October 14, 2018
A couple weeks ago, I requested prayers for my brother, Bob, who was having surgery for a detached retina in Des Moines. I felt his pain. Ten years ago, I had similar surgery in Madison. After the surgeon repaired my retina, he placed a gas bubble inside my eye to hold the retina in place and a scleral buckle around my eye to stabilize it while it healed. And it did heal, for which I am very grateful.
After a couple of years, though, I needed cataract surgery on my left eye due to the pressure of the gas bubble. That too has helped my eyesight, but it has also complicated it. I now see larger out of my left eye than I do my right eye. This means that I can’t wear regular bifocals, at least until I get a cataract in my right eye and have that surgery. I manage my eyesight by wearing contacts and readers. It’s not perfect, but it gets me by. It also means that people want me to look at them with my right eye rather than my left, because they probably lose about 10-15 pounds when I do.
Of course, if I’m looking at the eye of the needle, you will probably want me to look with my left eye. That’s pretty much what scholars have been trying to do ever since Jesus uttered the words, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” They have been squinting at that tiny hole this way and that. In fact, there was one monk in the middle ages who claimed that there was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem, called, “The eye of the needle,” through which a camel could easily pass. I’m sorry to say, however, that there is no such gate.
One way we manage this saying (or any difficult passage in the Bible) is to say that it is about someone else, some other rich person, but not about me. Or we say it’s really about all of us, so that it’s really about God, since Jesus goes on to say, “For God all things are possible,” and that means we’re off the hook.
The question is not, I think, how do we manage the text, but how does the text manage us? How does the text work on us? I’d like to suggest three ways about how the eye of the needle has worked in my life:
The first is in relation to possessions.
Most of you know that Sylvia and I live in the parsonage across the road from Fir-Conway Lutheran Church. It is a medium-sized, three-bedroom home. It is about the right size for us. What most of you don’t know is that we moved from a five-bedroom, mansion-sized home in Wisconsin. It was far too large for us, but we still managed to fill it with stuff. Our stuff, our sons’ stuff that we were still keeping for them, and our parents’ stuff, too. Sylvia’s dad and my mom died during the ten years we lived there. Our families said, “Sylvia and Chris have lots of room. Let’s have them keep it.”
Even before I retired, well before we had any thought of moving, I resolved to clean out the attic. Even so, getting ready to move out here into a much smaller place was a huge job. I spent many sleepless nights wondering how we were going to get everything done. Are we going to be able to downsize enough by the time the moving van gets here?
I remember one moment in particular. We had several framed photographs, quite a few from church directories past. I thought, “We’re never going to put these up again. Peter and Michael won’t want them. Is there any possible reason to keep them?”
Then it occurred to me, “They could put them out at my funeral for people to look at.” And that’s what it had come to. As far as possessions go, death is the great down-sizer.
Now I’m not saying you should get rid of everything. There are material possessions that carry the weight of memory and meaning. Still, more often than we do, we should look at these objects through the eye of the needle. Am I ready to let go of this object now? Is it benefiting me in some way or is it blocking something even greater?
The second way the eye of the needle has worked on me is in relation to people.
One of my favorite books about marriage is one I’ve never read. It’s one of those books where I thought the title was worth the price. It’s called, “You’re Not What I Expected.”
Early in their marriage, generally within the first few years, every couple reaches a point where they begin to discover who this person is to whom they have pledged their life and they start to realize what it’s going to take to stay married to them. Sylvia and I both had our moments like that, moments when we shook our heads and said to ourselves, “What was I thinking!”
But I discovered as well – although I didn’t realize it until much later – that as hard as it is to learn the lesson of “You’re not what I expected,” harder still is the lesson, “I’m not what I expected.” I remember presiding at weddings in those early years, reading I Corinthians 13 and thinking, “My love is sometimes patient and occasionally kind. It is also at times envious and boastful and arrogant and rude. My love comes and goes. My love sometimes fails.”
Out of my introverted nature and my love of meditation and prayer, there was a long time in our marriage that I thought I would be happier as a monk. And if I could live as a monk, I thought, and still get conjugal visits, that would be the ideal life for me.
Eventually, though, it dawned on me that I was already living in a spiritual community – a spiritual community of two, called, “Marriage.” It also, as St. Benedict called monasteries, is a “School for love.” It is a school that asks me to look first at myself – rather than looking at Sylvia in blame – and asking myself: what are the issues in me, how I am contributing to a disagreement or a problem, and how I might respond more helpfully? It is a school in which, over and over and over again, I have been training in patience and kindness.
So, this most intimate and intense relationship has invited me to look at myself through the eye of the needle.
The third is in relation to prayer.
One of my favorite cartoons depicts two men walking along together. The first is plainly dressed and carrying nothing; the second is wearing a long beard and is laden with bags and packs of all kinds.
The first says, “God, why do you come with so much baggage?”
God replies, “This is your [blank], not mine!”
Just as we might have expectations of what possessions and people can do for us, so also we have expectations of God. Certainly, the Bible does its part to build up our expectations, extoling God’s goodness and power, God’s readiness to act in the face of need, God’s eagerness to hear our prayers. Jesus himself encourages us to pray by saying, “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.”
Nevertheless, my experience is that, even in prayer, expectations are problematic. God is not a cosmic vending machine. Prayer is not a matter of putting a coin in the slot, making our selection, and pulling out the answer to our prayer at the bottom. There is no doubt that sometimes God’s answer to our prayer is a resounding, “Yes!” Sometimes, though, it is, “Not yet.” Still at other times it is, “No.”
The last answer – No (or what appears to be “No”) – seems to occur so often that we wonder if it is worth praying. That issue is at the heart of a number of questions I got about prayer. Why pray? With so much going wrong in the world, with so much going wrong in my own life, is prayer of any benefit?
When this happens, we should not feel as though we are the only person who feels this way, that God has singled us out for special neglect. While scripture is filled with people whose prayers are answered, it is also filled with people whose prayers are unanswered. Any reading of the psalms will quickly let you know that you are not alone. If you feel as though God isn’t listening to you, read them. Also look around. This room is filled with people who have experienced unanswered prayer. When you struggle to stay connected with God in prayer, stay connected with them.
As every faithful person knows, it is difficult – at least at times – to keep praying. My own experience, though, is that there are benefits to prayer that go beyond answers. There may be an awareness of my own shortcomings. There may be a realization of the box in which I am keeping God confined. There may be a peace that comes out of surrender, after a long struggle. There may be a quiet confidence that builds in the sufficiency of God’s grace, no matter what trial I am experiencing.
Even Paul had to learn this lesson. Paul had great faith. He had zealous faith for God even before he met Jesus. Then the risen Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, blinded him with light and sent him on a mission. Even after that, Paul had powerful spiritual experiences.
Perhaps because of these revelations, as Paul calls them, he was given a thorn in the flesh. We are not told the exact nature of that thorn. All we know is that Paul – great missionary and preacher extraordinaire of our faith – prayed three times – over and over again – asking God to remove it.
God finally said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” (II Corinthians 12:8, NLT)
This is the eye of the needle. It is God’s grace. God’s grace is most strong when we are most weak. Those are the very times when it seems least apparent to us. Nevertheless, it is there. Not in our deserving. Not in our deciding. Not in our intellect or our understanding. It is there in our faith in Jesus, who himself prayed for a reprieve from his suffering and death, but ultimately surrendered to the work of God in him and through him.
In Jesus, God’s power is made perfect in weakness. He is the one in whom God does what for us is impossible.
After a couple of years, though, I needed cataract surgery on my left eye due to the pressure of the gas bubble. That too has helped my eyesight, but it has also complicated it. I now see larger out of my left eye than I do my right eye. This means that I can’t wear regular bifocals, at least until I get a cataract in my right eye and have that surgery. I manage my eyesight by wearing contacts and readers. It’s not perfect, but it gets me by. It also means that people want me to look at them with my right eye rather than my left, because they probably lose about 10-15 pounds when I do.
Of course, if I’m looking at the eye of the needle, you will probably want me to look with my left eye. That’s pretty much what scholars have been trying to do ever since Jesus uttered the words, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” They have been squinting at that tiny hole this way and that. In fact, there was one monk in the middle ages who claimed that there was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem, called, “The eye of the needle,” through which a camel could easily pass. I’m sorry to say, however, that there is no such gate.
One way we manage this saying (or any difficult passage in the Bible) is to say that it is about someone else, some other rich person, but not about me. Or we say it’s really about all of us, so that it’s really about God, since Jesus goes on to say, “For God all things are possible,” and that means we’re off the hook.
The question is not, I think, how do we manage the text, but how does the text manage us? How does the text work on us? I’d like to suggest three ways about how the eye of the needle has worked in my life:
The first is in relation to possessions.
Most of you know that Sylvia and I live in the parsonage across the road from Fir-Conway Lutheran Church. It is a medium-sized, three-bedroom home. It is about the right size for us. What most of you don’t know is that we moved from a five-bedroom, mansion-sized home in Wisconsin. It was far too large for us, but we still managed to fill it with stuff. Our stuff, our sons’ stuff that we were still keeping for them, and our parents’ stuff, too. Sylvia’s dad and my mom died during the ten years we lived there. Our families said, “Sylvia and Chris have lots of room. Let’s have them keep it.”
Even before I retired, well before we had any thought of moving, I resolved to clean out the attic. Even so, getting ready to move out here into a much smaller place was a huge job. I spent many sleepless nights wondering how we were going to get everything done. Are we going to be able to downsize enough by the time the moving van gets here?
I remember one moment in particular. We had several framed photographs, quite a few from church directories past. I thought, “We’re never going to put these up again. Peter and Michael won’t want them. Is there any possible reason to keep them?”
Then it occurred to me, “They could put them out at my funeral for people to look at.” And that’s what it had come to. As far as possessions go, death is the great down-sizer.
Now I’m not saying you should get rid of everything. There are material possessions that carry the weight of memory and meaning. Still, more often than we do, we should look at these objects through the eye of the needle. Am I ready to let go of this object now? Is it benefiting me in some way or is it blocking something even greater?
The second way the eye of the needle has worked on me is in relation to people.
One of my favorite books about marriage is one I’ve never read. It’s one of those books where I thought the title was worth the price. It’s called, “You’re Not What I Expected.”
Early in their marriage, generally within the first few years, every couple reaches a point where they begin to discover who this person is to whom they have pledged their life and they start to realize what it’s going to take to stay married to them. Sylvia and I both had our moments like that, moments when we shook our heads and said to ourselves, “What was I thinking!”
But I discovered as well – although I didn’t realize it until much later – that as hard as it is to learn the lesson of “You’re not what I expected,” harder still is the lesson, “I’m not what I expected.” I remember presiding at weddings in those early years, reading I Corinthians 13 and thinking, “My love is sometimes patient and occasionally kind. It is also at times envious and boastful and arrogant and rude. My love comes and goes. My love sometimes fails.”
Out of my introverted nature and my love of meditation and prayer, there was a long time in our marriage that I thought I would be happier as a monk. And if I could live as a monk, I thought, and still get conjugal visits, that would be the ideal life for me.
Eventually, though, it dawned on me that I was already living in a spiritual community – a spiritual community of two, called, “Marriage.” It also, as St. Benedict called monasteries, is a “School for love.” It is a school that asks me to look first at myself – rather than looking at Sylvia in blame – and asking myself: what are the issues in me, how I am contributing to a disagreement or a problem, and how I might respond more helpfully? It is a school in which, over and over and over again, I have been training in patience and kindness.
So, this most intimate and intense relationship has invited me to look at myself through the eye of the needle.
The third is in relation to prayer.
One of my favorite cartoons depicts two men walking along together. The first is plainly dressed and carrying nothing; the second is wearing a long beard and is laden with bags and packs of all kinds.
The first says, “God, why do you come with so much baggage?”
God replies, “This is your [blank], not mine!”
Just as we might have expectations of what possessions and people can do for us, so also we have expectations of God. Certainly, the Bible does its part to build up our expectations, extoling God’s goodness and power, God’s readiness to act in the face of need, God’s eagerness to hear our prayers. Jesus himself encourages us to pray by saying, “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.”
Nevertheless, my experience is that, even in prayer, expectations are problematic. God is not a cosmic vending machine. Prayer is not a matter of putting a coin in the slot, making our selection, and pulling out the answer to our prayer at the bottom. There is no doubt that sometimes God’s answer to our prayer is a resounding, “Yes!” Sometimes, though, it is, “Not yet.” Still at other times it is, “No.”
The last answer – No (or what appears to be “No”) – seems to occur so often that we wonder if it is worth praying. That issue is at the heart of a number of questions I got about prayer. Why pray? With so much going wrong in the world, with so much going wrong in my own life, is prayer of any benefit?
When this happens, we should not feel as though we are the only person who feels this way, that God has singled us out for special neglect. While scripture is filled with people whose prayers are answered, it is also filled with people whose prayers are unanswered. Any reading of the psalms will quickly let you know that you are not alone. If you feel as though God isn’t listening to you, read them. Also look around. This room is filled with people who have experienced unanswered prayer. When you struggle to stay connected with God in prayer, stay connected with them.
As every faithful person knows, it is difficult – at least at times – to keep praying. My own experience, though, is that there are benefits to prayer that go beyond answers. There may be an awareness of my own shortcomings. There may be a realization of the box in which I am keeping God confined. There may be a peace that comes out of surrender, after a long struggle. There may be a quiet confidence that builds in the sufficiency of God’s grace, no matter what trial I am experiencing.
Even Paul had to learn this lesson. Paul had great faith. He had zealous faith for God even before he met Jesus. Then the risen Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, blinded him with light and sent him on a mission. Even after that, Paul had powerful spiritual experiences.
Perhaps because of these revelations, as Paul calls them, he was given a thorn in the flesh. We are not told the exact nature of that thorn. All we know is that Paul – great missionary and preacher extraordinaire of our faith – prayed three times – over and over again – asking God to remove it.
God finally said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” (II Corinthians 12:8, NLT)
This is the eye of the needle. It is God’s grace. God’s grace is most strong when we are most weak. Those are the very times when it seems least apparent to us. Nevertheless, it is there. Not in our deserving. Not in our deciding. Not in our intellect or our understanding. It is there in our faith in Jesus, who himself prayed for a reprieve from his suffering and death, but ultimately surrendered to the work of God in him and through him.
In Jesus, God’s power is made perfect in weakness. He is the one in whom God does what for us is impossible.
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