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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
June 17, 2024
Feast of Marina the Monk
Reading: Luke 18:18-26
A certain ruler asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother.’ ” He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” But when he heard this, he became sad, for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth 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.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”
Meditation - Peter Vanderveen
Quick question: what is this text about?
If you answered that it’s about money, or wealth, you fell for the trap that Jesus set – one that he sets over and over with many variations throughout the gospels.
If you answered that it’s about the goodness of God that exceeds our capacity to understand, then, well… the rest of the day is yours to rejoice in.
To be honest, this text wearies me. No, it exhausts me – if only because it is consistently misread and used as a cudgel by which to beat a little more guilt out of all of us. And guilt is useful. Immeasurably so. And thus, this story is continually employed to make us strive more, work harder, fear for ourselves, or, best of all, point fingers at others who we believe have done less. I’ve heard countless different interpretations of what Jesus actually meant by “the eye of a needle.” All of them have been offered as a way to make a camel’s passage no longer impossible but, even as it stretches plausibility, something that could be done with sufficient effort. How ridiculous. We buy ourselves a little wiggle room just so that our own burden can be heavier. Jesus knew, however, that this is just like us.
Look at the beginning and the end of the text. Jesus’ first statement is that no one is good. And let’s be clear: not even Jesus. Good, as it applies to eternal life, can only be attributed to God. (Repeat this ten times). (Repeat this again). The text then ends with Jesus’ statement that God can do what we are unable to do. Salvation belongs to God alone. Salvation will be granted by God alone. And there is nothing that we can do to earn salvation or force God’s hand in giving it to us. God is not waiting on us to want salvation enough for him to hear us. This gets everything about God wrong. Salvation is God’s pure gift.
Now almost every time I’ve tried to say this with enough conviction that those listening have taken quick measure of the implications, they have responded with the objection that, if this is true, we no longer have to care about anything – ourselves, others, or any of the disturbing imbalances of life. To which I’d say, “Yes, that’s true.” At least with regard to salvation.
But this isn’t true with regard to perceiving the nature of God or God’s relationship to us. What Jesus was pointing out was God’s ability to act on our behalf out of sheer freedom. We cannot compel God to do anything for us. Which makes everything God does an act of grace. And we, in turn, then, can cite the same freedom with regard to how we interact with one another. The good we do is good borrowed from God, freely offered, which sets our own relationships in the context of grace. And if we are aware of the grace we receive every day, to share it becomes a joy rather than an obligation.
Prayer
O God,
it is good to be alive and numbered with those whom you have made,
I thank you for the gift of life.
O God,
it is good to count in word and deed for ends beyond our own;
I thank you for your use of me if I have been of any service to your purposes.
O God,
it is good to rejoice and to be glad,
I thank you for each person, for each experience of life,
that has brought me happiness.
Miles Lowell Yates: Give Us Grace
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