Grace to you and peace from God our father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This morning's gospel lesson seems to have a whole series of
strange statements spoken by Jesus as well as some apparent contradictions. He
begins by saying how it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
What's that all about? Some people will say that this is
some kind of a strange archaeological, architectural design of the city walls
of Jerusalem, a small doorway that's designed to keep the camel cavalry out of
the city, preventing soldiers riding on the back of camels from riding into the
city. For a camel to get through this supposed camel gate, it would have to get
down on its knees to crawl through this small doorway. A single defender on the
inside, stationed at that doorway, would be able to keep anybody out of the
city. Camels can’t crawl. There is no such history anywhere of such a thing. Someone
is trying to make sense of Jesus’ words.
It’s much easier than that. Jesus is actually speaking in a
type of hyperbole, exaggeration to make a point. You know, if I’ve told you
once, I’ve told you a billion times He does this sort of thing. So, when He says, “It's easier for a camel to
get through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven,” he’s saying the
only way a camel will get through the eye of a needle is for it to be destroyed,
to be taken apart, to be chopped into itty bitty pieces. To be passed through
the eye of a needle, and if that were to happen, it wouldn't be much of a
camel. Now would it? And if that were to happen, dash. If you were to chop up a
camel into itty bitty pieces to pass through a needle dash, it would be
impossible for it to be put back together into any form, shape, or semblance of
a camel.
And that's the point. It can't happen. If you were to try to
do that, you would destroy the very thing you're trying to do. You can't pass a
camel through the eye of a needle without destroying it’s very camel-ness.
Remember, this is the continuation of last week's gospel
reading, where the rich young man came to Jesus with the question, “What must I
do to inherit eternal life?” In the
conversation, Jesus challenges the man to keep all of the second table of the
law. The young man replies, “All of these I've been doing since childbirth.” I’ve
got it covered, Jesus. So Jesus turns
the tables, or rather The Table, the Table of the Law, on him. Jesus turns from
the 2nd Table of the Law, which deals with the relationship with your
neighbor, the horizontal relationships, and turns the man back to the 1st
Table of the law, which has to do with the relationship with God, the vertical.
The rich young man thought he had it all figured out, but when Jesus turns the
Table, the answer to “What must I do?” becomes apparent from Mark’s note: “He
went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” He was more content with
his God being his wealth and, presumably, the fame and good status and goodwill
of the community in which he lived rather than his relationship with God.
So when Jesus continues with his teaching about how
difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter into the Kingdom of
God, there is a bit of concern on the part of the disciples when they hear
this. In that day and age, it was understood that to be very wealthy is to be
very blessed, indeed, by God. Wealth was a measure of how they saw one's
relationship with God. The more blessings you have, the more blessed by God you
are. And the inverse was also held as true. If you did not have material
blessings, therefore you must have done something to displease God and you are
not blessed by God. In a sense, we still have some of this idea today. If you
know anybody who speaks of karma, that's the basic idea behind that teaching.
If you do good, good things happen; If you do bad, bad things happen. And the
reverse, that is also true: if bad things happen, you must have done something
bad period. If good things happen, you must have done something good. And so
for Jesus to say it's going to be difficult for a rich man to enter the
Kingdom, well, that's a mind-blowing teaching for the disciples and for others
who are listening to Jesus.
Wealth in and of itself is not a bad thing. Money, like any
other earthly blessing, is completely neutral. It is a gift of God. How it is
used determines whether it is a blessing for good or a blessing for evil. Do
you use financial blessings to help your neighbor or do you do it solely for
your own benefit? Do you use it in compassion for the least and weakest, or
only help others in a similar plane as you? The same is true of health or
intelligence or ability, or any other talent that we might have. While these
are gifts of God, the question is how are they used, are they understood as gifts,
are they received in gratitude? If it is received in thanksgiving, in gratitude
to God, for the welfare and well-being of our neighbor, then it's a gift used
well. It is being used as an instrument of God for those around us. \
But when those gifts become the in-all, end-all, all-and-all
in and of themselves, where the gift becomes the thing that is revered and
honored and loved and respected more than anything else, that becomes a person’s
god. This is true whether it's one's bank account, or ability, or a relationship,
or a job title, or a position, or any kind of authority that they hold –
frankly, anything that gets in the way of God and one's relationship with God becomes
a God in and of itself. That's what Jesus means when he says it's easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the
Kingdom of God. In fact, you can substitute any other First Article, daily
bread gift that has taken the place of God and substitute it for the adjective “rich,”
– it’s easier for a camel than a [blank] person – and you have the exact same
thing, period.
And that's why the disciples were floored. How is it
possible then for anyone to be saved? Look at it through their eyes. They've
given up everything in order to follow Jesus. They've surrendered their first
article blessings, leaving their homes, their families, their vocational
careers, everything in order to follow Jesus. Surely, they should have some kind
of status, some kind of inherit, inside track because of this…right, Jesus? In
the light of this teaching, they perceive that this idea is wrong. No, not just
wrong: it's impossible for someone to enter the Kingdom of heaven on their own.
Their question is honest. What about us? Are we going to inherit the Kingdom?
Will Re will we receive the eternal reward, or are we going to be on the outside
looking in just like this rich young man that we just saw leave here. Sad and
disappointed.
Jesus says, “With man it's impossible, but not with God. For
all things are possible with God.” If one is trying to earn his or her way into
heaven, or, to use the language of the rich young man, to be so bold as to argue,
“I’ve done all these things…this makes me worthy,” it's impossible.
Remember, I said it’s possible to
get a camel to get through the eye of a needle, but to do so you must actually
destroy it’s camel-ness. For us to get riches right, we need to be destroyed –spiritually
destroyed. We need to die, to drop dead to our riches, our things, our stuff.
It’s called repentance, repenting of all the idols and idolatries that want us
to maintain a death grip on them. esus, the One who is speaking these things,
came from the riches of heaven to the poverty of our life. He became poor for
our sakes. He became our Sin. He died our death. He gave up father and mother
and sister and brother and lands and houses. He was tempted by Satan that all
the kingdoms of the world and their glory and riches could be his for one
little act of worship. He refused. Instead, He chose the way of the least, the
way of poverty and weakness and loss. You cannot squeeze through the eye of the
needle; but Jesus, in His poverty and weakness, can. He brings you to the eye
of the grave, His grave, and strips you of everything that would get in the
way. In exchange, He clothes you in Himself, in His righteousness, in His
holiness.
Salvation, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, heaven:
All of these are gifts given by God by grace through faith. It's nothing that
we earn. It's nothing that we attain. It's nothing that we were able to produce
in and of ourselves. All of these things are ours only by grace, through faith
in Christ Jesus.
I said a moment ago that first article gifts are blessings
of God. That's true. What the rich young man forgot is what Jesus had taught
elsewhere, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of
heaven.” The rich young man was anything but poor in spirit. He wanted to argue
his worthiness on the basis of his self-worthiness. Someone who is poor in
spirit recognizes that they have no riches in and of themselves. They realize
that they are spiritually bankrupt, spiritually destitute, totally relying on
God in his grace through the merits of Jesus Christ. The poor in Spirit
realizes that they have nothing to offer to God except the blood of Christ,
which is paid for them. The poor in spirit recognizes that Jesus Christ paid the
full atonement price of their sins with his own precious blood, of greater
worth than silver or gold.
When we see treasure in Christ Jesus, and not in our
material possessions; when our First Article gifts are tools given by God to
help our neighbor and the Kingdom of God and not merely means to more stuff;
when we surrender our self, our own camel-ness, it becomes easy to enter into
the Kingdom.
Earlier, I said there is no such thing as a camel-gate in
the city wall of Jersualem. That’s true. But there is a hole in the wall of
heaven. It’s shaped exactly like a cross. You enter heaven through Jesus Christ and Him
alone. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment