Eye of the Needle

I am back to my blogging on the Kingdom of Heaven and economics. I'm not sure that Doug will think that this is a good thing because this is where I present my off-the-wall view of the story (not, as it is sometimes called, the parable) of the rich young man. Doug will probably be applying to the Co-authors' Protection Program so he can hide out under an assumed identity.

My guess is that when people think of the Bible and economics, the story of the rich young man must be in the top handful of passages that come to mind. The plot is familiar. The young man approaches Jesus and asks (ESV, the Mark version) "Good teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Then Jesus leads him through a series of question on goodness and the important commandments, and then comes the surprise: "You lack one thing: go sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." The Bible says that Jesus loved the rich young man, who left disheartened because of his many possessions. Then Jesus turns to his disciples and says: "It is easier for a camel to go through an eye of the needle* than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God."

In terms of economics, this saying has caused an exciting variety of tap dancing in the pulpit. Even the most left-wing pastor will still own a used VW bus and a pair of sandals --- nobody sells EVERYTHING. So usually the message is that Jesus comments are a metaphor for him asking "a lot" of all of us, or that giving much to the poor is an important goal, or that we shouldn't be distracted by our possessions. But here are my hard questions. Jesus didn't say "sell a lot of your stuff." He said sell "all that you have." Is this an economic argument about balancing that pain of the last toy we sell with the incremental increase in the size of the eye of the needle? If everyone in the world sells everything they have and gives to the poor, does that mean the formerly poor who now have everything in turn have to sell all that they've received? But who do they give to? I am reminded of a parody I read years ago in perhaps either MAD magazine or National Lampoon of the stained glass window in an Episcopal church showing a camel gliding easily through the eye of a needle.

Here is my heretical take. This story isn't about measuring how many possessions we have to give up in order to go to heaven. It's about Jesus leading the rich young man away from two maintained assumptions. Re-read the young man's question again: the two maintained assumptions are "what must I do?" and "eternal life". First Jesus goes after the "I must do" part. What about the commandments? I do that..and so forth. What Jesus is saying is that if you see your salvation in what you will do, you can never do enough. Secondly, even though the text is explicit that the rich young man's question was on "eternal life," Jesus does not use those words with his disciples. He talks about the Kingdom of God. Many of us assume that they are the same thing. I don't think so.

To me, the separation occurs in Jesus command. The "I must do" and "eternal life" assumptions are grouped together: "Go sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven". The second part mentions nothing about a list of works or about eternal life, simply "Come, follow me." I believe that Jesus is saying that his message is not about what we do by ourselves in order to get our ticket punched for the eternal life express; it's about "Come, follow me" now, into the Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.

* I had a pastor whose roots were in the Middle East who said that the image of a camel loaded with many possessions having a hard time getting through a narrow gate in a city wall (the "eye of the needle") would have been familiar to the disciples.