His son said no such thing. The immediate verse after that statement was the apostles replying “Lord, then how can ANYONE be saved?” The Old Testament is fairly clear that one of the signs of favor by God is wealth. The apostles were astonished, since Jesus was saying that the wealthy man who followed all the laws of Moses would have a hard time getting in. Jesus wasn’t stating that the man wasn’t following the law, or was evil, or any other such thing. What Jesus was pointing out was the need for total commitment to Him and God to be saved.That sounds like a bit of revisionism to me.At no time in the Gospels, did Jesus ever suggest taking the wealth from the rich by force. He did, however, state that those who do have wealth should, voluntarily, exercise that wealth fully for the glory of God.
21Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."So Peter sells his possessions to pay Paul or he becomes a "Camel passing through the eye of a needle".
The end of the passage compounds that interpretaton:
28Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother[f] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. 30But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.Sounds pretty open and shut to me. "last shall be first" etc...
No revisionism at all. That’s the way that I was taught it. That’s the way that all of the great theologians in history (St. Augustine, St. Aquinas) that I am aware of interpret it.
The sell your possessions part was stated because Jesus knew that the man was really attached to them, not because there is anything wrong with possessions. It’s a story about commitment, not about possessions specifically.
In any case, there are a few immediate contradictions in your interpretation:
1) If possessions are bad, why give them to the poor? Won’t that harm the poor in the process?
2) If the last shall be first and the first last, then doesn’t that mean the first shall be first and the last shall be last?
The real interpretation is this. Possessions need to be consecrated in the service of God. If you have a farm, then give the harvest to the poor, but you should keep the land, tools, seed corn, and enough to eat yourself and maintain the tools, since providing for next year is paramount. The difficulty is that when a rich person is administering the wealth, the temptation is always there to indulge oneself instead of being a good steward, since the owner is by definition the final temporal authority over the property. Avoiding this is extremely hard, and that’s what Jesus was concerned about.
In addition, at the time of the Gospels, the main concern was spreading the word. Jesus needed footsoldiers to go out and get the word out. Encumbering oneself with a lot of stuff is detrimental to that task. Today, however, there are plenty of sources for getting the immediate word, but most people are still going to have to work jobs to keep everyone fed and clothed. Giving away all possessions in this environment is unnecessary unless you are going to be a full time preacher, who today would still need a website, church building, place to keep religious reference materials etc.
Finally, there is also the question of which poor are you going to give it to? Is anyone who is poor okay, or are some poor more deserving than others? I would assume that a microloan to a struggling person who wants to work would be a far more effective use of my money than a drunk who has no intention of getting off the bottle. If there is a prioritization of resources, who decides? The poor certainly shouldn’t nor should the goverment. The rich person has to use their own best judgement informed by God and the Gospels.
My best reading of the Gospels and the Bible is this:
1) Unless you are going to be spreading the Gospels professionally, don’t be quick to give away your stuff. Most people are not and are not expected to.
2) Keep your personal expenses way down. Buying things to impress people or indulge yourself are right out.
3) The first poor people that you can help immediately are yourself and your family. Taking care of the elderly also means preparing for yourself in your old age.
4) Investment in production, R&D, business expansion, etc. are completely legit. This is how you make more for everyone. It also creates jobs and gives the poor more practical opportunity.
5) Given the above, at least 10% of income should be given to the church or other appropriate charity every year. There are needs that need to be taken care of today. We can’t put it all towards the future and this is a good guideline.
6) Those that produce get to decide! They can be criticized, they can be strongly reminded of their divine obligations, people can consider them jerks, but the person who made it decides what to do with it.
This means that the society works out to:
1) A laizze-faire capitalist society in most respects.
2) A strong goverment focused solely on rooting out force and fraud, funded through levied fines and/or taxes levied based on how hard it is to defend each individual against force and fraud. The rich would probably end up paying more, since the goverment probably has to do more work to defend their stuff, but it’s clearly based on fee for service.
3) A vibrant healthy church, which is well funded through voluntary donations and provides the professionals with experience in distributing charity.
4) A clear vision of the wealthy deserving their wealth through their administration and production, while the poor are seen as untapped potential who can develop into self-supporting individuals, given a little assistance. (The old and terminally ill actually have quite a lot to give to the larger society in spiritual fruits. You probably know this through experience, we’re just covering their expenses.)