Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, 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.”
Luke 18:24-25 NIV
If you have been in church for any length of time you more than likely have heard some variant of a sermon which explains that the "eye of the needle" mentioned by Jesus in Luke 18 was not the literal eye of a needle, but actually a small gate that once existed in the outer wall of Jerusalem. The gist of the sermon is that Jesus was not saying that it is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, but only that it is quite difficult. So, as one variant of the sermon goes, if the camel drops to its knees it can crawl through the low gate, and so too if a rich man drops to his knees and humbles himself he will find the kingdom of God to be within his reach.
The problem with this particular interpretation of Luke 18 is that it is supported neither by the biblical text, nor by the historical and archaeological evidence. Nothing in the Bible suggests that Jesus was speaking of a gate in the Jerusalem wall. And, indeed, there is no historical or archaeological evidence to suggest that such a gate ever existed. In fact, it appears from the historical record that this particular take on the story of the encounter between Jesus and the rich young ruler did not even come about until more than a thousand years after the New Testament was written.
There are at least a couple of questions that come to my mind when I think about this particular sermon and its origin. The first is "why would some ancient priest have made the story up?" And the second is "why has the story persevered over the centuries if it is demonstrably false?"
Before getting to those questions, there is an initial point of the story that I want to make sure we do not miss. There seems to be little doubt that at the very least Jesus used his encounter with the rich young ruler to teach us something about grace. One of the points that Jesus clearly was making is that we can do everything that we are supposed to do (or at least think we are doing so) and still never see the kingdom of God.
Jesus gave the rich young ruler a glimpse of both the problem and the solution at the very beginning of the dialogue when he told the young man that no one is good except God alone. This is a huge truth for all of us. It is an essential truth.
In fact, I believe that one of the reasons faith is fading in the United States today is that people have forgotten the reality of the predicament caused by sin. We as a culture have increasingly rejected the idea of fallen man, and instead adopted a world view which holds to the idea that people are basically good. Never mind the evidence to the contrary we see in virtually every news cast on any given day of the week.
The problem with the worldview that people are basically good is that "good" people don't need God. Good people figure that if there is a heaven they can make it there on their own -- through their own goodness.
No doubt the rich young man in our story held out the same hope. What relief he must have initially felt when in answer to his question Jesus spoke of following the commands of God.
A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’ ”
“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
But whatever confidence the young man had in his own virtue, whatever hope he placed in his own righteousness, it was quickly dashed. Jesus told him in no uncertain terms that even perfect adherence to the commandments, where that even possible, would not be enough to earn him a place in heaven.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, 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.”
There is no doubt that grace was an essential part of what Jesus sought to convey. Following the commandments was not enough. Nothing that any of us does can or will ever be enough. Salvation comes, at it must, by grace alone through faith. Jesus himself is the answer, and the only answer, to the problem of sin. No one is truly "good" except God alone.
But the lesson does not -- and cannot -- end with grace. The lesson of grace, after all, does not depend on wealth or the lack thereof. Neither the rich nor the poor can earn their way into the kingdom of God. We are all equals when it comes to salvation.
No, Jesus did not arbitrarily choose to teach about grace alone through his encounter with a man of great wealth. Indeed, the fact of the man's wealth clearly plays the central role in the primary point Jesus is making.
Without a doubt, for those who heard Jesus utter these words the young man's wealth was of keen interest. In fact, for Jesus to suggest that a man of wealth faced a precarious eternal destiny must have been a complete shock. After all, for Jews at the time great wealth was evidence of God's blessing. Consider the fortunes of David and Solomon, and Abraham!!
The revelation that current material blessing did not equate to eternal security, as Jesus had done so many times, seemed to turn everything his Jewish audience thought about God on its head. And so they asked, if the wealthy, who so clearly are blessed by God, cannot enter into the kingdom of God what chance is there for the rest of us?
It is at this point in the story that we, ourselves, tend to recoil. Surely, Jesus is not saying that all of us must sell everything we own and give it to the poor! Surely he is not saying that we must not only be poor in spirit, but we must be poor materially as well! That cannot possibly be what he means, can it?!
It is interesting to me that many American Christians are not so different from the Jews of that day. We too tend to see material wealth as evidence of God's blessing, and in fact fear that blessing diminishing as our country turns further and further away from God.
If Jesus is taken literally, wouldn't his teaching collide violently with the American dream? Wouldn't his teaching turn on its head everything we ever learned about God and his destiny for America?
Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
But, thank God, Jesus has given us an out. While it may seem impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, with God everything is possible.
And, so, at this point in the story we take a deep breath and give a sigh of relief. We take solace in the fact that there is a means of escape. In fact, rather than struggle to understand the general principle Jesus is teaching we spend our time straining to discover the exception -- just how does God make it possible for me both to hold on to my wealth and to enter into his kingdom?
Fortunately, we have spiritual advisors of various types to aid us in the struggle. Jesus does not really expect us to sell everything we own and give it to the poor, we are told. In fact, he actually wants us to enjoy material blessing. It is not that he wants us to actually give up our things. He just wants us to have an inner detachment from them. He wants us to be
willing to give them up so that wealth or possessions never become idols in our lives. As long as we satisfy ourselves that we could give them up if called to do so we can keep them without worry. And, thank God that he would never call us to actually untether ourselves from our things!
Do you notice how the Jerusalem gate explanation of the "eye of needle" fits beautifully with this idea? We don't really need to actually give anything up. We just need to change our attitude -- to get the camel on its knees.
If this is, however, indeed the lesson Jesus was teaching, it is far from apparent from the text itself. There is nothing in the text to suggest that Jesus ever said to the rich young man, "Wait, I'm just kidding. I don't really want you to sell everything you have and give to the poor. I just want you to avoid having any inner attachment to your wealth." No, if this was the "out," the rich young man, so far as we know, was never told of it. Instead, Jesus allowed him to go away sorrowful, his eternal future at best uncertain.
To add to our angst, watching the young man walk away, Peter reminded Jesus that he and the other disciples had done exactly what Jesus told the rich young man he needed to do -- they had left everything to follow him. On other occasions Peter's interjections had brought a rebuke. And a rebuke would have seemed appropriate here -- what a prideful thing for Peter to have said! But no rebuke from Jesus would come. Not this time.
Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”
No, instead of a rebuke Jesus affirmed the decision of Peter and the others to forsake all and to follow him. Even more, he assured the disciples, and anyone else who would make the same decision, that their unconstrained obedience to his call would be rewarded.
At the end of the day, when Jesus said "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," I think he meant exactly that. He tells us repeatedly that we must make a choice between loving him and loving the world, and that we cannot do both. See, e.g., James 4:4-5 ("You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?") and Matthew 6:24 (“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."). The problem is that we just don't want to believe it.
Personally, I also think that the "eye of the needle" Jerusalem gate sermon likely came about because the church through the ages has not really wanted to believe the words of Jesus either. What would have happened to the wealth of the Church, after all, if the rich were really warned about the danger of their wealth and urged to keep only what they really needed? (I'll bet many would have looked for a different church!). Or worse, what would have happened had the wealthy taken this teaching literally and sold all of their possessions and given the proceeds to the poor (keeping the Vatican in good order isn't cheap!).
Now, just to be clear, I am not saying that all Christ followers need to sell everything they own and give the money to the poor to be saved. I am not even saying that all of us should do that.
All I am saying is that we should stop trying to sand the edges off of what Jesus is teaching us through cleverly invented stories or by making inferences that are not warranted by the text. Instead, we should look at what Jesus actually said, pray for understanding, and pray that we have the courage to do whatever God speaks to us individually. But make no mistake about it, Jesus wants our undivided loyalty and obedience. He wants us to chose between God and the world. He is not interested in us straddling the fence.
There is one last thing that I would be remiss if I didn't mention. In The Gospel According to Mark, you will find one other detail in the story that you don't want to overlook. After the young man said that he had kept all of the commandments since he was a boy, it says that "Jesus looked at him and loved him". Mark 10:21.
For most of us, we would never equate Jesus sending the young man away sorrowful with love. But, that's exactly what it was. Jesus wanted the best for the young man. He loved him and wanted him to be saved. That is precisely why Jesus told him the truth.
The truth and the love always walk hand in hand -- even when the truth is difficult for us to accept.
The Beatitudes
