Bev Franco Essay - San Francisco Theological Seminary

loves his possessions too much to give them away and follow Jesus (19:22). Jesus
astonishes the crowd when he tells them, “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” (19:23), and when
speaking of those who will not deny themselves in order to follow him, asks “What will it
profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life” (16:26)
Matthew’s Jesus does not, however, suggest a total repudiation of wealth. Rich
men like Joseph of Arimathea (27:57) are considered disciples. Jesus accepts the
hospitality of the rich (26:6, 18). Unlike in Luke, where Jesus orders, “Sell your
possessions, and give alms.” (Luke 12:33), Matthew’ Jesus says only, “Whenever you
give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you” (6:2). “Rather than make a futile and
misplaced call to his community to be poor, Matthew’s gospel offered a challenge for it
to be just toward the poor …While Luke’s has been called the gospel of the poor,
Matthew’s has often been called the gospel of justice.” 10 In the Mediterranean world, it
was accepted that there would be both poor and rich people. Jesus even says, “For you
always have the poor with you” (26:11). According to the parable of the sheep and the
goats (25:31-46), we are to be judged on how we treat the poor, not on whether we have
renounced worldly possessions.
“The parables of Jesus, so many of which have as their major characters
landlords and landowners, masters and stewards, slaveowners and slaves, never once
engage in polemic against the injustices of the economic system. So Jesus did not,
apparently, set himself to abolish private property or to redistribute wealth.” 11 It is not
10 Crosby, 42.
11 W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison. The Gospel According to Matthew, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1988): 644.
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