Sunday 13/10/24

Twentieth Sunday after Trinity 

Mark 10:17-31           Hebrews 4:12-end

You may be an expert at sewing – that is, in making clothes – or you may never have done any, except sew on a button, perhaps, as one of the basic sewing skills.  But whatever your level of skill and experience, you may appreciate that it is not always easy to thread a needle.  It’s a bit fiddly at the best of times, with a thin but very flexible thread and the eye of a fine needle not a lot bigger.  How ridiculous it would be, then, to try and get a camel through the eye of a needle!  You might as well try to put the ocean into a milk bottle, or the whole desert into a thimble!  So, when Jesus is saying that 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, does he really mean to be so dismissive of the rich to the point of making a ridiculous statement?  If the rich can’t enter the Kingdom, then who can?  This is indeed what the disciples ask, saying ‘Then who can be saved?’  And then comes the next statement of Jesus as he looks at them and says: ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’  It doesn’t seem to help much, as Peter then reminds Jesus of what they have all left behind to follow him.  But even here, Jesus is positive about the possibilities for God, when he says that whoever has indeed left ‘house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for [Jesus’] sake and for the sake of the Good News, will receive a hundredfold.’  Actually, he says more and if we left it there and missed the rest of his words, we could be misled into thinking along the same line as many have done, namely, that wealth is a sign of God’s favour – which it isn’t.  So we do well to mark the rest of Jesus’ statement, which says: ‘who will receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’  It is not that the rich cannot enter the Kingdom of God by definition.  So the problem is not wealth itself but our attitude.  The rich young man who came to Jesus and asked the question in the first place, what he must do to inherit eternal life, might have thought that his wealth would be an asset to increase his chances.  That he had gained his wealth by being good and keeping the Commandments.  But Jesus, when he looked at him, and loved him, as it says – so the young man’s riches did not put Jesus off – sees what his problem is: he is so attached to his wealth, so tied to his possessions, that it is those who are holding him back from enjoying true freedom and God’s Kingdom.  There is a reason for the saying that a shroud has no pockets.  Riches, material possessions, cannot go into the Kingdom of God; they cannot go into the ‘age to come’ any more than a camel can pass through a needle.  Jesus is stating it like this in a deliberate over-the-top way, to emphasise the point, and to make it clear that it is our attitude to wealth that is the problem.  He also teaches what the Kingdom of God – and the age to come – is about.  It is, surprisingly, upside-down and inside-out.  The first will be last, and the last will be first.  All things are possible for God.  Wealth is not the reason why we are called as members of God’s family, our faith is.  And yes, there may be very difficult times, when we suffer loss, for instance, all in the course of our obedience and living as followers of Jesus.  But we will also gain, many times more, in terms of fellowship within a new family: ‘brothers and sisters and mothers’ in Christ, who offer welcome.  Jesus did not just make strange statements that challenge our sewing skills.  He lived, taught, healed, died and rose again, to give us life.  And our response to his ‘Come, follow me’, is what matters.  Amen.