Homily for August 18th, 2015: Matthew 19:23-30.
Today’s gospel
reading is a follow-up to yesterday’s, about the young man who “went way sad,
for he had many possessions.” Jesus’ disciples are astonished, today’s gospel
tells us, to hear the Master say that riches are a bar to entrance into God’s
kingdom. Their religion taught them that material blessings were a sign of
God’s favor. No wonder that the disciples ask: “Then who can be saved?” The
figure used by Jesus of a camel passing through the eye of a needle is, the
Scripture scholars tell us, a typical oriental exaggeration – something
impossible even to conceive, let alone happen.
Jesus did not tell the young man with
many possessions to sell everything because riches are evil. Rightly used,
wealth is good. Riches become a danger for us, however, when we hang on to them
too tightly B and whenever they give us a false
sense of security.
Jesus summons us, as he summoned the
rich young man in yesterday=s gospel, to trust in God and in him alone. For unaided human
powers the demands Jesus makes on us are
impossible. They are impossible, that is, for everyone except God. AFor God all things are possible,@ Jesus tells us.
When life seems too much for you;
when you are weighed down by anxiety, illness, injustice, the claims of others,
or the nagging sense of your own inadequacy; when God=s demands on you seem too great B whenever, in short, you come up
against the impossible; then you are up against God. He is the God of
the impossible. In every impossible situation, in every trial that is too hard
for you to bear, his divine Son and your best friend is saying to you, with
tender love:
AFor you it is impossible, but not for
God; for God all things are possible.@
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