Jesus answered a certain ruler who asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus cited the second half of the Ten Commandments, the ones that concern our interaction with other people. When the ruler heard Jesus’s answer, he replied, “All these I have kept as a boy” (21). Perhaps Jesus was going to cite all ten, but the man, in excitement, cut Jesus off before he finished.
Jesus replied by directly addressing the ruler’s problem. “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” (22). The ruler was rich. When he heard Jesus, he became sad. When Jesus saw this, he openly acknowledged the man’s internal struggle and gave him a proverb as a warning. (24-25)
I note that this encounter interchanges “eternal life” (18, 30), “treasure in heaven” (22), “the kingdom of God” (24, 25, 29), and “the age to come” (30). Jesus warned the rich, now-sad ruler with the proverb “The Camel and Needle-Eye” that if he didn’t obey, he would forfeit them. The choice was and is always ours. Jesus’s disciples made the right choice (28-30). Did he? We do not know.
The ruler’s problem was that he loved others and God because he believed he kept the Ten Commandments. He kept the letter of the Law but not the spirit of the law, that is, love. The man loved wealth more than God and others. He could not give his first love away. Thus, Jesus’s prediction in “The Parable of the Shrewd Manager” is proven true: “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (16:13)
