What are the odds that the most bizarre thing any religious founder ever said would come true, two thousand years later? What was that bizarre thing?
Today’s Reading is Mark 10:17-27. It is the parable of the rich man who obeyed the Commandments, recognized that Jesus offered the way to Heaven, ran (not walked, ran!) and asked Jesus what he should do to get to Heaven. Jesus said: “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven; then come, follow Me.”
As we know, the rich man went away, “sad, for he had many possessions.”
Then, comes the bizarre part: Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! 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.”
Now, Catholic Fundamentalism began with that passage! A religious founder scaring rich people away! After long prayer and thought, and the inability to get a camel through the eye of a needle less than fifty yards long, this thought came into being:
“Remove the egg from an ovulating camel. Put it on a microscope slide in a drop of amniotic fluid. A TV camera attached to the microscope can show the egg on a screen. Take sperm from a male camel and fertilize the egg. Fertilization takes place and the egg begins dividing, on screen. Scoop the fertilized egg through a sterilized needle’s eye like a ping-pong ball going through a basketball hoop. Then, put the tiny embryo back into the mother camel so that it attaches to her womb. When that camel is born, it will be a camel that has gone through the eye of a needle.”
The Apostles didn’t know what we know. “They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, “For men it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”
Today, in our time, we see that the most bizarre of Jesus’ statements makes total, absolute, perfect sense. What are the odds we’d see that bizarre truth? Play these odds! Believe and obey. If you truly respect Him, do so in The Only Church He Founded!
