Navigating the Eye of the Needle

The Jaffa Gate in the walls of Jerusalem
- is the 'Eye of the Needle' like the small door?

Address given in St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan Church on Sunday 13th October 2024, the twentieth after Trinity

Do you know how to catch a greedy monkey?

First take a jar with an opening a little larger than the monkey's hand. Attach the jar to something that can't be moved, like this pulpit. Then put something in the jar that the monkey wants – a sweet, perhaps. The monkey reaches in, grabs the treat, but with his hand full, he can't get his hand out of the opening. He's so greedy he won't let go – you have him trapped!

 

Forgive me if you have heard this trick from me before, but I think it vividly illustrates today’s reading from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 10:17-31).

 

The man who ran up to Jesus and knelt before him is rather like that monkey, isn’t he? He had asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” - ‘Jesus, looking at him’, we are told, ‘loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’

I think the man is a failed apostle. He received the same call to leave everything and follow Jesus that Peter and the rest of the Twelve did. Jesus loved him and must have seen his potential. But the man was trapped, trapped by all his possessions, and he could not respond to Jesus.

What should we learn from this man’s story?

Should we all, perhaps, do what this man couldn’t do – sell all our possessions, give the money to charity, and follow Jesus in holy poverty?

Just imagine what would happen if everybody did that. Prices would immediately crash. The economy would come to a grinding halt. And as ever the weak would suffer the worst consequences.

No, the fact is that Jesus calls each one of us uniquely, personally. He does not call us all to be or to do the same thing. He calls some to follow him in holy poverty, as he called his twelve apostles, as he called others through the centuries like St Francis of Assisi, and as perhaps he still calls some today. But very few are called to be apostles.

Rather each one of us should practice listening attentively for Jesus to reveal our personal call, through prayer, through our conscience and through the working of the Holy Spirit. And we should pray that when we hear Jesus call, we will be able to respond.

Jesus goes on to reflect on how wealth and possessions can cut us off from God.

“Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” he says, “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.”

What a knack Jesus has for vivid, humorous images! Once heard, no one ever forgets this image of a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle, as a metaphor for human impossibility. By the way, ‘the eye of the needle’ was probably a very short and narrow gate in the city walls of Jerusalem, which it would have been difficult to lead a loaded camel through, but perhaps not totally impossible.

Almost all of us here in Ireland are rich compared to most on the planet. Surely we must all sit up and take notice of these words of Jesus, whatever else our personal call might be.

The trouble, I think, is not wealth and possessions in themselves; it is how we use them - or how we allow them to use us. They are God’s good gifts, but it is all too easy for us to allow them to close our ears to Jesus’s call, preventing us from being the people God wants us to be – in other words preventing us from entering the kingdom of God. We must always be prepared to surrender wealth and possessions back to God, if that is necessary to do God’s will.

How often have we heard politicians and economists tell us our first priority must be economic growth!

And I dare say we will hear very many more voices saying this in the run up to the coming elections.

With economic growth, they say, we will become ever richer. Without it, we will become uncompetitive, we will be unable to afford the health, education and social services we all need, and we will all become impoverished. But the unthinking drive for economic growth is at the heart of the false values of our globalised consumer capitalist economies.

Economic growth in economies like ours works like this. Advertising encourages us to want more and more stuff we don’t need. We run around chasing our tails to get the money to buy stuff, at the expense of our health, our families, and our communities. We consume the stuff, and finally we throw it away. In doing so we damage our environment, causing global warming and biodiversity loss. Yet we are no happier for doing so! Meanwhile, the rich, the owners of capital, increase their wealth, while the poor get even poorer.

We are on a treadmill. And this treadmill can only lead us to the despair so searingly expressed in Psalm 22 (1-15) which we read today.

‘I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint;
my heart has become like wax melting in the depths of my body.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd; my tongue cleaves to my gums;
you have laid me in the dust of death.’

We all know this kind of collective madness cannot go on - unless we are peculiarly deaf and blind. People made in God’s image are being hurt. Humanity’s greed is damaging the beautiful life filled planet God has placed us on. This cannot be God’s will. The Holy Spirit is speaking very clearly, and our consciences must tell us this is wrong.

Now, surely, we need as a society to discard the false values, to surrender our greedy dreams of riches. We must face the fact that our society, indeed our civilisation, is blighted by our collective greedy behaviour. Let us call it out for what it is: it is sin, collective sin.

Jesus tells us that it is almost impossible for us to enter God's kingdom while we hold on to our dreams of riches. But how hard it is to let them go! “Then who can be saved?” say the disciples to one another. “For mortals”, says Jesus – that is for men and women like you and me – “it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

The Epistle to the Hebrews (4:12-16), urges us to listen to the living, active word of God, and to trust in Jesus, the Son of God. ‘Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need’. Now is a time of great need, and we are badly in need of mercy and grace, I suggest.

This surely is what we must do to escape from the treadmill of riches. We must be bold in seeking out God’s will. We must pray that his Spirit will show us how to live more abundantly with less, how to heal our damaged earth, how to rekindle community, how to serve fundamental human need instead of worshiping greed. And we must change, change our ways to live by God’s values.

I shall finish with a Collect of the Word.

Merciful God,
in your Son you call not the righteous but sinners to repentance;
draw us away from the easy road that leads to destruction,
and guide us into paths that lead to life abundant,
that in seeking your truth, and obeying your will,
we may know the joy of being a disciple of Jesus our Saviour,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Celebrating Harvest

Reflection given at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th October 2024

Today, in this harvest season, we are celebrating and giving thanks for the bounty of good things we have received. God has given them to us because he loves us.

How has your harvest been this year? It’s been a bit mixed for me, as it may have been for you too. Plums and pears have been a disaster, due to a mixture of my bad husbandry and a late frost. I also lost most of the wild damsons in the hedge because I did not pick them in time, so there’ll be no damson jam this year.

But the apples have been excellent. I now have 4 supermarket trays of them in storage, which will last the winter, and I’ve been giving some away to visitors. I’ve made pickled walnuts for the first time, which are delicious with cream cheese. I’ve also had a good crop of cobnuts. Those that fell and the damsons on the ground have fed the badgers – they’ve been loving it, judging by the traces they leave. My wife Marty has grown delicious strawberries and blueberries for us, and the flowers in her labyrinth garden have given marvellous scent and colour all summer. My generous friend has left me a large container of honey he has extracted from the hive he keeps in our garden. And let us not forget the miracle of new life. I have a brand new grand-nephew Freddy this year - he’s a dote!

It is so very right that we should celebrate and give thanks in this harvest season for all the bounty we have received, even if we feel it could have been a bit better.

But not everyone has been so blessed with bounty. Think of the millions caught up in hellish wars. Think of those faced with rebuilding communities, homes and livelihoods after floods, storms or droughts. Think of the millions of refugees around the world seeking safety, but finding only distrust and hatred. How can they celebrate and give thanks?

It is hard not to worry that this beautiful and fruitful world God has placed us in is going to hell. But Jesus tells his disciples not to worry, in the reading from Matthew’s Gospel (6:25-33) we have just heard, set for Harvest this year. He tells them and us, ‘Do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” … For indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’

Worrying will do us no good, any more than it will help those who are suffering. It can only make us ill and miserable. Instead, Jesus calls us to action. He tells us to strive first for the kingdom of God; that is, to work hard to make this world a better place, more like God’s kingdom. Only then can we properly enjoy the fruits of the harvest.

So as we celebrate and give thanks for the harvest we receive, let us also rededicate ourselves to share it generously, and to fight the evil that disfigures God’s world, so that it may be filled with the peace and justice God wills for it.