Unbelievable

As I cracked up open my new copy of Kierkegaard's "Works of Love", and was almost overwhelmed by his writing style and attempting to find the thought I had left off reading the day before, my eyes stumbled and fell over a portion I had underlined before.

"Worldly goods are in an external sense actualities; therefore one can possess them, although at the same time he is as one who does not possess them. But the goods of the spirit are only in inwardness, exist only as possessed, and therefore one cannot, if one really possesses them, be as one who does not possess them."

If you have ever bitten into a piece of juicy steak, slowly sink your teeth into the warm flesh as the juices flow over your tongue, and then you chew again, and again, and again! Turns out the steak was a bit thicker than you first calculated, and now you must chew and work over a piece of meat almost too big for your mouth-and all this while trying to play it off in front of present company! Well, reading this passage gave me that feeling of a depth I had passed over before(anyone have to re-read passages over to get anything out of it besides the words?!).

"although at the same time he is as one who does not possess them."

I work presently at a Levine's department store, and I am well acquainted with the owner from church and some MMA classes we have shared, and he owns several stores. You could say he is ballin' out of control, rolling blades in an Escalade. He has a great house, and more, an awesome family. For two years I was blessed enough to be the youth pastor his two children and I don't know two young people of better caliber. And yet, he has a past, of which I will only touch on highlights-which may seem cliche to some, however they may seem they represent what was his reality- drugs, sex, and violence were very large parts of his life. His life was changed for the better by his call to discipleship and conversion, but that isn't the issue here. The issue is that even though he has wealth and material possessions, he is nevertheless a man like any other. If he and i stood side by side in front of a crowd of strangers, how would we seem different apart from our appearance? The one who possesses and the one who does not possess is not immediately clear.

Men are men, whether Jew or Christian, as Shakespeare notes eloquently,

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us,
do we not die?"

-The Jew Shylock in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"

"Worldly goods are in an external sense actualities"

Material, or "worldly goods" are external actualities because they lie outside of the essence of our existence. What I am trying to say is that what you have should not define who you are. If a meaningful existence depends on a car for example, then I pity that existence(I do however differentiate between meaningful and happy, and I also concede that to the extent that worldly goods affect happiness as they are "expected" and necessary for existence; they are directly related to happiness and only when these are fulfilled can meaningfulness be contemplated). The psychologist Victor Frankl was a victim of the holocaust, and he writes this in his book "Man's Search For Meaning" , "when we saw a comrade smoking his own cigarettes, we knew he had given up faith in his strength to carry on". It seems that even in the conditions of a death camp hope was still possible because only those who had faith may lose it. Indeed, there was a hope Frankl described as the "delusion of reprieve", and indeed all hope must be hoped for because hope isn't needed when a situation is sure. Hope lives at the teetering edge of canyons. Worldly goods, material things are not internal to the healthy human because they cannot be possessed inwardly; you cannot conjoin a car to your soul. I think people mean something similar when they say, "you can't take it with you"(King Tutankhamen begs to differ! But last time I checked, all his stuff was in museums). So we see that material things exist outside of ourselves, and should not be internalized as essential to our existence because they blossom, and so they also must fade, and that we are all men(humans for all you feminists!) regardless of what we have or do not have.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal"

Matthew 6:19

"But the goods of the spirit are only in inwardness, exist only as possessed"

While external goods may affect us from outside, even bringing to surface what was there all along(by this I mean to say that I am not sure that people become snooty or were just enabled to be so because of their stuff). However, spiritual goods exist inwardly, as a part of who we are, and in direct contrast to external worldly goods(where there was no true difference between one who possessed and one who did not) there are differences between those who have "goods of the spirit" and those who do not. I do not mean that only such people can be moral, I do mean that only those with spiritual goods(Im sure some object to the use of this term in application to matters of spirit) can go beyond morals in the positive sense. For example, it is moral not to run over a homeless person. However, I am not sure that serving the same homeless person in a kitchen is a moral or immoral act; what I mean is that there is no moral prohibition for it or against it(unless you are a believer of some sort, otherwise it seems to be a preference). No one will knock down my door for giving him soup, neither will I be given a key to the city for the same action. I am not sure if I am making a true distinction here or a sort of false dichotomy, my thinking has been colored by biblical ideas of law and the law of the spirit. It does stand that those who have goods of the spirit will behave, will exist in a way different from those who do not. They may not necessarily be more happy, however, dogs can be happy as well(no offense to my unbelieving friends, I in no way mean to compare you to dogs, only to illustrate that happiness is not necessary for a full existence). I believe it was Hugh Hewitt in a debate with Christopher Hitchens(if it was not PLEASE let me know so I can fix it and procure the correct quotation!), and Hewitt asked if Mr. Hitchens car had broken down one night, and several young men approached him, would it make any difference to him to know that they had just come from a bible study. I believe the answer is obvious.

"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good"

Luke 6:45

"and therefore one cannot, if one really possesses them, be as one who does not possess them."

Those who do not possess spiritual goods cannot be mistaken for those who do. Several studies by the Barna Group have revealed that in some areas there is remarkably little difference between believer and unbelievers. This only shows that no claim to creed or cause can be substituted from true spiritual goods. Going to church is no excuse for not being the church, singing a song is no excuse for worship, forgiveness is not an excuse for bad behavior. I am reminded of the opening of a DC Talk song, which describes that,

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle."

There is so much to this stupidly simple idea, but it seems that many who claim Christ lack essential building blocks of the faith, and the world notices this lack of difference. "one cannot, if one really possesses them, be as one who does not possess them." Even those who do not believe in a world beyond their senses see this as true.

"That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."