Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

• Luke 18:22-27

“Boethius’s last and most famous work, written during his final imprisonment, is The Consolation of Philosophy. It is a short work in five books. It takes the form of a dialogue between Boethius and the lady Philosophy. …
“In Book 2, Philosophy shows him the true character of Fortune and outward prosperity. The essence of Fortune is change and it is this that Boethius has learned through his sudden reversal. She seeks to show him that in Fortune he neither had not lost anything of lasting value. ‘If the things whose loss you are bemoaning were really yours, you could never have lost them’ (2.2). There is nothing more precious to someone than their own self. That is something that Fortune can neither give nor take away – all else is merely transitory. That is why bad fortune is of more value than good fortune:
“Good fortune always seems to bring happiness, but deceives you with her smiles, whereas bad fortune is always truthful because by changing she shows her true fickleness. Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens. With her display of specious riches good fortune enslaves the minds of those who enjoy her, while bad fortune gives men release through the recognition of how fragile a thing happiness is.  Good fortune lures men away from die path of true good, but adverse fortune frequently draws men back to their true good like a shepherdess with her crook. (Consolation 2.8).”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

Note: Some time ago, we discussed when the church split between the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.  We did not discuss the split itself, but for several weeks the discussion has featured Eastern Orthodox thought.  So, if you are wondering why we are going from a theologian of only one century ago back to the fifth century, we are now studying the theology and philosophy of the western church, the Roman Catholic church, from the late fifth century to the Protestant Reformation.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-525?) was a philosopher.  He wanted to bring Plato and Aristotle to western Europe, specifically Rome.  He was busily translating their works into Latin when there was an overthrow of the Roman government.  He split his duties of translation by taking an administrative position in the new government.  Partially due to intrigue but also his lack of knowledge in dirty politics, he was arrested and sentenced for execution.  It is in his imprisonment that Boethius did his best work.

I have written a lot about the rich and the poor.  I have personally had bad fortune when considering the work that I was doing and the people with which I worked, but when you consider the average man, especially in other parts of the world, I was a “rich” man.

And yet, I have often thanked God for the multitude of times that I got someone else promoted and then failed to gain financially, and my mindset in those prayers of praise have mirrored that of Boethius.

When we are rich, that is rich in comparison to others in our circle of influence, then we trust money, power, and influence.  While affluence provides power, it traps or imprisons us.  We do not notice it, but notice how the common goal of nearly all millionaires is the second million dollars, but should that be billionaires and the second billion?  The money and things that go with it entrap us and we often do not know it.

And each time we pray for our daily bread, can the rich man ever understand that concept of relying on the Savior for each meal?  The poor man lives that lifestyle and knows the concept well.  The poor man has already learned from that lifestyle.

Someone said a long time ago that the best inventors were lazy people.  They would work tirelessly to figure out an easier way of doing something.  The industrious man just simply gets it done with the tools at hand.  This can be seen in the rich-poor comparison.  The poor man uses less resources and maximizes those resources, while the rich man keeps throwing money at the project until he gets what he wants.

I was once able to impress a hiring manager, but he refused to give me the job.  He said that I had worked for NASA, and I would not understand the workings of a small company on a shoestring budget.  I tried to explain that our budget was so tight that I was doing the work of ten men, because we had no budget to hire the other nine.  When he said that he was still not buying it, I told him what John Glenn had once said about the “guys with the Right Stuff.”  Glenn said that everything goes pretty good until you start your liftoff and you realize that you have a rocket strapped to your back that was designed and built by the low bidder.  I still did not get the job, and he was laughing as I left.  But the point is that there is a big difference between those with plenty and those who do not even have enough.

And when it comes to spiritual needs, it is much easier to accept the Gospel of Christ when you already understand the Lord’s Prayer which has us ask for daily bread.  But when God talks of blessing the poor in spirit in the Beatitudes, might we reverse that to a spirit of the poor?  It may be difficult to imagine us having nothing and we rely each individual day on God’s Grace for our daily bread, but in doing so, a rich man can see the need for a Savior.  No matter how much we have in the bank, the money cannot buy happiness.  It cannot provide good health.  And God can provide both of those in abundance, regardless of our circumstances.

I know this discussion has ranged over many methods of measuring “richness,” not just money.  But in each of those, the rich have difficulty breaking free of their bondage to their richness.  And the poor man can even thrive due to what he has learned while being poor.

And yes, with my meager means, I praise the Lord.  He keeps me humble.  He keeps me depending upon Him for my every need.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.