Dear brothers and sisters of Epiphany-

Well, it’s REALLY Hump Day this week, as we prepare to hear Jesus’ words about it being harder for a rich person to get to heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. It’s got to be one of the oddest metaphors in all of Jesus’ teachings.

There are a number of theories as to the origin of this metaphor, which appears not only in the Gospels, but also in writings of rabbis explaining passages in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), and in the Quran. There was also a theory that this referred to a night gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, through which you couldn’t enter with a camel that carried your baggage. You had to take the baggage off the camel for it to fit through. Some other scholars of the Middle Ages said that “camel” was a transcription error – instead of writing the word kamilos, meaning cable or rope, the word kamelos, meaning camel, was copied. Given the fact that the metaphor was also used in the Hebrew Bible, though, it’s more likely that the word for camel was indeed the correct one.

I expect that for all of us, on any given day, we run into situations that seem impossible, that feel like we’re trying to shove that big old camel through the eye of a darning needle. It’s ridiculous. And that’s Jesus’ point: the level of how ridiculous it is places emphasis on the difficulty.

Jesus is talking about personal wealth, and how it gets in the way of truly doing what Jesus’ expects of us. And we can find all sorts of excuses as to why we’re not like that rich young man. And as I sit here writing this, I’m thinking about the shiny new range top and wall oven that was installed in my kitchen last week…well, yes, I’m not Bill Gates-rich, but I can afford to make that expenditure…and I start to feel like I’m a bit-more camel-like than I’d like to admit.

I’m not going to draw a bright line here and say “you’re bad if you have x amount of resources,” because Jesus doesn’t really do that. Instead he points to the fact that money is a tool for kingdom work: it can transform the lives of those who do not have those resources. The young man in the Gospel goes away sad/angry/unhappy because the one thing left on the list of things he has to do to be a follower of Jesus is for him the hardest thing – putting that money to work to transform lives, to help those who have less.

We never hear what that young man does. Does he really sell all that he has and give the money to the poor? Does he start a charitable remainder trust so he can still live a comfortable life and then when he dies the money goes to charity? Does he say, “Jesus is a royal pain and I’m not going to follow him?”

We don’t know. But Jesus is saying in this passage, just as he does throughout the Gospel of Mark, that if you want to follow the Lord and Savior who has redeemed us from our sins, there will be a cost. Not a price of admission kind of cost, but a giving up of the easy way on earth so that we can share glory in eternal life. So, my brothers and sisters in Christ, what shall we offer? What shall we give up? What is the cost of discipleship for us, and why is it so hard for us to accept that cost? Something to pray on, friends, to be sure.

Be blessed and be a blessing,
Mary+