Luke 12:32-34
“What, in God’s name, are all the boxes doing in the garage?” Mark asked as he came into the kitchen through the garage door. “I couldn’t even get my car parked in there.”
“Exactly,” his wife, Karen, replied.
“Exactly, what?” he asked, reaching for a can of diet Pepsi from the fridge.
“Exactly in God’s name,” said Karen.
“What!?”
“The boxes are there in God’s name,” she smiled.
“I’m sorry,” Mark said. “Let me start over. I’ll try to talk a little slower. What—-are—-all—-those—-boxes—-doing—-in—-the—-garage?”
“Getting ready for the big sale,” she said, as if he should have already known the answer.
“Oh, we’re having a garage sale? That’s a good idea. We could stand to sell a few things around here. I have a some shirts I haven’t worn in years.”
“Well, not exactly.”
“No, really,” Mark said. “Remember that pink golf shirt with the green pinstripes? That’s one of…”
“I don’t mean your shirts,” she interrupted. “I mean it’s not exactly a garage sale. It’s going to be more than that.”
“Oh, like a multi-family sale. Who’s going in on it with us—Babs and Larry down the street?”
“No, it’s not a multi-family sale. It’s just us. Just our sale.”
“Well…” Mark spoke hesitantly, “…what exactly are you planning on selling?”
“Umm, just about everything we own,” Karen said leaning into the oven, checking the roast.
“What!!??” Mark said with a spray of diet Pepsi. “You’re thinking about selling everything we own!?” he said wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“Not thinking about it, dear; I’m going to do it.”
“Which of those women’s magazines did you get that hair-brained idea from? How about instead of selling everything, we just cancel the subscriptions to all those magazines and throw out all the back issues?”
“I didn’t read about this in a ‘woman’s magazine’,” she said making quote marks in the air, and mimicking his voice. “I read it in the Bible.”
“The Bible,” he repeated.
“The Holy Bible,” she said shaking her head up and down.
“OK; uh, yeah,” Mark stammered.
Karen started pealing the potatoes, acting as if the discussion was over and that Mark totally understood.
“Uhhh. I’m totally lost here. What the heck is really going on, Karen? Are you moving out? Do you want a divorce? (louder) Are you having an emotional breakdown?”
“No; no; and no, Mark. I’m OK. You’re OK. I love you. You’re blowing this way out of proportion. Jesus just told me that we have way too much stuff, so we’re going to sell it. All of it.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Jesus? Jesus told you? When did this conversation with Jesus take place—like 3 a.m. this morning while you were dreaming? Or later when you were hallucinating?”
“No, silly,” Karen said smiling. “This morning, yes, but while I was doing my devotions—reading the Bible and praying.”
“Jesus spoke to you during devotions?”
“Yes.”
“And he told you to sell everything we own?”
“Mmmm, Hmmm.”
“I think you’ve been watching too much Oprah. Let’s see her sell everything she owns!” Mark said with his pointer finger in the air.
“This has nothing to do with Oprah. It’s in the Bible. Look it up yourself, if you remember where the Gospel of Luke is.”
“Oh, now we’re into sarcasm, are we? Is that what Jesus told you to do this morning also, is slam your husband when he came home from work?”
“No, and I’m sorry, dear. It’s just that I don’t understand why you don’t understand.”
“That’s because I don’t understand!” Mark said a little too loudly. He stomped away toward their bedroom. Then he was back, Bible in hand. “Show me,” he demanded, plunking his Bible on the counter next to the sink where she was working.
Karen dried her hands on her apron, then looked up Luke 12:32-34. She read him the three verses, closed the Bible, handed it to him and said, “See?” She turned back to the sink and continued pealing the potatoes.
Mark scratched his head, looked up the verses again and read them for himself. “You don’t think Jesus meant us, do you?” he finally asked. “Look, it says he was talking to his little group of disciples. They were special. They were supposed to do stuff like that. Take a vow of poverty or something like that. That’s not for us normal kinds of believers.”
“So you’re saying you aren’t a disciple?” Karen asked him.
“Of course I’m a disciple,” Mark replied. “Just not a disciple disciple; you know what I mean?”
“No, I don’t; a disciple is a disciple, Mark. There aren’t different levels of discipleship. You either are or you aren’t. And if you are a disciple then you do what Jesus said. Do we only get to do the easy things Jesus said to do? Right there in your hand it says that Jesus said to sell everything.”
“It doesn’t exactly say, ‘everything’,” Mark stated. “It just says to sell what you have. And certainly the disciples didn’t have that much to sell like we do. They aren’t giving up that much.”
“Well, what all do we have that isn’t everything?” Karen asked. “Just take a walk through the house. I did this morning, after I read that in the Bible. Walk through our house, Mark. Look at all the stuff we have. When you look at it, ask yourself the question, How much of this do we really need to live? Ask yourself that question, and answer it honestly. How much of this stuff do we really need to live?”
Mark sucked in a couple of lungs full of air and exhaled it all through his nose.
“Go on,” she prodded, pointed the potato peeler at the kitchen door. “Go on a hike. Through the house, I mean.”
Mark shuffled off like a kid who was being sent to his room for time-out. He went into the living room, did a u-turn, and then was back in the kitchen.
“OK, so we have a few extra things,” he conceded.
“No, Mark. You weren’t gone long enough. Go through every room in the house. Look at everything. When you look at each thing, ask yourself, Do we need that to live?”
He exhaled again, let his shoulders droop, and went off on his expedition of their home. In the time it took Karen to get water boiling, peal and slice the potatoes, plop them into the boiling water, and wash up a few dishes, he was back.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Karen,” he said as he sat at the kitchen table. I can kind of see your point, but the thought of selling everything makes me really nervous. I guess the good thing is that at least we’d have the money from the sale.”
“Not really,” Karen said.
“What do you mean, not really?” he retorted.
“Don’t you remember? Jesus said to sell your possessions, and give the money from the sale to the poor.”
“What!!?? That’s too much!” Mark said loudly. “I’m sure Jesus was just talking to people who were going into the priesthood. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Not us. Not our kind of disciples. How can Jesus expect us to live with nothing? How can Jesus expect us to sell all the nice things we have worked so hard for? We do have a lot of really nice stuff, Karen. Most of it, you bought. Most of it is stuff, at one time or another, you said we had to have. Now you want to get rid of it all in some altruistic whim? I’m sorry. I’m just as religious as the next guy, but this idea of selling everything, and then not even getting to keep any of the money is too much!” He stopped talking and crossed his arms across his chest as he leaned back in the kitchen chair.
“I know what you’re saying, dear,” Karen spoke up after a bit of a pause. “It is a scary thing. I’ve just been thinking about Jesus’ words all day long. I keep asking myself questions like, How much is enough? How much of this stuff do we need to have to live happily? How simply can we live? Do we own these possessions or do they possess us?”
Karen stopped and let those questions sink in to Mark’s mind. Then she started again. “What’s more important to have, possessions or the kingdom of heaven, like it says Father God want’s to give us? And if we have the kingdom of heaven, what more do we really need? It appears from Jesus’ statement, you can’t have both at the same time. That’s the way we’d like it—a both/and, rather than an either/or. We’d like to have all our possessions and heaven’s treasure as well.”
“Don’t you think,” Mark interjected, “that Jesus really doesn’t mean to sell everything? Don’t you think what he really means is that we’re supposed to keep our priorities straight? Don’t you think he simply means to keep him our top priority?”
“Of course. That’s part of it,” Karen answered. “But as long as we have all this stuff, that’s where our heart will be. Our lives will be all wrapped up in protecting it, holding on to it, keeping it up. We’ll look at all this stuff and think that it determines who we are in life. It makes us think we are somebody because we have all these possessions. We even determine our status level by how much and what kinds of things we own. God doesn’t care about that kind of status. As long as we have all these things, they lure our hearts away from the kingdom of heaven. It’s so subtle, we don’t even realize it’s happening. Without all this stuff, our hearts get to be someplace else, captivated by a different treasure. That’s got to be our Father God and the kingdom of heaven. Where is our treasure, Mark? And where, really, are our hearts?”
Mark stared at the salt and pepper shakers on the table where he sat and said, quietly, “I don’t know. But do we have to box everything up tonight? I need more time to think about this. Let’s take a little more time and think it through, OK?”
“And pray about it,” Karen added.
“Yeah,” he replied. “We’ll pray about it. Can I set the table; are we ready to eat?”
“I just need to mash the potatoes. Sure, you can set the table.”
“Which set of our dishes would you like me to use?” he asked her, looking at her with a wry smile.
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