“The Eye of The Needle”
Mark 10:17-31
What is difficult, puzzling and/or shocking in the passage we just read?
What would be challenging about trying to live out what Jesus has just said?
What comes across here, as Good News?
Why would someone want to take on the challenges of living this way?
Today’s Gospel lesson is a doozy, is it not?
It’s got at least three points that most of us, including myself, find literally incredible.
I mean, does Jesus really mean what He says here?
When we think about this passage this way, it is understandable why the urge to soften its demands has been around for a long, long time.
For instance, I’d imagine many of us have heard that there was a gate in ancient Jerusalem called “The Eye of the Needle,” which was so narrow that a camel couldn’t get through unless the packs it would have been carrying on its back were removed, at which point it could get through on its knees.
A ninth-century interpreter made up that idea.
No such gate ever existed.
It’s the old version of a modern-day urban legend—invented as a metaphor that generations and generations of people repeated until it turned into a solid, “Archeologists have discovered this” sort of thing.
But, again, it’s fiction.
If we look closely enough at the Scripture passage we will see that if Jesus had been talking about such a gate instead of the itsy, bitsy hole in a literal needle the disciples wouldn’t have been so shocked, dismayed and astonished asking: “Who then can be saved?”
Instead, they would have been more like, “Oh, what a bummer we have to take those packs off the back of a camel and carry them ourselves for 50 feet.”
There is no easy out here.
There is no “Eye of the Needle” gate that camels can crawl through.
There is no technical point of Greek to tell us that Jesus really didn’t mean what He seems to be saying here.
And as absolutely hilarious as a certain comedian’s routine is about how you really just need a very, very powerful blender and a lot of patience to get a camel through the eye of a needle, this clearly is not Jesus’ point either.
Nor can most of us say, “Oh, but I’m not rich.”
Try entering your income into the Global Rich List website and see where you end up.
For example, if you were to be in an American family of 5 with a household income of only $30,000, you would still be richer than 81% of the rest of the world’s people.
Pretty amazing…and sad.
I am actually very, very, very rich!!!
How about you?
So, let’s take a moment and pause.
Let’s pause and allow ourselves to get to the place Jesus’ disciples were when they said, “Who then can be saved?”
This passage of Scripture is about discipleship.
It’s about following Jesus.
And following Jesus is not easy.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted: “Grace is free, but it’s not cheap.
It cost Jesus his life.
And when Jesus calls us, he calls us to come and die.
But in doing so, he is calling us to come and live.”
So, here we have, in Mark Chapter 10, this rich young ruler…
…Luke’s Gospel informs us that he is a ruler and Matthew’s Gospel tells us he is young.
This story is so important that it is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke…
…that is unusual—it doesn’t happen often.
In any event, this young guy with a gleam in his eye comes running up to Jesus.
He’s got the world by the tail, but he knows he’s still lacking something…
…and when he spies Jesus he sees his chance to find out how to finally get it!
So, he falls on his knees in front of Jesus and says: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
And Jesus starts naming off some of the commandments…
…at this, the young man declares:
“Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
And then, we are given a very interesting, and I think, significant detail that is left out of every other encounter Jesus has with folks who come running up to Him asking for something.
It says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”
And this is the way Jesus looks at all of us, is it not?
It’s apparent.
John 3:16 even tells us that “God so loved the world…”
And Jesus’ new command to His disciples was “Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another.”
So, yes.
We know Jesus loves everyone.
And we know Jesus loves this guy.
This is just the only place in the Bible where it says specifically that Jesus looked at a person and loved that person.
And I think the reason this detail is put in this specific incident is that Jesus is about to say something to this guy that is going to blow his socks off!!!
He’s about to really, really challenge him.
And it’s not because Jesus has it out for the guy.
It’s quite the opposite.
It’s because Jesus loves the guy.
Jesus loves the guy so much that He must tell him the truth no matter how hard it will be for the guy to swallow.
And since Jesus loves everyone the same…which means more than any of us could possibly imagine…
…what Jesus says to the young man in Mark Chapter 10 He says to us as well: “One thing you lack.
Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come, follow me.”
Now, let’s pause again.
And given the fact that, more than likely, everyone in this room is rich when compared to about 80-99% of the rest of the world…
…let’s try and take this in.
Let’s try and put ourselves in the rich young ruler’s place.
I mean, otherwise it is really easy for me to judge the guy from afar.
It’s really easy for me to say, “Huh, can you imagine?
What a greedy fool.
He chose his riches over following Jesus.”
But if I were to think this, and I know I have read this passage hundreds of times and thought this exact thing, I would be judging not only him but myself as well.
Because, I am rich.
And I have not sold everything I have and given it to the poor in order to follow Jesus.
As a matter of fact, I cannot imagine being able to do something like that.
What would happen to my family?
How would we eat?
How could I send my kids to college?
Where would we sleep?
What would my wife do to me?
Would I even have a wife anymore?
No offense to Clair, but I mean—let’s be real here.
Who in the world or at least in the affluent United States of America are going to sell all they have and give it to the poor in order to follow Jesus?
I haven’t heard of nor met any.
And yet, this is what Jesus says is the one thing the rich young ruler lacks if he wants to inherit eternal life.
Now, there was an ancient scribe who added words to make verse 24 read: “how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God” and because of that—that is how the King James Version reads.
But again, this is an addition to what Jesus said, not what the oldest manuscripts tell us.
That would give us an out—as if the problem with the rich man is not being rich but putting faith in the wealth he has or craves.
And this supposed solution ignores the overall thrust of verses 23-25.
“How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus’ point is very clear: just as large animals simply do not fit through tiny openings, so the wealthy do not fit in the kingdom of God.
This causes the disciples to have a panic attack.
Then Peter, who is very worried about his salvation at this point speaks up.
He’s trying to prove to Jesus that he and the other disciples have, indeed, done what the rich young ruler is not able to do.
“We have left everything to follow you!” Peter exclaims.
And indeed, Jesus’ agreement with Peter shows that wealth isn’t just stuff like shiny metals, stacked bills, and numbers on a page or in a computer.
Wealth is a—perhaps—a worldly value.
It includes our relationships with one another, with our neighbors, with people across town and on the other continents—in subtle and powerful ways too numerous to count.
Jesus offers us abundant life—Kingdom life—right here on earth—in real time.
Real joy.
Real love.
Real peace.
These are things worldly success cannot give us and the worldly ordering of our relationships can’t give us.
The opportunity Jesus is offering us today and every day is to let the shock of Jesus’ words jolt us out of those old, unfulfilling, enslaving ways of seeing, living, and relating to others so that we are free to experience what God wants for us, as individuals, as members of the Body of Christ, and as members of our communities, our society, our world.
What Jesus is talking about is profound transformation, and we do a profound disservice to one another, the Church and the world when we pretend otherwise.
Perhaps that is one of our biggest problems.
We, like the rich young ruler have, in reality walked away from Jesus and chosen riches over heaven.
So, we are rich, but sad.
Jesus’ call on each and every one of us is to be transformed, to think and pray hard about what we’re called to do about wealth and poverty.
To look at how God’s Kingdom, God’s rule, God’s way of using power are entirely incompatible with our way of using power to keep our wealth and shut the rest of the world out.
Jesus is calling us to reconciliation—with God and one another.
It’s all about loving God and loving other people and nothing else.
And that is what discipleship is.
That is what following Jesus is.
It leads us to a Cross.
It goes all the way.
But it also leads us to Resurrection and eternal life.
And that’s no small thing.
It’s huge.
If we do this, nothing will be the same, and we will be more fully ourselves, more fully human beings living in God’s image, more fully alive in this present age and the eternal age to come than we ever could have imagined possible.
Jesus isn’t just talking about a few minor tweaks to financial planning; He’s talking about a new world and a new you.
And yes, that means new ways of relating to one another and new definitions of what family is.
So, what are we to do with all this?
People want preachers to “preach the Bible,” and this is it.
Of course, I don’t live this way.
Do you?
Does anyone?
Can anyone?
Even the disciples who had, indeed, left everything to follow Jesus—were they able to do it?
I don’t know.
In this same chapter, they all get mad at James and John because they ask Jesus to let one of them sit at His right and the other at His left in Christ’s glory.
And they aren’t mad because James and John are acting like such greedy, power-hungry knuckle-heads.
They are mad because James and John asked Jesus before they got the chance!
So, no one can enter the Kingdom.
Is that what this is all about?
Jesus did say, “With man this is impossible…”
But the Good News is that Jesus didn’t stop there.
He finished by saying “not with God; all things are possible with God.”
So, Jesus can make a camel go through the eye of a needle?
Jesus can bring people, even rich, wretched, lost dysfunctional folks like me who don’t fit into eternal life, into His kingdom—all the way to His Cross and His Resurrection?
“All things are possible with God.”
So, the only way is that I’m going to enter the Kingdom is to believe in God’s mercy alone.
If I try and accomplish this salvation thing, get into the Kingdom on my own, I might as well try and get a camel through the eye of a needle.
And that ain’t gonna happen.
But if I radically trust in God…
…if I take that leap…
…If I’m willing to believe Jesus…
…if I can believe that following Him is worth everything, my all…
…If I think I can stake it all on Him…
If I can believe that He loves me enough…
…that He believes in me enough to make it happen then it will.
A first reading of Mark Chapter 10:17-31 might make it seem like a story about how to earn a spot in heaven.
Follow all the commandments and give everything to the poor and you’ve got your ticket.
Leave your mom and dad and you’ve got it made.
But not so fast.
No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, we can never do enough to earn heaven, salvation, eternal life.
And this is a good thing…
…a really, really good thing.
It frees us from spinning our wheels trying to achieve the impossible.
Instead, we can let go of the burden of earning God’s love, and accept the love God already has for us, free of charge.
We can completely depend on Him for the present and the future age to come.
We can let go of worry.
Let go of stuff.
Let go of ego.
And live into a life of humble love, service and generosity.
Are you willing to bet it all on Christ and Christ alone?
Will you sell all you have and allow Jesus to mold you into a new creation?
Will you stake everything on Him?
Will you believe that God loves you that much?
If so, the chancel rails are open at this time for prayer.
Sell all you have, give to the poor and come follow Jesus.
Do it today.
