(11 minutes)Jesus said, “How hard for those possessing wealth to enter the Kingdom of God, for it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.” And those hearing this said, “Can any of them then be saved?” And Jesus said, “Those things impossible for men are possible for God.”
(Luke 18:24b-27, The New Testament: A Translation, Second Edition by David Bentley Hart.)
Few passages are as irritating to our modern, materialistic, and capitalistic culture than these words from Jesus. Like teenagers trying to find loopholes in rules set by their parents, we do our best to find ways to say Jesus didn’t mean what he obviously said. I’ve heard them all, and I have even tried some of my own ways to dismiss or at least dilute Jesus’ teachings about the dangers of wealth. If Luke 18 were the sole passage from Jesus dealing with possessions, we could perhaps justify our attempts to ignore this passage. Maybe he was having a bad day. Or he was just referring to those who have a real problem with wealth. Or maybe an extreme ascetic put these words on the lips of Jesus and he never actually said them. But Jesus repeatedly, through his parables and aphorisms, talked about the addictive and idolatrous nature of wealth. He condemned the absence of compassion and the lack of concern for the common good among those whose chief goal is to accumulate money and possessions. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” I interpret these words to say, “What you value is who you are.”
Of course, the word “wealth” is a relative term. Among the peasants and indigents who heard Jesus’ teachings, the wealthy were those who had more than the clothes on their backs, a food supply which fed them beyond the next day, a home which consisted of more than a one-room hovel, and the security of regular and dependable income. We often forget that Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount about anxiety over the food people eat and the clothes they wear were not addressed to middle-class or working-class people who enjoyed more security than most of those living in Galilee and Judea could ever dream of, much less possess (See Matthew 6:19-34).
In our culture, we tend to think of the wealthy as being billionaires and millionaires living in gated communities, owning several homes, driving expensive cars, and enjoying sumptuous and decadent luxury. Compared to the multitudes of Jesus’ day, throughout history, and in most parts of the contemporary world, virtually every single one of us in the USA is wealthy beyond the imaginations of billions of God’s children. One wonders what Jesus would say to us given the possessions and security we enjoy in the face of hundreds of millions of hungry, sick, and hopeless children in our world.
Cocooned in our homes and sanctuaries and deceived by narcissistic interpretations of the gospel, we forget Jesus’ inaugural sermon in which he defined his mission and gospel: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the destitute. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” That last phrase “the acceptable year of the Lord” refers to Jubilee, the most radical economic and social transformation of society imaginable. Jubilee was originally designed to occur every fifty years. Jesus proposed a perpetual Jubilee in which all the needs of everyone would be met through a fair and equal sharing of the world’s goods. By Jesus’ own definition, any authentic gospel must include justice, compassion, healing, and reconciliation. He was not about “saving people’s souls so they could go to heaven.” He was all about bringing heaven to earth. Most of us pray “on earth as it is in heaven” every week in church. Heaven coming to earth includes feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, ministering to the sick, visiting those in prison, and welcoming the stranger/immigrant/alien. (See Matthew 25 where we find the only extended description and criteria for “the Last Judgment” from Jesus.). Such good news can only come through people willing to share their time, presence, talents, and resources with “the least of these” in this world.
Sometimes (actually, quite often) the Bible takes our breath away. Jesus’ radical message about the Kingdom of God was directed to every part of life—religious, economic, social, familial, political, and personal. The flaccid, impotent, gnostic, and narcissistic parody of the gospel being preached today in many churches is blasphemous and heretical.
So, what hope is there for the “wealthy” in our world? And with that question, I hope we realize the term “wealthy” includes most of us. Jesus said it was difficult for the rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. It would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for many of us to experience the salvation/wholeness we need to experience the glory and belonging of being in God’s Kingdom. But Jesus gives hope with his answer to our anxious question of who then can be saved: “Those things impossible for us are possible for God.”
In the very next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we have the story of Zacchaeus, a very rich man. This sinful, greedy, and corrupt little twit experienced the grace of God as Jesus entered his home and ate with him. He announced that he would give half of what he owned to the poor and would pay back fourfold anyone he had defrauded. Such a “repentance” would probably have bankrupted the man! And what did Jesus say, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and save the lost.”
Zacchaeus was one camel who got through the eye of the needle. However, he didn’t look the same after that transformation. It’s possible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but it won’t look much like a camel on the other side.
Please do not hear me make the heretical claim that we must change before God loves or “saves” us. In Christ we are already loved and saved from God’s perspective—everyone of us! However, our experience of that salvation along with all its healing cannot occur until we open ourselves to the good news of Jesus’ liberating presence and allow that presence to transform us. From God’s side, it’s a done deal. We are “saved,” period! From our side, we must open ourselves to that reality. And opening ourselves to such transformation involves change, repentance, and even restorative judgment. Our next two articles will consider the change, repentance, and judgment involved in our experience of the salvation which is already ours by the grace and love of God.
