It’s easy to shame the rich.
If you ask someone, he’ll probably tell you how Jesus did it. After explaining the basic qualifications for inheriting eternal life [1] to a rich man, He added yet another hoop for him to jump through:
“One thing you still lack. Sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in the heavens, and [then] come, follow Me.” [Lk. 18:18-22]
[ἔχω: [ê-kō] transitive: to have, hold, possess, keep, receive, get, regard, consider, think, be able, be married to, wear, be situated]
But, if you feel rich, don’t be in a hurry to follow suit.
Because, as a transitive verb, the Greek word ἔχω had a broad range of meanings. We can see that it sometimes described an attitude which sought possession of something very valuable. More interesting though, It was often recorded [2] as a measure of a man’s capacity for having belief.
So then, that’s a clue to what the rich man still lacked.
And Jesus wasn’t suggesting that everyone liquidate his wealth here. His motive, rather, was to get us to think about how we perceive our possessions.
When Jesus told him to, “sell it all and give it away,” He was waiting for a reaction, and what He heard told Him everything He needed to know. The issue was the focus of the man’s covetousness. We might not covet everything we own, but if we covet [or possess] anything more than the Lord Himself, the kingdom of God will remain a peripheral matter as well.
But there was another thing all too obvious: The rich man was demonstrating that the kingdom was less important that he was letting on.
That might actually have been more embarrassing than anything.