Threading the Needle

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 [Mark 10:25].

Since the Revised Common Lectionary repeats itself every three years, it must have been 33 years ago, when one of our sons, Blair, was 10 (and I was 40), that he and I had a memorable conversation regarding the Gospel lesson appointed for this upcoming Sunday, Mark 10:17-31 [Proper 28, The Season after Pentecost, RCL, Year B]. You know the lesson well. It’s the one about “Jesus and the rich man.”

At the time, my day job was at Duke Law School, but I also helped out at Asbury UMC, here in Durham. Rick, the primary pastor at the time, took the Mark 10 passage by the horns and preached an effective sermon on the many problems brought about by the accumulation of wealth.

Two or three days later, Blair’s question came out of the blue: “Dad, if rich people can’t go to heaven, what’s going to happen to us?”

“Uh,” I stammered. “Well, uh, we aren’t rich.”

My statement wasn’t a complete untruth. One year out of Div School, with four children, Jane working part-time, and me still relatively early in my side hustle— writing the Larson treatise—we had little money saved. Still, we had a solid roof over our heads. The wolves weren’t at the door. Channeling our 42nd president, one might say that it all depended upon what the meaning of the word “rich” was. We weren’t rich—unless, of course, we compared ourselves to the vast majority of humankind. I’m sure that comparison was at the heart of Blair’s question.

The challenge of interpreting Jesus’ words on wealth isn’t unique to confused ten-year-olds or their stumbling fathers. Years later, during a breakout session of a pastors conference at Duke, I found myself wrestling with the text once again. Our group was tasked with sketching out sermon outlines for several “problematic” texts. One of three that we had to tackle was—you guessed it—Blair’s “Rich man, poor man” text from Mark 10.

My notes from the session are sparse, but I know that our discussion quickly turned to our tendency, both as clergy and laity, to explain away what Jesus said. We want a domesticated Jesus. He couldn’t, of course, have actually meant that the rich man must sell all that he had and give the proceeds to the poor.

Go back through your sermon memory bank. You’ve likely heard several of these efforts at “clergysplaining.” For example, one version allows that the rich young man likely hadn’t actually kept the law, so Jesus was, in essence, calling his bluff.

A similar take goes like this: None of us can keep the law. Jesus is, therefore, calling our bluff. Once we figure that out, we escape the dilemma.

Perhaps the most common rationalization of Jesus’ words is the one that insists that the giving up of everything was a command only to this particular rich, young man based upon his particular circumstances. It follows, then, that Jesus’ words speak to us only in their implicit warning against acquisitiveness. We can keep what we have. We just shouldn’t be greedy for too much more.

Still another domestication idea posits that we’re all rich, after all. Jesus, therefore, provides us with the ultimate mulligan: We can’t gain the kingdom, but God can. As a minister friend of mine says, “Grace abounds; let’s all head back to the mall.”

It’s easy, of course, for me to sit in my finely-appointed home office and quip at others’ efforts to domesticate the words of Jesus. But the challenge of living out these teachings is far from theoretical. It confronts us in our daily lives, often when we least expect it.

Come Sunday, as Jane and I exit the Durham Freeway and wait at the top of the hill at Swift Street for the interminable stop light before I take a left to go toward Blacknall Church, I’ll see the same street lady I saw last Sunday, and the Sunday before that. She “owns” that corner franchise. Is she really homeless? Do I ignore her again? After all, she doesn’t take plastic. Is she Bartimaeus, fresh from old Jericho? Or might she be Christ Himself?

These questions haunt me, forcing me to confront the gap between my comfortable theologizing and the stark reality of need right outside my car window. It’s in these moments that I realize how much I, too, am tempted to domesticate Jesus’ radical call.

This struggle to reconcile wealth and faith isn’t new to our generation. My current Audible.com title, Peter Brown’s excellent tome, Through the Eye of a Needle, offers fascinating historical insights into this age-old dilemma. In it, Brown describes how pious—and wealthy—Christians “laundered” their funds, sometimes out of guilt, sometimes not so much, by generous gifts to the Church. Their altruism produced a monster, an impossibly wealthy Church, which found that it could live by Jesus’ Mark 10 words no better than the rest of us.

Later, some would divest themselves of their goods, join monastic orders, and live simple agrarian lives. So as not to make a profit, they kept their prices below those of the other farmers and tradesmen in the area. Sometimes the result was to destroy much of a local economy.

How then are we to read this Sunday’s lesson without rationalization or domestication? How are we to handle the powerful implications of His words if He really meant them? One start might be to see this as one of Jesus’ many healing stories. Mark gives us some clues. Mark relates that the young man ran to Jesus and fell on his knees [Mark 10:17]. He appears to be quite sincere. In other stories, more than a few others in need of healing have approached Jesus similarly.

The scene, therefore, is set for a healing. Mark stresses one small, but important detail. Jesus loves the man [10:21a]. I find it interesting that both Matthew and Luke left this out. Then Jesus offers the young man healing. “One thing you lack,” Jesus said.

Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me [10:21b].

Several commentators have noted that Mark seldom uses the verb “go” in anything other than Jesus’ healing stories. Alas, the rich young man “goes” away. Unlike others who were possessed by evil spirits, this man is possessed by his accumulated wealth. He grieves because he is so wealthy.

Like the young man, we may grieve as well. Thirty-three years have passed since my conversation with Blair. Compared to some, I’m still far from wealthy. Compared to others, however, my possessions abound. Off and on during these past decades, I’ve wondered if I too have refused to be healed by Jesus. Have I not also repeated the young man’s query: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Nothing.

With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God [10:27].

For us to say that we must sell everything, and give it to the poor in order to share in God’s Kingdom puts the burden on us to save ourselves. Neither wealth nor its divestment can save us. Only God can do that.