Willard seeks to show that when Jesus teaches, he does so in order to correct prevailing assumptions of the time. For instance, he takes on the assumptions that God favors the rich by addressing a rich man who loves wealth more than God. This man does not have eternal life. He has not entered the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus does not say that the rich cannot enter the kingdom. He does not say that the poor have an easier job of it. He does say that no one can do so without God's help and that the rich certainly have a hard time of it.
I view this statement as especially relevant in a society as rich as ours today. Do we still have a tough time entering God's kingdom as a Christian nation? Yes, I believe we do. We have a fine time adhering to social traditions and norms that Christianity has presented. Ask a man, however, if he is willing to sell all he has and give to the poor, and he will tell you you're misreading Jesus' words. He will give you his well-educated excuse for why that's just not possible. Then he will continue life, believing he has eternal life because he "prayed the prayer" and so is saved.
These are just the kind of assumptions Jesus was all about correcting in his day. The rich of his time were thought to be blessed. They had God's favor, clearly. How else could they have become rich?
Jesus so wanted his followers to understand God and to experience God's kingdom. He looked at all their areas of ignorance and tried to explain to them eternal truths using concrete examples and everyday instances of spiritual concepts. We call them parables, but they were really just good teaching tools trying to get across a hard to understand point.
You can't love your neighbor if you believe him to be unlovable. You can't follow Jesus if you assume that what he tells you must be for someone else. But Jesus' words are not for someone else. They are for me; they are for you. They are for the present day, the American, the Asian, and the African. They teach you how to enter God's kingdom, and it's nigh well time we started doing so. I don't know about you, but I am sick of living in this earthly world. I'm sick of following my own desires apart from God. I'm sick of reaching for twigs when I could be inheriting the stars. I'm sick of lofty, inapplicable metaphors, too, but unfortunately, like Jesus, I find it difficult to express verbally precisely what my soul craves from this life.
I know it when I experience it. I read Jesus' words, and I know it must be hidden there within, because I can feel my spirit stir. But I simply cannot place into action what my heart declares is true. God's kingdom is so near, and I can't reach out and grasp it. Such is the Divine Conspiracy. Such is life.
I apologize for venting. I'm tired, and it's been a long day. And I've experienced another day when I did not wake up and embrace the kingdom around me. Food tastes so much blander after having tasted honey. Earthly living is so much less interesting after living the life eternal. This is why Christ said we must pick up our crosses daily. It's as easy as opening the car door and stepping inside in the morning. The door to the kingdom is always at the ready. And the ride is far sweeter.
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