Poverty and Wealth in the Gospel of Luke (part 2)
Written by: Dr. John T. Carroll
This exploration of poverty and wealth in Luke’s Gospel draws attention to a trio of passages in Luke 18:15–19:10 that show the perils and possibilities of preoccupation with status and wealth.
In Jesus’s opening mission statement, he placed good news for the poor at the center of his mission (4:18–19), and the sermon on the plain reinforced this commitment, adding a warning for the wealthy (6:20–26). Now, toward the end of Jesus’s public ministry, he encounters human need with three very different faces: young children, a rich leader in society, and a conspicuously wealthy tax collector (there is also the restoration of sight to a poor man who has impaired vision in 18:35–43, but space doesn’t permit discussion here).
In 18:15–17, Jesus embraces young children, after his disciples have attempted to turn them away. Although they are vulnerable and dependent on others for care, and have the very lowest status in first-century culture, Jesus singles them out as models of God’s realm. This is what participants in the household of God look like!
The next scene paints a stark contrast to Jesus’s welcome of children. Now he encounters a “rich ruler,” an important man who commands both wealth and high status (18:18–30). Yet something is missing from his life; he approaches Jesus and asks what he needs to do if he is to have a share in unending (eternal) life. He knows and keeps the commandments of God, but Jesus tells him what the missing piece is: he challenges the man to sell all that he has and give the proceeds to the poor, and then to follow Jesus (i.e., become a disciple). This is the rich man’s path to a share in the reign of God, to which young children already belong! When Jesus uses humorous hyperbole (exaggeration)—a needle-navigating camel—to claim that it is virtually impossible for a wealthy person to enter God’s realm, the disciples protest that no one can be saved. Jesus counters, though, that God can do the impossible.
Can God do the needle-defying impossible feat of saving a wealthy person? Enter Zacchaeus (19:1–10). This wealthy chief tax collector in Jericho is so short that he has to climb a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus as he walks through town. Although Zacchaeus is unpopular in the extreme and his occupation is notorious for corrupt practices, Jesus insists on coming to his home. Zacchaeus pledges a radical life change, compensating four times over anyone he has overcharged and generously giving half of his wealth for the poor. “Today,” Jesus says, “salvation has come to this house—for he too is Abraham’s child!” (19:9). The eye of the needle has grown wide: a rich man does belong in God’s household after all. A life of self-centered accumulation has yielded to generous sharing. This is the path on which Luke sets us: when we are entrusted with resources, faithful and grateful response to God calls us to share generously with those who lack.
Questions for Reflection
- As you think about children in your life or in your community of faith, how might Jesus’s acceptance of the very young challenge you or your church and community to examine and perhaps change what you have been doing?
- As you reflect on Jesus’s responses to the rich ruler and the rich tax collector Zacchaeus, how do you understand the challenge Luke is setting before us today? Is there anything you or your community of faith might do differently? In your own context, what would faithful and wise use of the resources that have been entrusted to you look like?
