MacDonald (as selected by Lewis)

[Kendel]

@Mervin_Bitikofer

When in keeping the commandments you have found the great reward of loving righteousness–the further reward of discovering that, with all the energy you can put forth, you are but an unprofitable servant ; when you have come to know that the law can be kept only by such as need no law; when you have come to feel that you would rather pass out of being than live on such a poor, miserable, selfish life as alone you can call yours; when you are aware of a something beyond all that your mind can think, yet not beyond what your heart can desire–a something that is not yours, seems as if it never could be yours, which yet your life is worthless without; when you have come therefore to the Master with the cry, “ What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? ” it may be he will then say to you, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come follow me .”

”With all the energy we can put forth, we are but unprofitable servants.”

In Ultimatum from Either/Or Kierkegaard examines the common phrase “One does what one can” in relation to our service to God.

@Kendel

Shall I admire more the sublime concepts of the nature of the Godhead that this ingenuity makes manifest or the profound insight into the human heart, the probing consciousness that scrutinizes itself and now comes to the easy, cozy conclusion: One does what one can? Was it such an easy matter for you, my listener, to determine how much that is: what one can?

He concludes (in this section) that, while we wish to console ourselves (as we recognize ourselves to be unprofitable servants, perhaps) with the thought that we have done all we could, if we think about what we are saying or if we have ever striven to determine the bounds of what we can do to serve God, we remain in uncertainty, in anxiety. We are unprofitable servants.

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And to the second half of this quote from MacDonald:

when you are aware of a something beyond all that your mind can think, yet not beyond what your heart can desire–a something that is not yours, seems as if it never could be yours, which yet your life is worthless without; when you have come therefore to the Master with the cry, “ What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? ” it may be he will then say to you, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come follow me .”

The way MacDonald expresses this passage sheds new-to-me light on it. In directing the young man to sell everything, give to the poor and “follow me” Jesus seems to be suggesting that the selling and giving were not the focus, neither was some eventual eternal reality, but that He himself was the fulfillment of the young man’s desire for eternal life. Sell everything, give the money to the poor (those who really need it and won’t be hindered by having some of it) was the way to move the man’s attention and pride from his stuff, so that he could redirect it toward the one he would follow and in whom he would find fulfillment.