One should not be foolish with his charity, and certainly it begins with the family. I acknowledged that. Personally, my net worth is below zero with the mortgage crisis and wage stagnation, so is cobble my shoes as best I can just to feed the kids.
This is what goes without saying; this is in the “I’ve observed all that since my youth” part.
Luther’s error was to stop there and tell the cobbler that he is done his work of discipleship by cobbling shoes (and, presumably, keeping the Christian faith on some level). This is complete disregarding of this episode, which speaks to the issue directly and from the mouth of Christ. The way Protestantism wiggles out of this scripture is not convincing: Christ, the theory goes, read the mind of the rich man, and demonstrated to him that there is nothing he can do to earn salvation. So, I ask, He just sent someone He loved to hell? The Evangelists who recorded that exchange mislead us all? When Jesus spoke the same thing to the Apostles in verses 29-30 of Mark 10, He was giving them, and through them, us, the advice we should not follow?
This is jamming the square peg of the Enlightenment’s Economic Man into the square hole of the Gospel.
I think you are making some big assumptions. The scripture does not give us enough information here to assume EXACTLY what Christ’s intent was. I think like many stories, it was to illustrate a point about how lame we are when we think we’ve done so much for God, yet we do not lay down our life and give our all to Him as he has done for us.
The first words of your first sentence, “One should not be foolish with his charity” is exactly my point. I honestly do not believe God expects all of us to give up our life and live as an aesthete and give our lives to a cloister or monastery. In fact, he has told us it is good to marry. Not everyone is cut out for that life.
I’m not sure what point you are making any more, but I’m sorry you are not in the best financial straights. Regardless, as you well know, even in your struggles you are rich by the world’s standards, as we all mostly are in this country and that often makes me feel guilty (unlike some of the heretical rantings one hears on TBN and elsewhere, I don’t believe it is God’s will that everyone be rich).