What can you give to the man or the woman who has everything? In America’s “affluent society” doctors warn people more often about eating too much than eating too little. Our nation has more food surpluses than shortages. Most of us have more clothes than we need or can wear. There’s one radio for every person in our population and a t-v set for every three.

A man stepped up to the window to purchase auto license tags and the woman issuing them asked in a surprised tone — “Just one car?”

What can you give to the man or the woman who has everything? This is the problem of our affluent society for we have almost everything. But there is something the person who has everything very much needs. And this is exactly the problem Jesus deals with in His encounter with the rich young ruler.

The young man who ran out to meet Jesus as He walked the road to Jerusalem and reverently knelt before Him was a person who had the best of everything his society could provide: wealth, social status, power. He even had commendable moral stature for he had kept the commandments from his youth up. All the good things available for a man in his day were already his: respect, honor, power, abundance; but his soul was swept with a sense of unfulfillment: “What lack I yet? What good thing can I do to inherit eternal life?”

Once a young professional man confided to me: “I don’t understand myself. I have achieved all my personal goals. I have a wonderful family. We enjoy a marvelous standard of living, never wanting for a thing. I have no debts. I’ve got recognition and success in my profession. Yet there is an emptiness here inside of me. What do I lack?

The taint on human striving and achieving recorded by the writer of Ecclesiastes is still with us. The pursuit of wisdom and wealth, the building of political empires, even the courting and winning of fair ladies — all are vanity of vanities.

Haven’t you known people whom on first acquaintance you were tempted to envy greatly because it seemed to you that they had everything — good looks, style, status, money — but when you got to know them better, you discovered that they seemed to have nothing at all because they were so dissatisfied, so unfulfilled in purpose? On the other hand have we not all found some folk whom we were a bit sorry for when first we made their acquaintance — so forlorn and pinched and burdened and limited they seemed, until a little time had revealed they were remarkably sustained from within by a quiet satisfied spirit, a steadfast, full of meaning, purpose in life. They moved with grandeur amid squalid surroundings. They, though apparently beaten by disease or circumstance, had nevertheless the courageous tread of conquerors. They had what St. Paul was wont to call the “peace of God which passeth all understanding” and which the old apostle said could march into a quaking human heart and garrison it like a regiment of soldiers marching in to protect and stabilize a threatened city.

This is what the rich young ruler lacked — this spiritual well being, this consciousness of being at peace and joy and blessedness with God and man and without which wealth and station and moral rectitude were nothing.

“What can I do to inherit eternal life?” asks the rich young ruler. The gospel interview turns on that word, “do.” This is an expression of the most commonly believed of all human misconceptions about the rewards of the religious life. “What can I do?”

The young man was looking for some new trick he could turn, some deed he could perform, which would supply him with life’s missing ingredient. “But eternal life, the Kingdom of God, cannot be won by “doing.” It comes of a new spirit which informs the whole person, an inwardness of character which springs of one’s relationship with God. The spiritual life is not a matter of bookkeeping, in which good acts are entered on the credit side of some celestial ledger.” (H. Luccock in The Interpreter’s Bible on text) For after all, there is no completely good deed that is ever done. Our motives are always mixed. Thank God, our being at peace with Him is dependant not upon our goodness, but His grace.

“One thing you lack,” says Jesus. “If you would be perfect, go sell all that you have, give it to the poor, take up the cross, and come follow me.”

What is the one lack of this man who seemed to have everything? What is the cause of his spiritual unrest? By Jesus’ command to go sell all his possessions, it would seem that his disability rested in his overabundance. Some people have too little and therefore cannot enter into the fullest life has to offer. Is it that this man has too much, that he cannot enter into life?

No, it is not the possessions themselves that stand in the way of this man’s salvation, but rather the way he feels about them. One of the gospels that is lost to our New Testament — The Gospel According to the Hebrews, preserves in a fragment that survived this somewhat fuller account of the interview of Jesus with the rich young ruler:

“This rich man said to Jesus: ‘What good thing, Master, must I do really to live?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Man, obey the law and the prophets.’ He said, ‘I have done so.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go, sell all you possess, distribute it among the poor, and come, follow me.’ The rich man began to scratch his head because he did not like the command. The Lord said to him, ‘Why do you say you have obeyed the law and the prophets? For it is written in the law, “You must love your neighbor as yourself,” and look you, there are many brothers of yours, sons of Abraham, who are dying of hunger, and your house is full of many good things, and not one single thing goes out of it to them.’ And then He turned and said to Simon, His disciple, who was beside Him: ‘Simon, son of Jonas, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

“There we have the secret and the tragedy of this rich ruler. He was living utterly selfishly. He was rich, and yet he gave nothing away. His real god was comfort, and the thing he really worshipped was his own possessions and wealth. That is why Jesus told him to give it all away. There are many people who use such wealth as they have to bring comfort and joy and good to others, and such possessions are for them not a hindrance but a means to the fullest life. But this man used what he had for nobody but himself.” (Wm. Barclay, Commentary on Luke)

Living for self, no matter how carefully and sumptuously done, can never bring satisfaction, simply because God has not fashioned the human heart to find fulfillment in gluttony or vainglory.

What was lacking? One big thing — self-forgetfulness. Every disciple needs to get beyond the seeking of personal good, until his life overflows into the lives of others. Most of all, every disciple needs to be lifted by a great loyalty to Christ into headlong absorption to His cause.

But the rich young ruler turned away sorrowfully. He couldn’t meet the demands and answer the call to discipleship. He had come with breathless eagerness. Jesus had looked upon him with love and hopeful expectation. He had great capacities for service and rich fulfillment. But, the eager advance was followed by the sad retreat.

How often this is the movement in life’s symphony: the running, glad approach followed by the slow, sad retreat: The young artist or musician, or writer comes rushing up in ardent enthusiasm with his fiddle or pens or brushes. But he soon learns the heavy cost of grueling toil and he cannot pay it and at the same time hold on to all his frolicking. He turns away sorrowful. We see it again and again in marriage. How many come running excitedly into matrimony, only to learn the high cost in self-discipline, and self-forgetfulness; then go away, for they had great possessions of self-love and self-care.

We still see it in Christian discipleship. Many come with running eagerness, for even the allurements and the gadgets and the comfortable respectability of middle-class protestant American culture cannot completely satisfy the soul of the most solid citizen. But when they learn the cost, they turn away sorrowful. The church of Jesus Christ should always be prepared for the unassimilated church member, the peripheral communicant, the Christmas and Easter worshipper, the free-loader who wants to be included in the church’s blessings of fellowship and teaching and worship, but is content to let someone else pay the bills and finance the church’s ministries.

“Goodness is so simple and yet so hard … always to live for others and never to seek one’s own advantage…He who has surrendered himself to it knows that the way ends on the cross even when it is leading through the jubilation of Galilee or the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.” (Dag Hammerskold, Markings)