GK Chesterton, a famous Christian writer and apologist, said, “I know there are many biologists who are trying to make a small camel and many industrialists who are trying to make a large needle.” Once again, we encounter a difficult Gospel. I know we don’t want to think so and we might think I am not rich so this doesn’t apply to me. Well, we are in the one percentile of the world that has all the resources so we are actually rich, which is why people want to immigrate here. It is not because our winters are so pleasurable, it is because to live here in Canada means to have a higher standard of living than most people in the world. So we can say rich. Does that mean it is impossible for us to go to heaven? The answer is yes and resounding a yes. It is as impossible for us to go to heaven as it is impossible for a camel going through an eye of a needle. I know we have heard others try to save this passage by saying the eye of the needle was really meaning a gate in Jerusalem that was small and a camel could get through it if it crawled and took off its packs. But, if this is what the people thought Jesus said, why were they shocked and said who can be saved and why would Jesus say for man it is impossible? One priest told me that in the Gospel of Luke he uses the term for a surgical needle, so very small. So there we are, it is impossible to go to heaven and there is no wiggle room here, just as there is no wiggle room for a camel in the eye of a needle. Should we now give up and have nice sermons that make us feel good about us going to hell? Or do you expect me to do what you pay me for, to go deeper into the text and bring hope from this situation? Well, I don’t have any more hope than you at the plain words of these texts. I have a good life, thanks to your generosity, but my hope cannot be in the good life I have, surrounded by comforts. My hope is this, perhaps it will give you hope as well.
The young man made some serious errors and Jesus corrects him. Jesus said Keep the commandments. He said I have kept them all from my youth. Here is the start of the rich, young man’s problems, and ours as well. I have kept them. I, that little word is where salvation fell apart. So Jesus said okay, I will ask you to do something that you cannot do. Give up your possessions. The rich, young man thinks I cannot do that. Once again, I cannot do that. I cannot do that and he goes away sad because he could not do that.
Somehow, he could keep the commandments, a great feat, few could say that fact. But Jesus asked him to do the thing he couldn’t and because he couldn’t, he goes away sad. The point where we can all breathe a sigh of relief, if we care about going to heaven, is when Jesus says for man it is impossible for God all things are possible. Yes, rich, young man, you cannot be perfect on your own. You cannot do it anymore than a camel can go through the eye of a needle. Think of this analogy that Jesus uses: you couldn’t get a camel through the eye of a needle with a meatgrinder. Point of the matter: we cannot save ourselves.
I recently was talking to two parishioners about the saints and they were talking about some virtue of the saints and they said that they couldn’t do that. That is the point: we can’t be supernatural on our own, God has to work and you and I have to give Him permission. Think of the prayer of the Our Father: Your kingdom come, Your will be done. We are not willing it, we are asking for it. We cannot save ourselves, no matter how good and clean we are living, no matter how much fibre we eat, water we drink, essential oils and kombucha we drink. No matter how much we donate to the SPCA or sponsor poor children around the world or buy the pope a new car. I am not saying these are bad things but they do not save us – God saves us. Your Kingdom come is a petition that we can’t make happen. We must pray that it happens. We must respond to the grace that is offered so it does happen.
With grace we can do amazing, supernatural feats. We can get more than clean living and we can be saved and live our life in great joy in the midst of the trials that are given to us. So how can we live this out? Well, you and I can thank God for the trials that make our life hard or impossible because they free us from this thought that I can do it on my own. Thank Him that He has given you an opportunity to rely on Him. If you didn’t have these opportunities to trust and put trust in God, you and I would go to hell, plain scary and simple. We need God to save us. We need to ask for grace and to rise above our situations. Rich people, we, can be saved if we don’t trust in our riches but learn to trust in God. We must thank God in all situations and ask Him to guide and purify our lives so that we know who saves us and that He can.