A Camel Passing thru the Eye of a Needle
A Rich Man Who Entered the Kingdom of God
October 11, 2009, Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wisdom 7:7-11 Hebrews 4:12-13 Mark 10:17-27
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a church not built by human hands[2]
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
Glory to you, Lord.
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a young man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answered him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother." The young man said to Jesus, "Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth." Jesus looked at him, and feeling genuine love for him said, "There’s one more thing you must do: go, sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come back and follow me."
At these words the young man’s face fell, and he went away with a heavy heart; for he had many possessions. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!" His words shocked the disciples, but Jesus insisted, “My children, how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." That shocked them even more, and they asked," Then who can possibly be saved?” Jesus looked straight at them and answered, "Without God it is utterly impossible. But with God everything is possible."
Introduction
A camel or a rope?
Some say that the gospel’s “eye of the needle” refers to a small gate at the entrance of Jerusalem and other cities through which camels and their owners could squeeze, when the city’s main gate had been closed at night. There is no archaeological evidence that such small gates existed.
Scholars offer a better explanation. In Greek (the original language of the New Testament) the word for camel is kamelos, and the word for rope is kamilos. Originally the biblical text read kamilos (rope): “It is easier for a rope to pass through the eye of a needle.…” In the course of time, however, some transcriber of the bible mistakenly wrote kamelos (camel) for kamilos (rope), and that’s how we got a camel instead of a rope passing through the eye of a needle.
Other scholars point to the fact that all early manuscripts and quotations in the church fathers from the 3rd to the 8th century read kamelos (camel) and not kamilos (rope). Only a few later manuscripts after the 8th century read kamilos (rope). Very probably the earlier reading that has a camel (not a rope) passing through the eye of a needle is the correct one.
At the end of the day, it really doesn’t make much difference; the bottom line is the same: it’s easier for a camel (or a rope) to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. That’s quite a scary estimate that the rich have going for themselves.
Farming out the call to discipleship
Scripture says the rich young man's face fell when Jesus invited him (who had kept the all commandments,) to go and sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come back and follow Him.” My face, too, would fall at such a sweeping call to discipleship, for it’s very difficult in our society to live without possessions. What’s more, I’m not inclined to give up the possessions that make my life both human and pleasant. I love my car. For years it took me and my dog Simeon at early dawn to Lake Michigan. I also love my TV. It keeps me in touch with the real world where the great debate over universal healthcare and the ‘Public Option’ is presently raging. My TV also helps me escape from the real world by watching the Packers play on a crisp Sunday afternoon in October. I also love my computer. It paves for me an incredible super-information highway right through my study. And it enables me (who was dismissed from a church pulpit) to send homilies flying unencumbered off into cyberspace, preaching to a congregation as numerous as the sands of the sea. So I’m simply not ready to sell all my possessions and give the money to the poor, and it’s easy for me to dismiss Jesus’ sweeping call to discipleship as unrealistic and uninviting.
The sixteenth century Reformers said the Roman Church was too pious to dismiss Jesus’ sweeping call. Instead, it farmed the call out to a few `specialists’ -- to monks and nuns. That, indeed, was clever, the Reformers said, but it created a double standard: a maximum standard for a few chosen ‘specialists’ and a minimum one for the rest of God’s people. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer[3] writes, "God showed Luther through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a chosen few. It is a divine command to all Christians without distinction."
Possessions as stuff in our heads and hearts
Whether we dismiss Jesus’ sweeping call to discipleship as unrealistic or farm it out to `specialists,’ in either case our face doesn’t drop like the young man’s did; with undisturbed consciences we merrily live our possessions-ridden and driven lives. Or we can try to make sense out of Jesus’ statement that we cannot be His disciples unless we renounce our possessions.” (Luke 14: 33)
It’s the materialistic mindset in us which sees possessions only as things in our hands. Believe it with every fiber of our being, there are possessions which are not things in our hand but rather `stuff’ in our head and heart. Believe it with every fiber of our being, there’s `stuff’ in our head and heart which deserves and demands Christian renunciation far more urgently than anything we can possibly hold in our hand.
There are ideological possessions. We remember because we can never forget the Nazi ideology which proclaimed that only the master race (the tall, blue eyed and blond) had a right to live. That ideology unabashedly ignited the ovens of the Holocaust and turned six million Jews into burnt offerings to Nazism. Now there is an Islamic ideology fiercely raging on the world stage, proclaiming that Islam is the one and only way, and every other way has to go. On 9/11 such lethal ideology brought down the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan and three thousand innocent human beings. That was such a horrific event that time is now dated as Before and After 9/11.
There are theological possessions. These are all `final and never-to-be-questioned’ statements about human sexuality, artificial birth control, homosexuality, divorce, celibacy, ordination of women, etc. Human statements are never final and are always to be questioned.
There are also emotional possessions. You can ask almost anything of us human beings, but don’t ask us to give up our anger, which has us talking angrily to ourselves through months and years of our lives. That kills the human spirit. Or don’t ask us to give up our self-pity, which has us constantly licking our wounds, so that they never heal. That immobilizes us, and we can’t move on with our lives.
Some of our worst possessions are in our heads and hearts, and they, first and foremost, are among the possessions which Jesus says we must renounce if we want to be His disciples.
A long built-up conviction
A woman who came one day to a Sunday Mass I was celebrating (not knowing what she was in for) complained in a letter sent with great dispatch on Monday morning. In part it read,
The faithful have a right to have Mass celebrated in obedience to liturgical
rules and regulations. Among many things, I noticed that you did not give the
prescribed absolution at the penitential rite. You did not recite the Gloria
prescribed for Sunday Mass and you did not read the gospel in its entirety [It
was a very hot summer Sunday]. In the reading of the Sunday scriptures, you took
it upon yourself not to use the masculine pronouns of the approved texts, but
instead to use gender-neutral words. You didn’t take Communion before the people
but took It after the faithful had communicated. Etc.”
This is a much abbreviated list of her complaints. Her letter made me exclaim to myself: “My dear lady, what a long list of possessions you have!” After contending with that frame of mind for a good half-century in the priesthood, there has accumulated in me the strongest conviction that our worst possessions are not in our hands but in our heads and hearts, and that they demand Christian renunciation far more urgently than does my Rav or my TV or my computer or any other thing I possess. The thought that I can keep and enjoy these wonderful possessions lifts my human spirit. But the thought that I have to give up some of the stuff that’s in my head and heart (and which I don’t want to give up) makes my face drop.
Flesh and blood renunciation
We must not, however, spiritualize Christian renunciation to death! At the end of the day, if it’s the real stuff, it seeks to be incarnated. It seeks to be given flesh and blood. It seeks to be poor not only in spirit but also in fact.
That’s what Christian renunciation did for Jerry Quinn. He was a well-to-do man who owned a bar and restaurant in Boston. In the morning newspaper one day he read about the plight of Franklin Piedra, an Ecuadorian, 33 years old, suffering from chronic kidney failure. His mother wanted to give him one of her kidneys. The transplant would cost at least 100,000 dollars, and she had no private health insurance, and there was as yet no `public option’ in place to help her in her plight. The Ecuadorian Consulate suggested that he go home and die.
Quinn, however, had a better idea. “I’m not a very wealthy guy,” he said. “I’m comfortably off, but I got this thing in my life—you can use only one car, you can use only one kitchen, you can use only one bathroom, you can only eat so much. That’s my theory of life. So what more do I need?” Quinn was saving his money for a major down-payment on a two-bedroom apartment in a suburban part of Boston with a river view and all. But another thought kept popping up, and it wouldn’t g away. He called the reporter at the New York Post who wrote the story. He said he wanted to help. She asked, “How much do you want to donate—a hundred bucks? A thousand bucks?” He replied, “I’d like to do the whole thing! The whole $100,000!” After a successful operation Piedra and Quinn met. Quinn said, “He hugged me and kissed me and told me I was an angel. As I thanked him I could feel the shivers going up and down my back.”
That’s what Christian renunciation did for Jerry Quinn. He was a well-to-do man who owned a bar and restaurant in Boston. In the morning newspaper one day he read about the plight of Franklin Piedra, an Ecuadorian, 33 years old, suffering from chronic kidney failure. His mother wanted to give him one of her kidneys. The transplant would cost at least 100,000 dollars, and she had no private health insurance, and there was as yet no `public option’ in place to help her in her plight. The Ecuadorian Consulate suggested that he go home and die.
Quinn, however, had a better idea. “I’m not a very wealthy guy,” he said. “I’m comfortably off, but I got this thing in my life—you can use only one car, you can use only one kitchen, you can use only one bathroom, you can only eat so much. That’s my theory of life. So what more do I need?” Quinn was saving his money for a major down-payment on a two-bedroom apartment in a suburban part of Boston with a river view and all. But another thought kept popping up, and it wouldn’t g away. He called the reporter at the New York Post who wrote the story. He said he wanted to help. She asked, “How much do you want to donate—a hundred bucks? A thousand bucks?” He replied, “I’d like to do the whole thing! The whole $100,000!” After a successful operation Piedra and Quinn met. Quinn said, “He hugged me and kissed me and told me I was an angel. As I thanked him I could feel the shivers going up and down my back.”
Conclusion
A rich man who entered the Kingdom of God
The article doesn’t say much about Quinn himself. Who knows – he might be a devout Catholic, as many Irishmen are. He might be even a `roaming’ Catholic, as many Catholics are these days. He might even be some kind of a `rounder.’ We don’t know. But, at the end of the day, we know for sure Quinn was a true disciple, for he sold his possessions and gave the money ($100,000) to a poor man. It might, perhaps, be more difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel (or a rope) to pass through the eye of a needle, but it’s not impossible, as Quinn luminously proves.
[1] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church institution has left!
