tin cups, knowing that they will die if they don’t drink water, and they will die if they drink cholera-contaminated water. Those are the choices. Right now angry Haitians are wandering around the littered city streets, waving machetes and trying to find someone to blame for the cholera epidemic, the U.N occupation, the earthquake, the shambles of the upcoming presidential elections, the whole history of Haiti, and God only knows what else.

This past week— the week I was supposed to be in Haiti -- I’ve been sitting on my comfortable couch, drinking clean water out of the tap, flushing my toilet and not even thinking about where that waste is going, walking on an uncontaminated beach, enjoying rain storms without fear of flash floods, and going to work where I earn considerably more than one dollar a day.

And I don’t have answers, but I keep discovering new, soul-searching, mind-blowing questions. The question for this week is: what am I willing to give up to authentically serve God and others? Material things, like my bank account? Some clothes? My job? Chocolate? My meticulously accumulated retirement funds? Good tasting food? Or how about immaterial things, like comfort? Health? Security? Respect? Traveling? Dreams for my future? My indignant sense of right and wrong? Time with friends? Convenience? My precious down time? Seeing my family on holidays? Cleanliness?

I begin to worry that people are tired of reading and hearing my rants full of these questions. But on the other hand, I think these are questions that all world citizens need to ask themselves if we are ever going to make a dent in rectifying the inequities that exist from country to country, and in many cases, from neighborhood to neighborhood. If there is ever any hope of balancing the scales, everyone has to be willing to ask “what am I willing to give up?” And the answers to that question that will truly make a difference in this world will certainly be harder to carry out than squeezing a camel through the eye of a needle.