Jesus on Detachment, Part II

In my last post, I talked about the need for detachment from one's family and even from one's life in the teachings of Jesus. Much more could be said about that, but today I'm going to move on to something different, namely the need for detachment from possessions.

Detachment from Possessions

Blessed (makarioi) are you who are poor (ptōchoi), for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke 6.20b)

The word typically translated as "poor," ptōchoi, is the plural form of the adjective ptōchos. In the Greek, it has a much stronger connotation than the word "poor." It is closer in meaning to "destitute" or "mendicant" (Bammel, πτωχός, TDNT, 6.884).

Why would those who are destitute, those who have no possessions, be called "blessed" or "fortunate" (makarioi)? Conventional wisdom, held even by many Christians, holds that wealth is a blessing. See how many Americans see their nation's affluence as a sign of God's favour. The temptation to explain this teaching away is strong indeed. We see it happening already in the New Testament, in Matthew's redactional "poor in spirit" (5.3).²

When a rich man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus tells him to obey the commandments. When the man claims to have done this his entire life, Jesus tells him,

You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor (tois ptōchois; lit. "the destitute"), and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. (Mark 10.17-21)³

If poverty (or destitution) is inherently beneficial, then the man would not be doing anyone a favour by selling his possessions to them, or giving them his money. The recipients of the money, after all, would cease to be destitute.

What Jesus is promoting here is the voluntary letting go, the cultivation of detachment, from one's possessions. It's not that there is anything wrong with possessions, per se. It's just that they easily foster attachments, and ridding oneself of this is spiritually advantageous. One cannot be attached to one's possessions if one does not have any.

Without this radical detachment, some of Jesus’s teachings are impossible to follow:

From anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. (Luke 6.29b-30)

This is a rich passage, and I don't mean to suggest that it is simply teaching the need for detachment.⁴ Detachment, rather, is a precondition for putting it into practice.


Notes

[1] It's worth pointing out that Jesus's hearers were generally poor, but not destitute. In other words, they would not have readily identified themselves as the ones to whom the kingdom belonged. Jesus's words would have been heard more as a challenge (rather than as a consolation) by his original hearers, just like it is a challenge to us today.

[2] John P. Meier writes,

Matthew's "poor in spirit" is usually judged secondary to Luke's simple "poor." Since throughout the list Matthew shows a tendency to spiritualize, moralize, and generalize the beatitudes, turnint them into spiritual attitudes applicable to all believers, it seems likely that the addition of "in spirit" serves the same purpose here. Moreover, the bare phrase "the poor" matches better the equally bare "mourners" and "hungry" in the second and third Q beatitudes. (Marginal, 2.320-321)

[3] The historical authenticity of this story debated. Meier points out that Jesus's initial response to the man's question ("Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone" Matt 10.18) satisfies the criterion of embarrassment:

It is difficult to imagine that the post-Easter church, as it sought to win converts to its faith that the risen Jesus was Lord, Messiah, and Son of God, went out of its way to create this particular answer. Indeed, so troubled is Matthew by Jesus' reply that he changes Mark's text to the innocuous "Why do you ask me about what is good?"--which leads neatly into the reference to the Ten Commandments (Matt 19:17-18). (Marginal, 3.516)

It is also somewhat embarrassing, Meier explains, that Jesus fails to recruit the man to his cause. Additionally, the demand that the man sell everything is discontinuous with the obligations "imposed later on upon people entering the Christian church of the first generation" (Marginal, 3.517). It must be said, though, that the demands here exceed even what was apparently demanded of the Twelve. Meier asserts that "the unheard-of rigor of Jesus' condition is meant to unmask the insincerity and lack of commitment of this affluent flatterer, who knows how to kneel but not how to give." He concludes that "the criteria of embarrassment and dissimilarity argue well for the basic historicity of the incident and of Jesus' warning about the dangers of wealth, occasioned by the rich man's refusal to accept Jesus' call" (Marginal, 3.517).

[4] Walter Wink provides a nice discussion of this saying in Engaging the Powers, p.175-177. I might talk about that sometime.

Works Cited