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Part 10: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Stuff can’t save us
A man (sometimes identified as the “rich young ruler”) comes to Jesus, asking how he can have eternal life. The man seems like a prime candidate for citizenship in the kingdom: he claims to keep all the commandments and love his neighbor. He is self-aware enough to sense that something is still missing from his life, and is open enough to ask Jesus for guidance. But Jesus’ answer grieves his heart: “Go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” We assume that it is the “sell and give” part of Jesus’ command that distresses the man, though “come and follow” is no easy matter either.
People often insist it isn’t money that is the root of all evil — it is love of money (1 Timothy 6:10). I’m not sure such parsing benefits us very much. Jesus doesn’t say, “It will be hard for a person who loves money to enter the kingdom.” He says it will be hard for a rich person. Most of us are indeed rich compared to the rest of the world, simply by virtue of living in the U.S.A. Where is the good news in this text for us?
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, book six in J.K. Rowling’s beloved series, we learn a great deal about the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort — his origins, his evil schemes, and his quest for immortality. Dumbledore, the benevolent headmaster at Hogwarts School of Wizardry, educates Harry on Voldemort’s use of horcruxes — physical objects that contain bits and pieces of Voldemort’s soul.
Horcruxes are “very Dark stuff,” one character says. Voldemort has created each horcrux by taking another person’s life while acquiring the object — a locket, a diary, a ring. A portion of his soul does live on in the item, but the transformation leaves the wizard “mutilated beyond the realms of what we might call ‘usual evil,’” says Dumbledore. He is no longer whole; there are pieces of him scattered far and wide, held captive within these possessions. It is a poor substitute for eternal life.
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