Hard Teachings

This is actually a true story.

I'm talking to this young boy, in the 12-16 age range, about the social questions that trouble me, and I mention this story that is sometimes called the parable of the rich young man.
 
A rich young man who has everything and followed all the Commandments asks Christ what further he needs to do, and Christ tells him he needs to give away all his possessions to the poor and follow Christ's teachings. "When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions." 

So I'm relating this to the boy and he says to me, “That's a hard teaching.”

I just love that kind of thing that young people, and the young in heart generally, can say. Yes, there are indeed “hard teachings.”

Here's another one that I think about almost every day. This one is sometimes called the parable of the widow's mite and goes like this:

(Mark 12:41-44) 41 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. 42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. 43 So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 44 for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood."

I take the position that these two hard teachings are not just shallow, limited interpretations of reality just waiting for clever scholars to tell us what they really mean. My guess is that they are mythic, communicated in the language of dreams, deep far beyond the images and words, but readily available to the truly young and the pure in heart.

A young man criticized Jerry Falwell once during a TV debate at Oxford, and Falwell came back at him in anger, and contempt, even as a bit of a bully. He went on about how his church did many good works such as giving so many tons of food to what was then Yugoslavia. He ended with, “And what have you done?” The student, as I remember it, didn't know how to respond. But I knew the scenario very well, that we give what we can, and sometimes the person who gives what seems to be a mite in fact gives more than what seems to us to be a lot of money.

It's quite conceivable that in the end Falwell did more harm to the world, all told, then anyone else in the current era.

I suppose I feel in this way about it because I regularly reflect upon certain “simple” people I have known, like Betty Stocks, who gave like that widow, and who are like the stars in my own life.