The Eye of The Needle

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.  You know the commandments: you shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother."  He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all of these since my youth."  Jesus looked at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me."  When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard will it be for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!"  And the disciples were perplexed at these words.  But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.  They were greatly astounded  and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."

Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you."  Jesus said, "Truly I tell you there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age - houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, fields, with persecutions - and in the age to come eternal life.  But many who are first will be last and the last will be first."

Mark 10:17-31

A man I know well tells a story from a time of great distress in his spiritual life.  He was respected man in his community and in his church.  He cared deeply about his faith and the local church and served many years on church boards. People regarded him as wise and prudent and sought his opinion on many things.  He was successful in his professional life and I suspect his 'net worth' reflected this though he never paraded around in expensive cars or flaunted a wealthy lifestyle.  He was a disciplined man and this discipline extended into his spiritual life where he had a pattern of waking early to read scripture and to pray.  During a particularly difficult time of being unsettled and dissatisfied in his spiritual life he asked the Lord, 'what has this all been for?  I have served you faithfully, I have given to the church, I have been faithful to your commandments and yet I feel like the man knocking on the door and never entering fully into life with you... the life that I have been working for and the one that I long for.'  In the quiet of this particular morning he heard the Lord tell him very clearly that he needed to give away more of his wealth.  He began to ask the Lord about this and to be obedient to him.  As he told the story to his children years later, the tears fell from his face when he recalled the morning that a great change began.  It remained a living Word, one that guided him into his later years and lead him into greater intimacy, joy, freedom and life than he had ever known in his walk with God.

I thought of him as I read this text from Mark. I suspect the man I know was grieved when he heard from the Lord that he needed to give away more of his wealth. He had not regarded his wealth as a barrier, he would have regarded himself as generous.  But God saw the Rich Man in both of these stories "and he looked at the man and he loved him." He loved them both enough to say, 'sell what you own, give it away and come follow me.'  It is not an easy invitation.  It stops us in our tracks, it grieves us, perplexes us, as it did the disciples.  In Judaism (and in our time) wealth was understood to be a sign of God's favour; it was inconceivable to the disciples that the wealth would be a barrier to following Jesus. But Jesus flatly rejected the merit based system of salvation based on good works accomplished by the rich.  In God's economy there is no favour in material possession or a lack thereof.  And the particular and pressing concern of wealth is the false sense of security it creates and the very real temptation to trust in material resources and its' power rather than God.  To underscore this important teaching Jesus says to his disciples, "Children how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God, it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God."  Jesus intended this to be taken literally, it is an absurd image, the largest animal in the region and the smallest opening.  An utter impossibility.

But our salvation doesn't depend on our own ability to observe the commandments, to accomplish the impossible task of squeezing through the eye of the needle. Our salvation doesn't depend on who has given up the most or who won the race to the back of the line. Our salvation is a gift of God made possible through Christ.   And this gets back to the man's first question to Jesus: 'What can I do to inherit eternal life?'  Is inheritance earned? No, it is simply given because you are a part of the family. It is God who makes the impossible, possible; who, in Christ, gives us the great gift of being called his children and heirs to his kingdom.

Whenever I hear the words "with God all things are possible" I think back to Abraham and to Sarah who laughed at for years at the promise of God to them, "how can this be? I am past the age of having children?" Ah, but with God, all things are possible - life comes from barrenness, a dead girl is raised back to life, a destitute widow gives out of her poverty all she has to live on, a woman breaks an alabaster jar and anoints Jesus' head with priceless myrrh, Jesus receives, deep in prayer, strength to give his life for the sake of the world.  With God all things are possible.

There is another important and hard message for us in this story:  discipleship will cost us. Jesus lays claim to the whole person and following Jesus means the removal of any other support that impedes our obedience to him.  These losses for the gospel are costly and hard; the rich man walks away grieving. His satisfaction with the world had to be overcome with a greater desire for righteousness and life. 

This week I was laying beside Sophie in bed and after the usual bedtime chatter she said in a rather serious tone, "Mom, I have something to tell you."  "You can tell me anything, Soph," I responded.  Turning her face into the pillow she blurted out, "I love God more than you." I paused for a moment at her admonition "Oh Sophie, that is quite right.  I know you love me and I love you.  But to love God most is a good thing."  "But it feels weird to say, Mom."  "I understand that, Sophie but it doesn't mean you don't love me A LOT, God is teaching you something very important.  It is a good thing."  

The Spirit of God came upon the man in the distress of his soul and the quiet of the morning and the little girl at night who confessed that she loved God more than her mom and he began to teach them and transform them and lead them into life.