Tuesday - 20th Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel – Matthew 19:23-30
Excess Baggage
Pistachio the Camel, along the Dead Sea
The image that stands out in today’s Gospel is that of the camel and the gate. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Our first thought is that of a sewing needle and the tiny eye where we run the thread through. But Jesus was probably talking about something a lot more familiar to His disciples.
There were 8 Gates leading into the ancient City of Jerusalem, some of them still visible and used today – gates like the Jaffa Gate, East Gate, Lion’s Gate, Zion Gate, even the Dung Gate (used to take out the garbage).
But there is also a very narrow, small gate that was used by merchants, known simply as ‘the eye of the needle.” Camels, at the time, were an ancient version of a cargo van; it was a pack animal people used to transport goods from one place to another. Rarely would it carry human passengers. And owning a camel meant you were wealthy. Some scholars today suggest that the ‘eye’ referred to one of the ancient gates into Jerusalem. It was a narrow low gate and the only way for a camel to pass through it was to ‘travel light’, to remove all the cargo and merchandise it was carrying. All excess baggage had to be removed. Think of it – in order to enter the City of God, you had to set aside all the seemingly important stuff and enter as unburdened as possible!
That is the metaphor here. When we enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we carry nothing with us, no house, no car, no headphones, no money, no possessions of any kind. We bring only ourselves and it is only ourselves by which we are judged. God looks into our hearts, not our wallets or purses. He looks into our soul!
Just as we came into this world, so we enter the next. We came with nothing; we leave with nothing – except our faith! Our riches are measured not in dollars or investments but in our love for others and our faith in the Creator. The more we see the things of this world as just that – things - and not an end unto themselves, then the closer we get to the Kingdom, the closer we get to God.
Great Spirit, help me to appreciate all the things of this world as gifts and not goals. Grant me the wisdom to respect all the wonders of creation and to see in them Your great love and care.
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