Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church
I am a tenured professor at the University of Dayton, and so is my husband. Together, we bring in a healthy income. We live in a lovely house in Oakwood, a beautiful suburb of Dayton. I have the privilege of shopping at Dorothy Lane Market, where I buy delicious food to cook for our family. And when I’m not cooking, we dine out at wonderful local restaurants like Lily’s and Roost and Meadowlark. By any standard that takes into account most of the people on this planet, we are rich. Very rich.
So, it will come as no surprise that when I read what Jesus has to say in the gospel reading for today, it makes me nervous. Jesus is super clear: “It will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven.” And just to make very concrete how hard, he says that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” Well, I’m pretty sure no camel has ever passed through the eye of a needle. So, my chances are looking well beyond bleak.
As I pondered my nervousness, my thoughts kept turning to one question. Why? Why does Jesus think it’s so hard for someone who is rich to enter God’s Kingdom? What gets in the way? Of course, I don’t know for sure what Jesus had in his mind when he said that. But as I think about what it means to be rich in this country today, one of the things that stands out for me is how riches make it possible for us to see only what we want to see and to be blind to all we’d rather ignore. Given where I live and work, I can go days only seeing other people who, again compared to most people on this planet, are rich. And that means that it can be entirely too easy for me to forget about the people Jesus cared the most about. The people that he says are last now and will be first in the Kingdom.
Jesus makes me nervous and for good reason. Or, put another way, Jesus makes me nervous, and that’s good. We who have much should be unsettled about the riches we enjoy in this life while others don’t have anything even close to enough.
Dear Jesus, may I embrace your challenging word by seeing those in need and responding generously.
- Sue Trollinger