Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again, I tell you, 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.”

Matthew 19:23, 24

Reflecting on his conversation with the young man whose search for wealth was more important than his search for eternal life, Jesus touched a doleful note that he shared with his beloved disciples.  “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I am convinced that Jesus is not talking about money and lands, but about the universal human temptation to depend on anything that makes salvation a minor matter.

While I admit that monetary wealth has its problems, the problem Jesus is talking about is anything that keeps me from depending entirely on God.  For me, that may be my self-sufficiency or may be depending on others to help me to survive.

I do not think of myself as having great earthly riches but I do have things that I am tempted to depend on that have nothing to do with forgiveness and the grace of God.   I cuddle “my riches” and use any talents or gifts I have, to enable me to be self-sufficient, hardly needing God or salvation at all.  It is well for each of us to think a bit about what we really do depend on, about “my riches.”  It might surprise us what those riches are.

As this Lenten Season begins, I do well to bow before my Savior and Lord and once again, plead for his grace to embrace me.  All the things I depend on will fall away as I give myself anew to Jesus Christ.