“O NE THING YOU LACK,” Jesus told the rich man.
Have you ever lacked something? You’re baking and you realize you don’t have enough sugar. You’re putting together a swing set for the kids and you realize you’re missing a bolt. You can hit the ball and run swiftly around the bases but what stops you from being a complete player? You lack the ability to stop the ball when it’s hit your way.
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I WENT TO TALLADEGA last week for the Children’s Home Challenge. That’s a cycling fund-raiser for the Presbyterian Home for Children. (We’ll be hearing from the president next Sunday.) I went up earlier in the week to spend some time with my mother and sister who live near Talladega. So, I packed my cycling gear early in the week. The weather report — cool. Daybreak Saturday was damp and 50 degrees.
A hundred and fifty riders talked about what to wear to stay warm. Some came from home that morning, prepared. Some of us, not so much. I planned to wear knee-high socks, biking shorts, a cycling jersey with arm warmers. That was not enough. OK. I’ll keep on my windbreaker and cover-up pants. I rummaged through the plastic container of assorted cycling stuff I always carry with me and found a piece of black cloth to tie around my pants leg to keep free from the chain. I came across a winter-weight cap; I put that on. Ready to go.
We got started in the breaking light of a cold and cloudy morning and I quickly realized one thing I lacked. Sucking in the cold air quickly dried my lips. What I would have given for a tube of that greasy goodness called Chapstick!
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THOSE ARE ALL little inconveniences. Sometimes we lack something more significant.
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THE RICH MAN comes to Jesus. He realizes something is missing in his life. He lives an honest life, yet somehow he feels hollow. He follows the rules but feels incomplete. He has money, and all that it can buy, but something’s missing. “Jesus, what’s missing in my life? I’ve done this. I have that. But, I feel there should be more to life than this.”
“One thing is missing,” Jesus responds. That’s an ironic remark to a man who, with his “many possessions,” ostensibly lacks for nothing.
“Oh, good. What is it? What can I do? What can I buy that will satisfy my longing?”
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WHAT EXACTLY is the “one thing” the rich man lacks? Jesus doesn’t name it specifically, “Sell what you own and give the money to the poor.”
The man goes away sad because he’s not willing to pay the cost to follow Jesus. This is the only episode in which Jesus calls someone to follow him and gets turned down.
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“YOU LACK ONE THING,” Jesus says. What is it? Perhaps the man is preoccupied with “doing good” to achieve his own salvation. He trusts too much in his own resources. Perhaps he lacks trust in God, who is, after all, the true source of all goodness and salvation.
On the other hand, Jesus doesn’t call the man to simply walk away from his possessions, or to burn them in a bonfire, but rather to share them with neighbors in need. And so maybe the “one thing” he lacks is generosity: the joyful sharing of blessings with others.
If possessions are a corrupting barrier for this man, why wouldn’t they be a corrupting barrier for us? If this man lacks trust in God and generosity to his neighbors — are we really so sure we don’t lack these things, too? Why would 21st-century discipleship be any different?
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I SPENT SOME TIME this week thinking about this. If Jesus is looking at and loving me, what is the “one thing missing” he would see? If I seriously examine my life, I realize that there are MANY things that I am lacking, not just one. What is it Christ would ask me to do in order to fully follow him?
I prayerfully made a list of things that keep me from God and from being the Christian that Christ wants me to be. I can walk away sad because I don’t want to bear the cost of making changes. Or I can prioritize the list and start working with one and then proceed to the rest. With God’s help I go determined to follow him more nearly.
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IF YOU EXAMINE your life, you might see things you lack in your commitment to Christ. Maybe like the man in the story, what you lack is trust or generosity. Morals. Discipline. Purity of heart. Compassion. Integrity. Faith. A servant heart.
We are lacking, if we are truthful to ourselves, something that keeps up from being as close to Christ as we could be.
What prevents you from living a fully human life?
May I suggest that you do what I did. Prayerfully ask God what you are lacking in your discipleship. List them. Prioritize them. Start working on improving them. Yes, we all have a lack at one time or another that we have a hard time admitting or have a hard time letting it go. This text does not seek to find fault with us but to free us from that fault.
— Keith Cardwell
