Schneider’s next chapter undertakes the very important task of reconciling two disparate strands of teaching in the gospels. He does well with this task too. First we find the well-known demands of an all-or-nothing discipleship. “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). And then on the other hand, we find the Jesus who came eating and drinking, accused of being a glutton and drunkard, and leaving Zacchaeus at the end of the day with salvation and half his fortune.
Schneider handles this quite plausibly, and it is here that the foundation for his line of argument in the law and prophets is very important. “If Jesus’ principles were prophetic, we would expect that his condemnation of enjoyments of one sort would be countered, not by ascetic or utilitarian denial, but by enjoyments of the right sort” (p. 160). In other words, Christ established the true choice between a right use of material things and a wrong use of them. He did not establish a false dualism between the necessarily corrupt use of having something and the righteous use of not having it.
In order to show this conclusion arising out of the text, Schneider draws on recent typological scholarship which shows Jesus as constituting in His person a new exodus, a new Israel, and a new occuptation of the land — a land, like the first one, flowing with milk and honey. “It is the redemption of the world, the world of culture, including its morally questionable economic forms” (p. 165).
There are two observations on this point that I would like to add, both of them related. The first is that however strong the temptation to take the “wealth-negative” texts at face value, we must all resist the temptation. The reason is not because Jesus is too radical for us, but rather because we don’t want to be the foolish servants of Proverbs who runs off before he gets the message straight. Who wants to be smoke in the eyes of the Lord? The common way of taking these verses “straight up” is an outstanding way of proving way too much — proving far more than anyone is ready to have proved.
One time, many years ago in the Jesus’ people times, I had an encounter on the street with a young representative of the Children of God, a whacked-out group (even for the seventies). He asked me if I had a job, if I had a car. I allowed that I did, even though it wasn’t much of a car. He then told me, pressing hard on the passage cited above from Luke 14, that I was not a Christian. How could I possibly be a disciple if I “had” a car? Answer me that. Instead of arguing the exegesis with him, I reached over and tugged on his sweater. “Whose is this?” I asked. Astounding as it to think so, he reacted as though such an idea had never ever occurred to him before. Radical Bible verses were for other people. He just stood there, completely flummoxed, nothing whatever to say. After an appropriate time lag, I helped him out. “It belongs to the Lord, right? He is just loaning it you for you to use?” He grabbed at the solution like a drowning man clutching at a rope. “Yes, the Lord loaned it to me.” “Great,” I said. “The Lord loaned me a car.”
In short, unless the only true Christians are the ones who are voluntarily naked and starving to death, all Christians understand these passages in the context of stewardship. And it is intellectually dishonest for those Christians who are stewards of a sweater to lord it over those Christians who are stewards of a car, as though they alone has grasped the meaning of “all.” But some is not all, and if you are left with some stuff at all, given the “radical” understanding of the passage, you are not a disciple either. In short, the face value of such passages proves too much, and it proves way too much for everybody.
But if it is a matter of stewardship, a man with a hundred thousand dollars can be a godly steward, and a man with a hundred dollars can be a poor steward. The lowlife Zacchaeus can have salvation come to his house, while the rich young ruler, respectable in all his ways, can be sent away sorrowing. We cannot solve the mysteries of grace with a pocket calculator.
The second observation is related to the first. For those readers of this blog who are preachers, there is a deadly trap here to avoid. “Radical demand” passages are ideal to use in guilt manipulation, a thing you presumably want to avoid. A preacher should never press the authority of the text in a manner that is less than the text does itself. Exegesis should establish exactly what the text, in context with the rest of the Word of God, actually requires. And then that, and nothing but that, should be set before the people of God. To do anything else is to pull the punch. It is to take refuge from the Lord in sermons that do little other than explain the text away, but in a way that leaves the preacher ahead. The way guilt manipulation works is this — “The text requires you to give everything away. Radical Christianity! Total discipleship! Extreme love!” This is not realistic, the fellow in the pew thinks. But it sure is convicting. And then the preacher pulls the punch, providing a way of escape. “These things are obviously not simple. But do what you can.” Do what you can to do what? Now that the option of obedience is left out, that leaves “do what you can to make the guilt go away,” which can usally be accomplished for twenty bucks. This kind of thing is used to juice the giving, and it works — for the short term.
But this is where the surrounding context of grace, grace, grace is so important. In Scripture, a number of things are left undefined for us in the financial realm. We have the authority to give all kinds of money away, of unspecified amounts. But we should do so in the context of grace and gratitude, not guilt. Every Christian should tithe — that is God’s tax. And when God’s tax is paid, you are left with 90%, over which you are called to be a faithful steward. How much of that you give away in your offerings is entirely and completely up to you — what each man determines in his heart to give, Paul says, and remember that God loves a cheerful giver. How much do you want to give? Christ has forgiven you completely. There is no condemnation for those who are in Him. He has given you a boatload of stuff. Aren’t you grateful for that? Don’t you want to share some of it? Who wouldn’t? But only give as long as it is fun. When Christians learn to give out of radical joy and celebration, they are doing something that genuinely reflects the heart of God, and His declared purpose for this world of restoring the land of Eden. And incidentally, giving out of gratitude can be sustained a lot longer than giving to get the guilt to go away can be sustained.
Years ago, I recall reading an article in a “radical” Christianity magazine (it was either Sojourners or The Other Side, I forget which), in which the author lamented his guilt over putting his children to bed well-fed and warm. There is something deeply and profoundly screwed-up in that mentality; it was genuinely sad. The only thing radical about such thinking is how radically it misrepresents what God is like. I was working through all these issues at that time, and I resolved to have nothing to do with that kind of sad ingratitude. Put your kids to bed, secure, well-fed, and warm, thank God for it from the low bottom of your heart, and plot how to extend that wonderful grace to others.
A few years before that, when I was in the Navy, I had the privilege of worshipping with a congregation of joyful and exuberant evangelical Christians who had a lot of stuff, were really happy about it, wanted to share, and had missions on the brain (at Tabernacle Church in Norfolk, VA). Every Christmas, in addition to their regular church and missions giving, they would take up a special contribution to “give Jesus a birthday present.” One year I was there, the birthday present was the purchase of something like twelve or thirteen surplus field hospitals from the U.S. military, which they were going to send overseas. During the time I was with that congregation, I never caught a whiff of guilt, but rather (and this is not a coincedence) just extraordinary generosity.
The mother of extraordinary generosity is the true experience of God’s grace, His abundant, overflowing, and affluent heart.