Tuesday in the 20th Week of Ordinary Time, August 16, 2022

Matthew 19, 23-30

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, 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.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Then Peter said to him in reply, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

“Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  The Lord Jesus makes this comment after a rich young man had approached him and asked what he needed to do to be saved.  The Lord told him that he needed to sell his property, give the proceeds to the poor, and then to follow him.  St. Matthew remarks that the young man went away sad for he had many possessions, implying that he was so attached to them that he could not bear to part with them or with the security they provided him.  Jesus, stressing that his counsel applied not only to this particular rich person but to all, reasserted his teaching in a different way: “Again I say to you, 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.”  For millennia this was how this saying was translated into the different languages.  That is, the Greek text has Jesus saying that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a kaméla than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.  Kaméla is the Greek word for “camel”.  Lately, scholars who have examined the Aramaic and Hebrew roots of the Gospel texts have suggested an alternative that would make at least the same amount of sense.  They point out that the Aramaic word for “rope”, gamla, is very similar to the Greek word for “camel”.  Their idea is that soon after St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, a Greek scholar translated it into Greek.  He saw the Aramaic word and mistakenly believed it meant “camel” due to its close similarity to the Greek word.  The text would have had to be in Aramaic and not in Hebrew for this to have worked out because the Hebrew word for camel is gamal.  A Greek scholar whose knowledge of Hebrew was better than his Aramaic could have made this mistake.  If this word is actually “rope” and not “camel”, the case for Aramaic as the language of original text of this Gospel would be made rather conclusively, adding evidence that this Gospel was written much earlier than many biblical scholars today think.  

Now, considering the saying as it is usually translated, it would be impossible for the rich to enter heaven, unless Jesus is using hyperbole to make the point that it would be very difficult for them.  If we consider it as: It is easier for a rope to pass through the eye of a needle, there seems still seems very difficult, but there is also some reason to hope.  Perhaps the whole rope as it is cannot go through the eye of a needle, but a strand or two might get through.  That is, the core of the rope could get through.  There would have to be some uncoiling of strands, but it could be done this way.  The point would be that a rich person can get into heaven, but only by renouncing his wealth so that he was no longer controlled by it.  For, certainly some rich people have attained heaven. Abraham, for instance, and also Joseph of Arimathea.  Later, kings and queens such as St. Louis of France and St. Catherine of Sweden would live holy lives and use their wealth to benefit others and serve God.

“Who then can be saved?”  The Pharisees taught, interpreting the Law, that worldly wealth indicated righteousness in a person, and that this person would enter eternal life.  The Lord has just quashed this notion, and thrown his Apostles into dismay.  Their first question is a broad one.  The Lord answers it: “For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”  That is, only God saves, and God will save whom Jesus will.  We can almost hear Peter sputtering: “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?”  Peter continues to mistake wealth as a sign of righteousness, and almost seems to say that of God does not see him, Peter, as a wealthy individual, God will conclude that he, Peter, must not be righteous.  This might seem a silly mistake to us now, but his question indicates the turmoil that engulfed the Apostles upon hearing the Lord completely overturning a belief they had grown up with.  

The Lord goes on to comfort Peter and the others: “You who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”  Probably, when they caught their breaths, they thought of this as happening when the Lord restored the kingdom to Israel.  The reality would be far greater, but for now this soothed them.  “And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  These words are for us too.  We “give up” family, position, career, property, when we put the will of God first in our lives.  For some people, this means following his call to the Priesthood, the religious life, or the single life.  For others, it means following his call to lead the people around us into heaven through remaining in the world.

True wealth is to live in union with God’s will.