Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: FRN@psuvm.psu.edu Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: how rich is rich? Message-ID: Date: 17 Sep 89 19:19:26 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Penn State University Lines: 20 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I've often been perplexed by the number of interpretations of Jesus's statement that a camel will pass through the eye of a needle before a rich man enters the kingdom. What's the ambiguity? Jesus makes it clear that riches lead to hell; and so he tells the man who asks for advice to "sell all you have and give to the poor" (not an exact quote, I realize). That Americans have trouble with these passages--and often work to interpret them so as to justify their wealth--is, I think, evidence of how devoted we are to our riches. Here we are, with one of the clearest directives in the gospels, but because we're so uncomfortable with the directive--and, of course, selfish--we can't bear to let the directive appear to be so clear, so we interpret it and reinterpret it until we feel some comfort. A priest in a wealthy parish I attended once interpreted Jesus's directive by telling his congregation that, "Of course, Jesus doesn't mean that." Oh really? I challenge that priest to find a simpler, clearer directive in any of the gospels. Seems to me that if we want to get into heaven, the answer isn't blowing in the wind at all. Tom Buckley