Text: Mark 10:17-31 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
The Rich Man
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” 21 And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is[a] to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him,[b] “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.” 28 Peter began to say to him, “Lo, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many that are first will be last, and the last first.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Once again, Jesus hits us right between the eyes with a hard saying. And this one really seems intended to make us squirm in our seats.
The camel was the largest animal the people of that time and place knew, and so they instantly grasped the utter impossibility that such an animal could pass through the eye of a needle. Of course, Jesus exaggerates the example to really drive the point home – a mouse would have just as much of a problem as a camel. And everybody who heard him definitely did get the point: “[T]he disciples were amazed at his words…they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, ‘Then who can be saved?’” That was the question in their day, and it is the question for us today, too.
But, in order to answer it, we once again need to step behind the words and back into history to get at their real meaning.
In fact, we have to go a long way back – to Deuteronomy and the prophets. Judaism from its earliest beginnings had a highly-developed sense of hospitality toward strangers and care for those less fortunate. For example, in Deuteronomy 15, verse 7 and 8, we read: “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.” The prophet Jeremiah quotes God himself regarding what the proper epitaph might be for a righteous man: “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 22:16). And the prophet Amos is perhaps the first to coin the phrase “wicked rich,” whom he likens to fat cattle, who cheat the poor in the marketplace, who can’t wait for the Sabbath to be over so they can quench their thirst for gain; Amos prophesies that they are soon to meet an ignominious but thoroughly deserved demise:
“And on that day,” says the Lord God,
“I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth upon all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.” (Amos 8:9-10, RSV)
In other words: Rich People – Watch out!
There is also a countervailing concept in the Old Testament of the “righteous rich,” it should be noted – David, and particularly Solomon, would be placed in that category; such people are to be seen as blessed by God – they have received their wealth as a sign of their faithfulness to God and generosity to the poor. Leviticus 25:35-38 considers those people “righteous” who provide practical support to their relatives who are sinking into poverty. In Psalm 15, verses 2 and 5 we read that among the marks of rich man who is “blameless” and “righteous” is that he lends money at no interest; demanding interest, by contrast, was viewed as exploitation of the vulnerable. Nonetheless, it seems (at least to me, though I’ve never actually done a comparison) that the fulminations against the wicked rich outnumber the passages regarding the righteous rich.
This attitude toward the rich runs like a red thread through the fabric of the Old Testament and forms part of the “woodwork” of the New Testament. So when Jesus talked about rich people in his parables – like the rich man who had so much grain that he had to tear down his barns to build even bigger ones and thought he was set for a good long time, but then whose soul was required of him that very night; or the rich man and the beggar Lazarus who went to heaven while the rich man went to hell and would have given every penny of the all the wealth he had amassed if only Lazarus could come down from heaven and place a drop of water on his tongue; and when Jesus said what he did in this passage about rich men, camels, and the eyes of needles – the people who heard him might nod knowingly, nudge one another, and maybe look over at the nervous rich guy sweating over there in the corner, trying to look inconspicuous. God was on their side, and guys like him were going to get their comeuppance! And on that day, well, he and those like him could run, but they wouldn’t be able to hide!
That red thread continues through history. One early churchman, some 200 or even 300 years after the time of Jesus, writing about the story in Genesis of Cain and Abel, states his stark conclusion: “For all men, possessions are sins.”[1] The medieval English preacher John Ball, some 1000 years later, in his sermon about the Peasants’ Revolt of 1384, makes this statement which has become almost a motto for radicals everywhere: “When Adam delved and Eva span, who was then the gentleman?”[2] – a “gentleman” being, of course, a member of the nobility. And we see the theme continuing through history right up to the present day. It would seem that what some people today are calling “class warfare” is nothing new at all!
But here we are today, pretty much in the same boat as those shocked and confused disciples whose spokesman, John, plaintively asks the question: “Who then can be saved?” Can it really be true that any one of us with a bank account that’s anywhere north of 0 or who owns so much as a pair of shoes – that is to say, every one of us here today – is doomed?
I am relieved to say that the answer to that question is a resounding NO!
…Let’s take a second or two for a nice, deep breath!…
(It would seem that the person who made the bold statement I mentioned before, that “for men, all possessions are sins” apparently didn’t get – or read – the entire memo!)
Martin Hengel, late of the University of Tübingen, Germany, writes: “[T]his radical criticism of property and especially of riches is only one side of Jesus’ ministry and preaching. We should note first that Jesus himself did not come from the proletariat of day-labourers and landless tenants, but from the middle class of Galilee, the skilled workers. Like his father, he was an artisan, a tekton, a Greek word which means mason, carpenter, cartwright and joiner all rolled into one…Even Jesus’ conduct – unlike that of John the Baptist – was not that of a religious ascetic.
“Thus Jesus himself took for granted the owning of property in his immediate surroundings. He and his disciples were supported by the means of well-to-do women who followed him…He was not an ascetic and was glad to join in festivals (John 2.1ff); this made him incur the mockery of the pious:
Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11.19 = Luke 7.34).
“The one who is fond of celebration and rejects fasting because it is out of place in the joy of the messianic feast (Mark 2.18ff) does not look on property with the critical and fanatic eyes of the ascetic rigorist…
“In his parables, Jesus evidently liked to single out unusual, vivid situations and typical situations of injustice; however, he did not use them for the ‘social protest’ which is so beloved today, but for a positive demonstration of God’s will in respect of his coming kingdom” (emphasis added).[3]
In short, Jesus was no more a wild-eyed socialist than he was a Wall Street banker!
So where does this leave us?
Well, have you ever heard of a “MacGuffin”? That’s the name the great director Alfred Hitchcock gave to any mysterious object in a spy thriller that set the whole chain of events into motion. The statue in the movie “The Maltese Falcon” is that film’s MacGuffin; the Ark of the Covenant is the MacGuffin in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
In much the same way, Jesus’ talk about rich men and camels going through the eyes of needles was the MacGuffin he used to drive his point home – and that point was this: It is not easy for anyone to enter the kingdom of God! It is totally and utterly impossible for us to merit salvation by our own efforts, or by what we manage to stockpile, whatever it might be – we depend on God’s mercy and grace alone. Nothing we can do will “win” us salvation – we have been given that salvation as a gift from God.
Now – the question is how are we going to respond to that gift?
First, let’s remember that Jesus looked on that young man and loved him. And he looks on each of us with that very same love – a love that knows no bounds. We need to remember that always. If we do, it changes how we look at things and how we live our lives. That’s a major part of God’s gift of grace.
Second, we aren’t to put the things of this world ahead of our allegiance to God. This is more than just the kind of pious statement you would expect from a preacher – rather, it is an admonition from Jesus himself to reorder our lives in such a way that we don’t turn into Scrooges counting our spiritual and physical assets in the dark little rooms of our hearts. If it’s true that we can’t earn the gift of God’s mercy, it’s also true that we can’t hoard it, because it’s not ours to begin with.
Third, are we to share what we have with others? You bet we are! But it’s to be done as a response to what God has already done for us in Jesus Christ, not as some kind of “admission fee” or “club dues.” When we do that, a remarkable thing happens: We find that our lives gain deeper meaning; we find ourselves getting more connected with each other; and we find ourselves freed up to live much more authentically.
Fourth, above all, let us remember that “all things are possible with God.”
I’d like to close with a prayer by Henri Nouwen, the great 20th Century Christian author:
Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me. And what you want to give me is love, unconditional, everlasting love. Amen.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Quoted in Hengel, Martin, Property and Riches in the Early Church, Philadelphia, Fortess Press, 1974, p. 1
[2] http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/23296/when-adam-delved-and-eve-span-who-was-then-the-gentleman
[3] Hengel, pp. 27-28