Luke 18:22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Waiting for the pope’s for sale signs.....!
Giving on a person to person level is what Christ was talking about. This is how the early settlers in the New World helped one another. They had their biblical perspective during those difficult years in the New World. However such settlers such as Governor William Bradford abruptly abandoned the idealistic practice of collectivism--"bringing in community into a commonwealth"--which we would call Communism, when it proved to be a total failure. It is government imposed Communism that Pope Francis must make a distinction.
In the context of a Roman Province, Judea was a place of total domination by the Romans. It was a place where heavy taxes were levied for the support of a bureaucracy. Money was funneled out of the Temple to pay for an aqueduct. Roman soldiers took over the land. It was a picture of poverty, violence and oppression. The very rich were people from the royal court and their followers: merchants, large landowners, tax-officers, bankers, families with inherited means and high priestly families. Christ and the apostles were a part of the middle class: those working in small trades; craftspeople who had their shops in the market; those of the fish trade. (In Galilee there was every kind of fish and there was a salted fish trade there which exported to cities even as far away as Rome.) Then, there was the very poor: small tenant farmers, day laborers, slaves, beggars, the sick, blind, lame, lepers, destitute, orphans and widows. The contrast between the rich man and poor is found in Luke’s parable (Lk.16) Poverty in Judea grew because of Herod the Great who, according to the historian, Josephus, "sank the nation to poverty and to the last degree of injustice."
I am sure Jesus knew what was ahead: the Bar Kokhba revolt. After the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, the Jewish population of Judea was either killed, exiled, or sold into slavery. Christ wanted to promote the idea that wealth was a tool to help your fellow man. It would be absolutely necessary for a culture of helping your fellow man to be firmly rooted among the Jewish people. It would be an idea that would ensure the survival of the Jewish people in a time of disaster. This is, I am sure, the historical context of Luke 18:22.