How Rich Are You?

When we read the biblical accounts of the Rich Young Ruler, we feel better that Jesus is not talking about us. When we read any of Jesus' many scathing condemnations of the rich, we think about people today who are much richer than we are. That's just human nature I suppose. Most of us don't think of ourselves as 'rich'. That's a designation that belongs to people who have much, much more. Of course all of us can find someone who has much, much more. So, by that train of logic, no one is 'rich'.

How do you know who is really rich? According to Donald Kraybill in his piercing The Upside-Down Kingdom, about 10% of people in Jesus' day were in the wealthy class. The other 90% were poor. There was no middle class. Jesus, as the son of a carpenter, would have been at the top of the poor heap. So would most of his disciples: fishermen. But there was a significant and impenetrable gap between the poor and the rich. When Jesus talks about the rich, everyone would have known who he was talking about: the chief priests, tax collectors, government officials, and others who benefitted from an unbalanced economic system in which all the resources flowed upstream.

So, given that today, we have a pretty large middle class (upper middle, middle middle, lower middle, etc. notwithstanding), who is really rich? For whom will it be harder to enter heaven than thread a camel through the eye of a needle? According to the folks at www.globalrichlist.com, you might be surprised. It might be you. According to them, I am in the upper 1% of household incomes in the world. Where are you?

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 55,146,441 richest person on earth!