Wealthy man couldn’t
buy his way to eternal life

Speaking of Religion
The Rev. Dr. Tim Griffin

Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:25)

Jesus makes this statement in the context of an encounter with a rich man who wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life.
Initially Jesus says "You know the Commandments."
But the rich man persists.
"I have kept all these since my youth," he said.
To which Jesus responds: "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."
But we are told that the rich man was shocked and went away grieving because he had many possessions.
I am particularly fond of this story. Although the rich man had kept the Commandments and had great wealth, he knew that something was not right in his life. And Jesus puts his finger on it.
The rich man is attached to his wealth and his possessions. It is likely that he would have paid a large sum of money had Jesus told him that it was the way to eternal life, but he could not give up everything.
(It is also worth noticing that unlike so many of his latter-day followers, Jesus does not suggest a donation to his favorite cause!) As it turns out the rich man’s wealth was more important to him than eternal life.
I have been thinking about this story in connection with the 2008 presidential campaign that is (already) well under way. In particular, I have been thinking that it is as difficult for a poor person to be a candidate for president in this country as it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
Consider the wealth of those presently seeking their party’s nomination. They are all quite wealthy — relative to the rest of the population and much wealthier than the vast majority of the population that they are seeking to serve. What are we to make of this?
As a youth I often heard America described as a nation where any young man might hope to become president. (The possibility did not then exist, if it does now, for a young woman to realistically have such an aspiration.) The implication underlying this statement was that in the United States, one could "rise above" one’s roots and through hard work and ambition even become president.
Interestingly, I no longer hear that said, probably because it is no longer true. We now live in a society in which the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming increasingly greater and the rules are tailored to ensure that the wealthy remain wealthy and the poor remain poor.
We live in a society in which the courts have often ruled that giving large sums of money as contributions to one’s favored candidate is a form of free speech and therefore a protected right.
Of course, most of these rules have been crafted by the wealthy and the privileged to ensure that they retain their wealth and privilege. And it is sometimes these same wealthy and privileged who profess to be following Jesus most closely — more closely, for example, than those they seek to marginalize.
But perhaps their aim is virtuous at that, for by ensuring that wealth stays in the hands of the privileged few, the rest of us have less to overcome in order to enter the kingdom of God.
I am not sure how we can turn this around. One thing is certain, however; we can only do so through solidarity with one another and with those on the margins. As long as we allow our national identity and our nation’s agenda to be dictated by those with wealth and power, our share of wealth and power will continue to be diminished, our interests ignored and our voices silenced.
It is not too late, is it? If we raise our voices now and work for change, isn’t it possible that we could once again take pride in the possibility that even the poorest among us could rise to the highest political office?
Shouldn’t we strive to create a society and a world in which that is true? oo
Father Tim Griffin is priest-in-charge at the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, at 1946 Welsh Road, in Bustleton.