On more than one occasion Jesus speaks in a cautionary way about wealth.  In response, we often assure ourselves that it’s not the wealth itself that’s problematic, but rather our attitude towards it.  Echoing Paul, we maintain stoutly that it’s not the possession but the love of money where evil is rooted, coyly implying that the soil of our own character remains free of such corruption – that vast wealth would meet its master in our hands.

Of course, everyone’s a hero in his own mind until his mettle is tested on the battlefield. 

And in fact, many qualities of our actual characters – as opposed to our own self-conceptions – await opportunity for proving.  Fidelity remains hypothetical until beckoned by the Siren-song, as the cancer ward provides a tribunal for professions of religious confidence.

Excessive wealth reveals true character in the same way, and the quality tested for is humility, the absence of self-esteem in one’s dealings with others and with God.  Which leads to the two reasons why Jesus, among all the various circumstances that can expose our hypocrisies and self-deceptions, singles out wealth for special status.

The first is because humility lies at the very foundation of the heavenly existence, as codified in the first beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for of them is the kingdom of heaven.

And the second is because it’s a test no one can pass.