Anti-materialisms exegesis

Why did the Christ say you ought to give up your possessions and money in order to find the kingdom of God?

How can you let go of your ego and receive divine love — brightening up the soul like the light of a diamond sparkling in the sun — if you can’t even let go of your stuff? The soul is less a most valuable object like a diamond, and more an open space of relation. What kind of place is an empty nowhere full of light? How can you give up one life in favor of a more enduring existence, if you can’t even give up what material comfort you’ve come to expect?

But it’s not just your stuff you’re giving up, your favorite things, and your hard-earned money — what you’re really giving up is fear, fear that you will lose your possessions and status and hard-earned money. And so how can you offer up your whole earthly life if you can’t even offer up a shred of your security or your stuff or your social position? You are ruled by fear — and Spirit says there is a higher ruler.

But you can’t even know to fear this higher ruler until you’ve moved past your innate, instinctual, possessive fear. Going through the process of cutting ties to the objects and attachments which prop you up — that gets you a long way toward banishing fear, and in its place finding a new place, beyond the fear of losing your stuff and your standing, a place called the kingdom of God.