NO POSSESSIONS
Reflection the the WORD. 2025 SEP 07LUKE 14:33 “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Some people think that Jesus was a mindless pacifist but he wasn't. One of the most overlooked gospel facts is that the disciples on the very night when Jesus was arrested, were heavily armed, some of them to their teeth. It should not come as a surprise. Jesus explicitly told them in the gospel of Luke chapter 22 that " now, whoever has a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet. Whoever has none, let him sell his cloak, and buy a sword."
If Jesus would not have told them to buy swords, they would have bought them anyways, as some of the disciples were considered professional combatants, like Simon the Zealot, where zealot means guerrilla fighters, and Judas Iskariot, where his nick name can be derived from the term "Sicariot", which means the fighters of the hidden daggers. These latter ones had concealed daggers under their cloaks to surprise attack Roman sentinels or small patrols.
Any Messiah candidate of that time was not able to dodge the issue of initiating a holy war against the Roman occupiers. The very forerunner of Jesus, his gospel cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded by Herod Antipas, King of Galilee, the permanent ally of the Roman Empire, because he was afraid that the movement of John will be sooner or later culminating into an armed Revolution.
After John died, Jesus became John’s successor, and most of the revolutionary elements from the Baptizer movement joined Jesus in the hope of an armed revolt against the Roman Empire.
This apocalyptic environment is depicted in the gospel of Matthew, when Jesus told the disciples that "'Don't think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn't come to send peace, but a sword."
The whole era, almost all underground movements, moreover even the mainstream denominations, including not only the Qumran Essenes, but the very Pharisees as well, were filled with the wild dreams of an Apocalyptic War, waging against the Wicked in general, and against the Romans in particular.
Some radicalism in the Gospels are present not only in the militant and apocalyptic dreams against the Roman Empire, but also in the general way of life of the Baptizers, as they were called regarding the origins of the Jesus movement, rooted within the followers of John the Baptist. However, they earned a new nickname, The Way, which meant their different ways of thinking, acting and living.
Jesus himself stated that the external world has its own ways, but the disciples must have an other wayof life, even if it means that they have to oppose the whole world, as it is.
Just as it is written in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, “How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it.”
Benevolent acquaintances, well wishing adherents, superficial friends, external supporters on one side, close followers, close disciples on the other side, when it came to his crowd.
The requirements for being chosen directly by JESUS was quite strict, a kind of a radical setup, listed in the Gospel of Luke: “If anyone comes to me, and doesn't hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can't be my disciple."
It did not mean that otherwise a person could not go to Heaven in the Afterlife, but it certainly meant that the close circle of the discipleship was kind of barred.
Today, we mostly judge some of Jesus’ radical sounding requirements as unrealistic, unobservable in real life, and one of them is the NO POSSESSIONS rule, as Jesus told it to the rich young man, that you are almost completely clean, but still you have one flaw. You are rich. Go and sell all your possessions and give it to the poor, an then come and follow me.
It seems unobservable, but exactly this was the every day way of life in the Jerusalem congregation, nicknamed as The POOR, as it is written in the Book of the Acts chapter 4:
“The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common… For neither was there among them any who lacked, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold,and laid them at the apostles' feet,& distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need."
The only organic social system on Earth, which was similar to the sharing level of the Jerusalem congregation, was / is the Indigenous way of life all around the planet, including North America and the Jewish Kibbutzes in Israel. What deems impossible to the civilized world of greed and war, that was observed in the Jerusalem congregation. Just like in a big family, they shared everything, and it was the LAW among them.
It came to happen that a couple wanted to join the Jerusalem congregation. They sold their property, bringing the money to the Apostles, but the man lied about the amount, as he wanted to keep a portion, as a security fund for himself. The Apostle Peter told him that he lied in the presence of the Holy Spirit, so the man dropped dead on the spot. His wife arrived a few hours later, facing the same question. Not knowing what had happened to her husband, Ananias, so she lied, too.
It is written: "She fell down immediately at the Apostle Peter's feet, and died.”
She was carried out and buried together with her husband.
Nonetheless, from the very dawn of the known history of the so-called civilized world the greedy love of gold and the love of power ruled human life almost everywhere, and pushed the world to sink into permanent warfare and slavery, till this very day. The core of this illness is the idol worship of the private ownership. In the known history, the tyranny of private ownership began in the Mesopotamian Sumeria, where they recorded in cuneiform writings, that the KINGSHIP, as an institution, descended to Earth from Heaven.
At the time of the Tower of Babel, in the Book of Genesis, chapter 9, Emperor Nimrod declared himself the Ruler of the whole Earth, with his tower besieging the Gate of Heavens itself, attempting to dethrone God. It meant that the Emperor, as the KING of life and death, playing God, claimed the whole Earth and its inhabitants to himself, like literally owning everything and everybody, while denying God’s Kingship and Right to rule the creation. This is the ultimate blasphemy.
But in small, the tyranny of the private property rules our lives as well. The Apostle Paul tried to remind everyone, especially the rich, in writing, that “what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
Until the whole Earth will not acknowledge God as the only King and the sole owner of the Universe and Earth and everything in it, people, land, water, air and fire, there is no redemption on Earth.
Until I do not acknowledge, that I personally do not own anything, including my own life, body and soul, but God owns everything in my life, body and soul, until that, there is no redemption in my heart. May GOD come to our rescue, may the LORD be hailed as the only KING.
AMEN
