If you've been reading this blog with any regularity, you've probably figured out by now that I am something of a geek.  In keeping with this geekiness, Leeman and I have been catching up on old episodes of Star-Trek: Seep Space 9 for the last several weeks.  It's a fascinating and bizarre window into the early 90s.

One of the episodes we recently watched revolved around a non-human teenage boy who decides that he wants to enter Starfleet (the elite force which does the boldly going where no one has gone before).  This young man comes from a race which places value on commerce and business.  Naturally, he assumes that he can buy a place in Starfleet with enough cash.  However, he must learn that what is required to achieve his goal is not simply a "fee" that he can pay--whether that is a payment of money or completing tasks that prove his skills--but a much more subtle, much less tangible demonstration of character.

I'll admit that Star Trek is a little cheesy.  But this episode brought to my mind the story of the "rich young ruler" from the Gospels. To make a long story short, this young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus tells him to sell everything he has, and the man goes away saddened, prompting Jesus to note how hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

It goes without saying that most of us in North America fall into this "wealthy" category. And this can be a very troubling passage for us--are we being called on to give away everything we own in order to become part of God’s kingdom?

I tend to think that question misses the point of the story.  In a sense, asking if we are “required” to give away all we have simply views radical rejection of property as another “price” for entrance into the kingdom of heaven.  We are still trapped in that transactional mode of thinking that comes so naturally to us in middle-class North American consumer culture.  We respond so well to the notion of “pay the price, get the product.”  And we run the risk of rendering God one more good or service that we expect to be able to purchase.  It makes us feel good and comfortable to feel like we’ve done what’s required—paid the price needed—to be in relationship with God.  Some of us might see the price as showing up on a Sunday morning.  For others, it might be participating in laudable and important social outreach project.  The evangelical world I come out of would rail against the notion that we can earn a place in God’s kingdom by anything that we do.  All the same, the practice of “praying the sinner’s prayer” and “accepting Jesus into your heart” were presented in a very reductionist way.  Those actions were—in a sense—the price to be paid, in exchange for which God would grant eternal salvation.

I think one of the hardest things to grasp in the Christian faith is that participation in the Kingdom of God is not something that we “get” in exchange for a particular kind of piety (however we want to define that).  Participation in God’s Kingdom is so much more subtle and so much messier than that.  It is about offering not just all of our possessions but the entirety of our very being to God.  It is about living our whole lives oriented towards the person of Jesus Christ.  It is, in other words, an ongoing process of recognizing our shortcomings and allowing Christ to shape and transform us.  That doesn’t happen in a day, or even in a lifetime.  And the chance to walk with Christ on that journey is not something that we have to buy or earn.  It is an opportunity Christ himself offered to all of us when he came into our world.