Sermon Archive
How to Trap a Monkey
Sermon preached by John Armes at Holy Communion on 15 October 2006
You've probably heard of that ingenious way of using a jar to trap a monkey. You place a nice juicy fig at the bottom of the jar and the monkey reaches in to get it. Soon he discovers that with his hand clenched around the fruit the top of the jar is too small to allow him to get it out. He can escape if he lets go of the fig, but the trap works because he is too greedy to do so.
It’s not just monkeys that get trapped that way. The rich young man in today’s gospel reading is similarly trapped. He can keep all the commandments but he cannot let go of his wealth. As Jesus points out, the young man was not unusual. The more we have to hold onto the more difficult we find it to extricate ourselves from the prison of our own self-interest. 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.'
There's one interpretation of this hard saying that would suggest Jesus is not referring to an actual needle at all but to the Needle Eye gate in Jerusalem, thus named because it was narrow at the bottom with a large bulge at the top. We're meant to imagine a heavily loaded camel, top heavy with bundles and bales of cloth, being shoved and prised through this gate - watched by a crowd, Jesus and his disciples amongst them, all waiting to pass through the same gate. A perfect illustration, you might think, to describe the way rich people are themselves burdened with possessions and responsibilities and probably a good deal of body fat too.
There seems little evidence, however, that such a gate actually existed. But never mind, whether a gate or an actual needle, the point Jesus is making is that wealth is a spiritual problem.
In themselves, I suppose, riches, possessions, property are morally neutral; it's the use we put them to that is the real test. But the problem is subtler than this. Just as alcohol when drunk can turn the tables and drink us so that we become the one that is drunk, so wealth, from at first being a welcome reward can begin to own us so that we become its slaves.
Think about it - because, let's face it, most of us are pretty wealthy when compared to two thirds of the world’s population - think about the luxuries that we regard as necessities. That phrase, 'Oh, I couldn’t do without... my car, my computer, my central heating, my holidays, my meals out, my...' (the list is a long one) should warn us of the onset of idolatry, for it suggests that our happiness depends on something less than God. It indicates a certain world view and an acceptance of certain cultural norms.
For when Jesus says that the rich will not get into the Kingdom of God he's not meaning somewhere we go when we die - so that we are to imagine an endless line of be-suited and be-gowned souls trying to squeeze through a keyhole into heaven - but somewhere open to us now.
So what we're talking about is a culture clash. Jesus invites us into the fullness of life in a culture where the meek inherit the earth and the merciful are blessed. Happy, he says, are the poor in spirit, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who mourn. In collision with this is a culture that says, 'happy are they who are properly insured, for they will receive recompense for all adversity; happy are the ones who live in gated communities, for they shall have a large invoice for their reward; how blessed are those who shop, for they shall be fashionably clothed.'
On the one hand, then, the Kingdom of God, the realm in which the power of God is persuasive and the values and priorities of God prevail; on the other, a realm where other values and priorities prevail and the power of possessions and self-interest is persuasive. And we, not surprisingly, find it a struggle to live in both at the same time.
Having riches means that we use those riches. Britain, we were told this week, is the fat man of Europe; we suffer from the highest rates of obesity. Well, in the West it's not just our bodies that are overweight, our whole way of life is obese. On 9 October our planet slipped into ecological overdraft - in other words, this was the point at which humans had used up all that the earth can replenish in one year. If the whole world were to live as wastefully as parts of Europe and North America we would need 4 planets not 1 to meet our demands.
Having riches also means that we try to defend those riches. We find that international politics is driven not by what is best for everyone but by what protects our national wealth. National self-interest becomes identical with economic self-interest. And this permeates our relations with the rest of the world.
To go on living in this way - and, in particular, to maintain a lifestyle that so disproportionately benefits us as against others, and then to assume that this conforms to the values of God’s kingdom, God’s way of doing things, is to attempt to force ourselves through the needle’s eye.
Let's be clear, however. The opposite of this obsessive and exploitative wealth is not poverty. Poverty crushes hope and denies potential, it undermines our humanity by making the scrabble for food and survival our dominating aim. It humiliates us, makes us dependent on handouts from others and prevents us from taking control of our own lives. Poverty is most certainly not God's will for us, it has no place in God’s culture; poverty, like wealth, is a spiritual problem.
Put the two together, of course, and both problems might be lessened, but they’re hardly resolved by one side throwing money at the other. What is needed is that the rich find a way of freeing themselves from their riches so that the poor can be freed from their poverty. This is not just about redistribution of wealth, it’s about a rediscovery of to whom wealth rightly belongs. Jesus helps us to see that this isn’t about party politics it’s about spiritual well-being.
The writer of Proverbs had this all worked out. 'Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, 'Who is the Lord?' or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.' The Lord's Prayer again, 'give today us our daily bread' - food sufficient for the day, no more.
In other words, this is no modern problem. The disciples received Jesus’ pronouncements about wealth with as much perplexity as we do. For them wealth was a visible sign of God’s approval – if you’re successful then you must have pleased God. Now here’s Jesus telling them the opposite. 'Then who can be saved?' they ask, flabbergasted.
It’s a question we all ask. A question we ask ourselves whenever we pray 'your kingdom come.' Because that kingdom is a challenge to our values, our culture and the way we see the world. It challenges us to see that our material wealth and others’ material poverty are both spiritual diseases that can only be healed together, so that together we may become spiritually rich. Yes, who can be saved?
But there’s a glimmer of hope. A light spied as if through the needle's eye. The One who embraced neither poverty nor riches, who understands all our weaknesses and temptations, offers us a clear, if exasperatingly elusive answer, 'Impossible for you,' he says, 'but for God... for God all things are possible.'
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