I have been thinking about the rich young man’s question to Jesus. It’s such a young-person thing to ask, isn’t it? As a younger person, I was asking it, in one way or another, all the time: “Am I enough?” “Is it enough?” “What else should I be doing?” The question this young man asked Jesus was always with me. And so I was conscientious to the point of scrupulosity as a young person, at least in some things. And you know what? For me, it worked out pretty well. I notched a lot of accomplishments, had lots of external validation, plenty of people telling me I was doing great. What I didn’t have was Jesus there to give me a reality check. (I read His answer to the young man as, “Guess what, son? It will never be enough because your math doesn’t math. Sell it all; see what happens.”)
Instead of Jesus, I got perimenopause. The epiphany of my incipient middle age is that the answer to the question “What lack I yet?” has become “I don’t care.” [1]
It’s new to me, this attitude, and it feels very transgressive, and even a little bit dangerous. I want to be clear: It’s not that I don’t know I’m lacking. I have faults; I know many of them well and discover new ones all the time. I still want to grow. I still fully embrace the idea that on any given question I could be wrong. But I may finally understand what Mary Oliver means when she says you don’t have to be good. I am not performing goodness anymore. I’m done with that. Because yeah, I’m lacking. But that’s not the important thing. It’s not the interesting question.
When you can finally set down the question of what you lack, the question that comes rushing in to fill the vacuum is, What do I want?
It felt scary at first to stare that question down, but it turns out, Mary Oliver was right again. It turns out, I want good things. Connection and kindness, and quiet afternoons to read and write. Time with my kids and my husband and my siblings. More attention to devote to the garden, and more opportunity to let my feet wander this beautiful planet.
“What lack I yet?” is an immature question, because it will always require an external adjudicator. When we are young, those mechanisms are helpful. They’re necessary. They’re how we learn. But there ought to come a time in a life when we accept that we simply are, and allow ourselves to make peace with being and knowing that.
I don’t think the rhetoric from the Church is especially helpful in this regard. The institution, at least, is in the business of external adjudication. Keeping us asking, always, perpetually “What lack I yet?” ensures that at least some of us will always come back, brows furrowed, convinced only they can give us the answer. On the other hand, the theological training I received, such as it is, from my ongoing years of Mormonism has also fitted me with the tools that helped me to realize it was time to ask the new question. And I have had Mormon mentors, many of them I now realize, who modeled and successfully navigated the transition from “What lack I yet?” to “Being who I am, what do I want?”
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What do you think? Is “What lack I yet?” a helpful question? Do you still find yourself asking it? Do you think it’s a question the Church is invested in our asking? And what connection might it have to concepts like “daily repentance”?
Both of my questions are egocentric (literally I-centered). While I think there is a place for such questions, are the better questions other-oriented?
Do you have a question you find that you ask yourself a lot? What is it, and why do you think you ask it?
Looking forward to your comments!
[1] I considered phrasing this more accurately and colorfully, but this a Mormon blog, after all.
I wonder if Jesus’ response to this young man was an effort to get him to unload all the external things he was using to validate himself. I don’t know that his “what lack I yet?” question was any less ego centric than “what do I want?” I guess it depends on the reasoning behind the question. It seems to me that the young man’s life could have been a game of obstacles to beat and win at–and that included personal achievement, spiritual standing, eternal reward, etc. It kind of reminds me of people who are way into video games–they will keep playing it long after they’ve played through the main plot just to say they’ve found every secret and tackled every obstacle at every difficulty level. And this young man is possibly going to Jesus, showing him all his achievements and essentially asking him to point him at more obstacles he can tackle as he has run out. And Jesus’ response is effectively, “why don’t you turn off screens and come outside”. I could be completely wrong about this though.
I find the “what do I lack?” question has much more meaningful impact when it is asked in the context of “what do I want?”. For example, I take singing lessons from an opera singer. I have a fair bit of natural talent at singing, but there is an obvious gap between where I’m at and a professional singer. I chose to do singing lessons out of a personal desire to get better at it, to learn what I don’t know about it (which turns out to be a lot), and progress in an art form I find deeply meaningful. And within that context, “what do I lack?” helps me move towards “what do I want?” really well.
It takes a while to go from “what do I lack” to “what’s wrong with them,” to “I’m okay just as I am.”
If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
Instereo,
To, “I will trust in thee forever.”
Always wonderi why Jesus” words get voted down.
Part of me is afraid that the answer to the question is something that we need to find out for ourselves, and therefore it isn’t spelled out. The reason why we need to find out for ourselves is because if it were spelled out, we’d do it wrong, and not change because we thought we were doing it right. Something like actually being kind to the less fortunate. It’s not a check box but all of the check boxy things are supposed to be getting me to that point. And maybe their working and maybe their not. But if I were divinely instructed that’s what I was lacking, I might put on a show, check the box, and then stop my spiritual growth, instead of actually being kind to the less fortunate when it wasn’t on my schedule.
Hi Everybody!
chrisdrobison, first, kudos on your gambling post of this Sunday. It made me think hard. I’m still trying to formulate in my head what I want to say in reply. Assumptions were challenged. I really enjoyed it. When you wrote this: “I find the ‘what do I lack?’ question has much more meaningful impact when it is asked in the context of ‘what do I want?’,” I found myself paying attention. You are right. Putting the second question as the frame changes everything, doesn’t it? Because it’s internally motivated now.
Instereo–I’m not sure I experienced the questions in that sequence. I’ve been asking “what’s wrong with them?” in some sort of iteration since I can remember. And I remember Nursery.
vajra2, yep. That’s what Jesus tells him. Some early Christian legends have it that while he went away sorrowing, eventually he does what Jesus asks. Some say he is the man who flees in Mark 14:51-52. As for the down-vote, who knows? I’m sure more than once I’ve down-voted what I meant to up-vote.
Jack, I think I will do a post at some point on the Psalm of Nephi. It’s a very rich text.
jader3rd, this is the problem with goals that are handed to us from others, isn’t it? And you’re so right. Even if I knew the thing I was instructed to do came straight from God, it would change the way I do the thing. “Margie,” comes the voice of God, “I want you to spend three hours every afternoon in your backyard reading!” All the sudden I’m feeling very differently about it. It’s not longer the same experience, and it isn’t filling my cup in the same way.
Maybe the words of Jesus get voted down because the BOM is made up from worldly sources age the Bible is refined down to what was acceptable after various committee reviews.
Margie, like almost all scriptural stories, I both love and hate them.
If we read them as koans and allow them to do what stories are capable of doing, which is revealing endless little truths about human nature and the things we think and do that cause as many problems as they solve, then I love them.
But unfortunately, the question “What lack I yet?” comes with ten tons of baggage and a story arc that seems to demand that the question persist forever.
When we begin the story of the human race with the idea that we did something wrong that made us “unacceptable” to God, everything that follows will inevitably become an attempt to solve that problem. I’m not sure what the gospel writer intended here, but I’m pretty sure how LDS discourse tends to interpret the story of the rich young ruler.
“What lack I yet?” feels as natural as breathing to an LDS person. Of course I’m going to ask the question. I’ve been taught that I must become something different, or else.
And yet, our own theology and doctrine undermine the need for the question. We teach that a child, up to a certain age, needs nothing, really, not even baptism. We assume that a child is blameless and whole, lacking nothing. But once we reach that age, suddenly the whole story changes. Life itself becomes risky, and we live with a persistent undercurrent of fear, asking: Am I worthy? Am I enough? What lack I yet?
Perhaps this question isn’t a God problem so much as a human problem. But we have certainly made it a God problem.
Maybe Jesus is asking him, “Dude, when are you actually going to start living and give up this exhausting project of proving your value?”
Of course, the question can’t really be untethered from the “eternal life” the man is asking about. The problem with modern Christianity, I think, is that we’ve interpreted eternal life almost entirely as an eschatological subject, something about what happens after we die, while Jesus seems to be treating it as a question about how we live now.
Maybe Jesus is really asking, “Man, are you tired of this ‘me’ project yet? Are you ready to unclench your fist and start living without the constant fear that everything you have might be lost?”
I’m reminded of an early scene in Les Misérables, when Bishop Myriel travels fearlessly into a place everyone knows to be dangerous. When asked why he isn’t afraid, his answer is essentially, “Because I have nothing to lose.”
To be clear, I’m the rich young ruler in this story. I’m still mostly living in fear of losing the things I think bring me meaning, security, and happiness.
“What lack I yet?”
I hope that someday soon I’ll stop asking that question and learn to ask a better one.
Great article Margie. I say go for the color my friend! I think everyone in my ward has heard me use “colorful” language at one time or another. I do my best to keep the f bombs in the bomb bay, though am not always successful. J Golden Kimball is my hero, and I would surmise the kind of guy who finally said, “to hell with everyone telling me how to live my life, I understand the parameters, now leave to it!” I just got released last month as bishop, and in my debrief to the new guy, a great guy, my first counselor, I mentioned to him that I hoped he recognized that my thoughts are that we are not all on the same damn path. We all have have our own personal journey, (one of the reasons I am not hip to this whole “covenant path” idea) and I asked him to keep his perspective wide when helping those in our ward.
I do appreciate Lehi’s vision of the path and a rod of iron, we all know as adults what that looks like. I told the new guy, that I know the path, I cross it on a regular basis, and recognize it. I’ve even tasted the fruit, and, it is, wonderful. I really enjoy a great peach in the summer time, but I’m not going to eat peaches 24/7/365. I truly try to live my life so that I do cross the trail with the rod of iron on a regular basis, but you have to unclip your harness from it throughout your life, or you are not living your best life. The same path, tread like a zombie, single file, one behind another is not my idea of joy.
I couldn’t agree more that the young man’s question is just that, but I also like Chris’s thought of changing it up some to be more applicable to an adult.
Todd, geez I would love to have a sit down with you sometime my friend! I always look forward to your insights, although, I did have to look up “eschatological”! 🤣
Cheers Friends
In a strictly humanistic sense, it might be much simpler.
Yes, to the extent this story might be based on something Jesus actually said, he was indeed advocating for total asceticism. He was an apocalyptic preacher who believed the earthly rule of the Romans was soon to be toppled in favor of the political restoration of Jewish autonomy and the literal rule of God on earth.
The fact that that didn’t happen means that we don’t have to take this particular piece of advice to heart. We don’t have to liken all scriptures to our lives. Some of them just aren’t applicable. In this case, selling everything you have makes you henceforth ineffective at helping your neighbor.
What lack you yet, young man? Maybe log a few more service hours at the soup kitchen this week, donate a few more dollars to a legitimately effective charity, and try to eat less beef.
Margie,
As someone with scrupulosity I appreciate the reframing as “what do I want?” I took me 50 years to be able move from a people pleaser to ask that very question. The moment I knew the “what do I lack” was not the right question was when my stake president looked at me across a table and said in the context of an LQBT discussion that we don’t support gay rights. That’s the moment I took responsibility for my own beliefs and decided to leave the church.
It’s also the point that I started to understand humanism. Similar to @Kirkstall’s post, every person giving up everything on a planet with 8.1 billion people would lead to mass death and suffering. We need more civilization, order, coordination, collaboration. Better to live responsibly, be kind to others, and perhaps ease up on the God accelerator.
Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman points to the fact that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who believed the end of the world was imminent, like in his own lifetime, and therefore a lot of his sayings are about divesting yourself of worldly goods which will all burn away anyhow. He wasn’t setting up a church (that was Paul). He was warning everyone to immediately prepare for the end. It does make a story like this one make a different kind of sense than if you expect to continue to live a normal lifespan. If I sell all my worldly goods at age 30, things might not be great when I hit 80.
Josh h, in graduate school, one of the things I remember chatting about with a BYU professor is the question of how scripture is produced. It happens a lot of different ways (independent of any intrinsic value or “truth” that may or may not be in the text). I kind of came away from the conversation preferring the committee-review method.
Todd S. Yes. If I can’t struggle with a text, it’s probably not morally valuable for me. I remember a great post you did on the Prodigal Son here last year I think. I have long disliked and therefore really appreciated that story, for many of the same reasons. Anyway when you write that “What lack I yet?” feels as natural to an LDS person as breathing–yes! That’s why it’s so weird to not care anymore. Weird. But not troubling.
17RRider, it is, I confess, to the f bomb I would have turned. It alliterates so beautifully with so many great adjectives and adverbs, and there’s something in English about the unvoiced fricatives. Very satisfying. But not very polite. Your image of the press of the throng of folks following the Iron Rod as zombies! Omg! You made my month! That’s fantastic.
Kirkstall, yes. You and Hawkgrrrl both make good points. What Jesus actually meant by this could be pretty simple. The text has taken on new lives as it has aged, and by the time it arrived to young Margie in Sunday School and then especially Seminary, it was a cudgel to beat herself with, a kind of a perpetual mantra. I’m glad it’s stopped.
Trevor H, what a powerful story and a clarifying moment. Good for you! And yes, if we all followed Jesus’s advice to the young man, that’s not a world I want to live in. I probably still do spend too many of my resources on myself and my immediate family. But unlike the Margie I was when “What lack I yet?” was an organizing question, I can’t find it in me now to be very worked up over that fact. It’s strange, that feeling. Strange, but like I said above, not troubling.
Hawkgrrrl, yeah. If Jesus was expecting some type of literal, imminent, apocalyptic end, then the advice makes sense. In that case, I think the fact that he went through all the default “right answers” first in the story is interesting. He thought the end was nigh, but still started at the ten commandments. “Don’t commit adultery. Don’t kill people.” Only after the young man said (with what I imagine to be an inward eyeroll), “Yeah, yeah. I’ve been doing all that since I was a kid,” does Jesus go all end-times on him. It reminds of when my eighteen year-old students tell me that they’ve been doing something “since I was a kid.” It’s so precious. I mean, I know what they mean–often they’re talking about something they started at six or seven years old. “But, darlings,” I want to say, “you’re still kids–don’t rob yourselves of it; own it because it doesn’t last.” I guess young people have been talking like that forever. And there is something that’s just so unselfconsciously adorable about the young man saying he’s been doing things “since my youth.”
The rich young man was unable to detach, And so he went away sad.
Attachment is the primary cause of suffering. Of course I am a buyer and a seller and want to explain away as metaphor or as a product of his sociology those teachings that call my attachment into question. “He didn’t really mean THAT because thatv might mean I might have to give up something that I’m attached to..
Every time I look into the Holy Book I want to tremble (tremble)
Or when I read about the part where the carpenter cleared the temple (temple)
For the buyers and the sellers were no different fellas than what I profess to be
And it causes me shame to know we’re not the people we should be