"the Eye Of The Needle"

“The Eye of The Needle”

Mark 10:17-31

What is difficult, puzzling and/or shocking in the passage we just read?

What would be challenging about trying to live out what Jesus has just said?

What comes across here, as Good News?

Why would someone want to take on the challenges of living this way?

Today’s Gospel lesson is a doozy, is it not?

It’s got at least three points that most of us, including myself, find literally incredible.

I mean, does Jesus really mean what He says here?

When we think about this passage this way, it is understandable why the urge to soften its demands has been around for a long, long time.

For instance, I’d imagine many of us have heard that there was a gate in ancient Jerusalem called “The Eye of the Needle,” which was so narrow that a camel couldn’t get through unless the packs it would have been carrying on its back were removed, at which point it could get through on its knees.

A ninth-century interpreter made up that idea.

No such gate ever existed.

It’s the old version of a modern-day urban legend—invented as a metaphor that generations and generations of people repeated until it turned into a solid, “Archeologists have discovered this” sort of thing.

But, again, it’s fiction.

If we look closely enough at the Scripture passage we will see that if Jesus had been talking about such a gate instead of the itsy, bitsy hole in a literal needle the disciples wouldn’t have been so shocked, dismayed and astonished asking: “Who then can be saved?”

Instead, they would have been more like, “Oh, what a bummer we have to take those packs off the back of a camel and carry them ourselves for 50 feet.”

There is no easy out here.

There is no “Eye of the Needle” gate that camels can crawl through.

There is no technical point of Greek to tell us that Jesus really didn’t mean what He seems to be saying here.

And as absolutely hilarious as a certain comedian’s routine is about how you really just need a very, very powerful blender and a lot of patience to get a camel through the eye of a needle, this clearly is not Jesus’ point either.

Nor can most of us say, “Oh, but I’m not rich.”

Try entering your income into the Global Rich List website and see where you end up.

For example, if you were to be in an American family of 5 with a household income of only $30,000, you would still be richer than 81% of the rest of the world’s people.

Pretty amazing…and sad.

I am actually very, very, very rich!!!

How about you?

So, let’s take a moment and pause.

Let’s pause and allow ourselves to get to the place Jesus’ disciples were when they said, “Who then can be saved?”

This passage of Scripture is about discipleship.

It’s about following Jesus.

And following Jesus is not easy.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted: “Grace is free, but it’s not cheap.

It cost Jesus his life.

And when Jesus calls us, he calls us to come and die.

But in doing so, he is calling us to come and live.”

So, here we have, in Mark Chapter 10, this rich young ruler…

…Luke’s Gospel informs us that he is a ruler and Matthew’s Gospel tells us he is young.

This story is so important that it is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke…

…that is unusual—it doesn’t happen often.

In any event, this young guy with a gleam in his eye comes running up to Jesus.

He’s got the world by the tail, but he knows he’s still lacking something…

…and when he spies Jesus he sees his chance to find out how to finally get it!

So, he falls on his knees in front of Jesus and says: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

And Jesus starts naming off some of the commandments…

…at this, the young man declares:

“Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

And then, we are given a very interesting, and I think, significant detail that is left out of every other encounter Jesus has with folks who come running up to Him asking for something.

It says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.”

And this is the way Jesus looks at all of us, is it not?

It’s apparent.

John 3:16 even tells us that “God so loved the world…”

And Jesus’ new command to His disciples was “Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another.”

So, yes.

We know Jesus loves everyone.

And we know Jesus loves this guy.

This is just the only place in the Bible where it says specifically that Jesus looked at a person and loved that person.