Grace through the eye of the needle

From a sermon preached at Bethany Lutheran Church, Iowa Falls

Scripture: Mark 10:17-31

Thank you for having me to share a bit about camp, to join with you in worship, and to preach on the story of Jesus and the rich man, which is a misunderstood story—the kind of story we delve into at camp where we have the time and space to deal with complex and misunderstood stories. Of course, the best news for all of you is that I’m a guest preacher, so if you don’t like what I say, I won’t be here next week!

            You know a Bible story is ripe with meaning when you open up your Bibles and see there are a bunch of footnotes about words and phrases that have been added or omitted in ancient sources. But if you are like most people, when you notice a footnote in your Bible about some Greek word, you do what most sane people do and think, “I don’t have time to figure out what that means.” Lucky for you today, I do have time—and in this case, I believe the footnotes are important, because in Mark 10:24-25, Jesus says, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle…” etc. and in most Bibles you will see a reference, and at the bottom of your page it will say something like, “Other sources say, “Children, it is hard for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!” And if you are a sane person, you will say, “Ah, so scholars disagree, and this passage sounds really hard anyway, so OK, this is one of those unfathomable mysteries—plus, I was a little weirded out that I might be a rich person anyway, since Jesus doesn’t really define what it means to be rich—so I’m going to either A) ignore this passage entirely, or B) assume it applies to other, much richer people than myself.”

            A brief note on the notes to scripture. What we know today as the Bible was originally many books—you probably know that—but more than that, those books were copied by many scribes—human beings who would physically write copy the words to create new books. This was slow and also the scribes made errors. Humans didn’t have printing presses until the 1500s—you may remember—so when the book of Mark was originally written, it was then copied many times by many different people—people we call “scribes.” We know about some of these scribes because some of these ancient texts have quite literally been dug up through the years, and what we have found is that scribes occasionally made mistakes in copying the scripture, but that is not what happened here. What also happened—and what indeed is happening in our story today—is that a scribe has made an intentional change to the original text. They added some words!

            When that happens, it is well-worth our time to consider why a scribe would do this, and in this case, I think it’s pretty obvious: The scribe read the original words and did not like what it was saying. He (I say, “he,” because it is an odds game it probably was a man) read the original and thought to himself, “Jesus needs to more clearly condemn rich people, because the way it reads right now seems to imply that it is hard for anyone to enter the kingdom of God, and that can’t be right!” The scribe made a theological edit—he believed that Jesus meant to condemn rich people, not everyone—and so he changed the text to clarify.

            This makes sense at first blush, and this scribe is certainly not alone in trying to soften this passage. In fact, around a thousand years later, a man named Anselm of Canterbury was so offended by this story—especially the part about it being nigh on impossible for a rich person to be saved—that he appears to have made up the idea that there was a gate in Jerusalem called, “The eye of a needle.” In this version, Anselm was claiming that it was not impossible for rich people to be saved, it was just kind of hard. That story about the “Eye of the Needle” gate has become so pervasive that you may still hear about it today, but that doesn’t change that it was invented a thousand years after Jesus.

            OK, now you’re all wondering why the Ewalu guy is here to give us a long history lesson about scripture, so I had better get to the point, which is this: If this passage has confused or worried you, you’re not alone, but please, please, please, do something important, and read to the end of the story with me. When you do, this story flips on its head. When you read to the end, this story about judgment becomes something else—but we have to get there to see it. So, let’s do that now:

Upon hearing this business about it being impossible to be saved—not just rich people but anybody—the disciples turn around, and I have to imagine they all-but scream in exasperation, “Then who can be saved?” Now, this is the good part. You can imagine Jesus has been waiting for this moment for some time—for the disciples to reach the conclusion that it is impossible to fulfill the obligations of the law. So, we reach verse 27, and Jesus says, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God, all things are possible!”’

            I don’t know why it is so hard for people to hear this verse, but I have to admit, I was in seminary before I knew that this verse existed. For several years, I had known about the eye of the needle and the rich man, but nobody had ever explained the important part—the bit about Jesus and the moral of the story—that it is impossible for a rich man to earn his way into heaven, but also it is impossible for anyone to earn their way into heaven, and if the story ended there, then it would indeed be very bad news for all of us. But it doesn’t. It ends with Jesus saying, “Through God, all things are possible!”

            This passage starts out feeling like judgment, but it ends up being one of the most crucial stories of grace. The truth is: You cannot fulfill the expectations laid out here, because Jesus demands not that the rich man give part of his wealth but all of it, and so this is what is demanded of us all—you want to earn your salvation? Give it all away—not just your money but indeed your very life. Give it all away. That feels heavy, because it is. I wish we did a better job of talking about sin in the church, because most often people talk about individual sins that people have, and in that way, it feels like we are all just a course-correction away from fixing ourselves. Just stop sinning, we think or say, but sin is not only actions but inactions—sin is part and parcel of humanity after the fall. We are fully sinners—you cannot fulfill the obligations Jesus sets forth—and therefore, the Christian life is not about becoming better people, it is about confessing, receiving forgiveness, and then doing what forgiven people do—caring for others, not to earn anything, but as a response to the grace God has given us.

            That is what we strive to do at Ewalu. Grace is one of our core values—in my eyes, it is the most important—because we need to start by pointing out this one thing about us that makes us human: We are imperfect, and we always will be! Yet, we are children of God, so we are also beautiful and should embrace who God created us to be. It starts with scripture like today, which is why we ground everything we do in the Word of God. There are so many folks out there looking to use scripture like a weapon—to treat God like Santa Claus with a naughty and nice list—and we must resist that by getting back to the heart of our faith, which lies in Bible stories like these that are so easily changed by scribes who are afraid of the implications, but we don’t have to fear! Because Jesus came for all of us not to make us better people, but to save us since we cannot.

            I taught this story in Confirmation class once upon a time, and I gave those kids varying amounts of pennies. Some had a lot of pennies, some had very few, one had none. I told them those pennies represented their wealth, and I asked them to do what was fair. Of course, they begin divvying up pennies until everybody has roughly the same amount—that seems fair—but then I point out that Jesus says that in order to be saved, they must give it all away—at which point we have a problem. How does everybody give everything? Pennies end up in piles. One kid takes advantage of the situation and ends up wealthy beyond measure. The kids who want to cause chaos are throwing pennies across the room. When everything calms down, we come back to the table and every time I did this, I struggled to sum it up, because junior high kids live in a world of black-and-white, right-and-wrong, and so all they ever seem to hear is “Wealth is bad.” But that’s not really the point—the problem is what wealth has done to them. The problem is often what the world out there has told them about wealth. And the biggest problem is that we all still trust in our stuff to save us—and it won’t—or we trust in our good behavior to save us, but our good behavior is never good enough.

            I love that Jesus used money as the means to teach us about grace, but money is also why this passage is so badly misunderstood. We are captive to a system that provides for our families—that supports our churches and, indeed, our camps—that has built the world around us. If all anybody comes away with from this passage is that “wealth is bad,” then we have missed a tremendous opportunity. A better lesson is that your wealth will not save your children, but Jesus does. You will not be able to take it with you—but through Christ, there is more ahead than death.

            Once we understand that Jesus has come to save us, we get to do something amazing—we give it away. We give no longer to earn our salvation, but because people of grace live out of a life of abundance. People of grace are generous! People of grace come to understand that nothing feels better than giving to a person we love—and people of grace also learn that every person is a person worthy of love. That is where this passage leads us—not to a closed gate—but to a doorway whose door has been obliterated by grace.