“Come on, camel! Push on through! Come on, camel I’m pulling for you! Come on, camel, give it your all. Come on camel, we’re counting on you!”
The chant goes on and on like it does every year. It is the one thousand nine hundred and ninetieth annual Camel and Needle Convention.
Every year they gather, teams from all over the world, from every tribe, race, people and
nation. They gather to compete to see who can be the first to get a camel through the eye of a
needle. Every year they get closer, but so far no one has succeeded, no one has claimed the
grand prize of entry into the Kingdom of God.
All participants receive the same official competition sized needle and camel. After some
horrible messes early on it was decided by a panel of experts that the camels could not be
dismembered, mashed, chopped, pureed or harmed in any way. These days the animal rights
folks keep a close eye on things as well.
There has even been talk of a new reality show, called Extreme Camels, maybe even a whole
new cable network dedicated to the project, The Home Camel Channel.It r eally is great fun to watch, some folks try plungers and crowbars, pulleys and fulcrums.
Others are more subtle they try to gently coax and cajole, there are even camel whisperers.
Technology holds great promise, things like nanotechnology and particle physics. There is even
a group of Star Trek fans trying to energize a camel through the needle, though all they’ve
gotten so far is what sounds like old Beetles songs.
After all this time you’d think they’d have given up, century after century, millennia after
millennia. There are plenty of skeptics, there are some who think it would take a miracle, an act of God, but then where’s the fun in that?
Sing it with me, “Come on, camel, push on through…”
Jesus said, “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.”
The disciples asked, “Then who can be saved?
Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
That is the good news, that for God all things are possible, even getting the camel through the eye of the needle, even rescuing those possessed by their possessions, even the dead are finding life. God is the miracle ingredient, the one determined to rescue, the one who cannot be stopped.
Like the people attending the annual Camel and Needle Convention, we are often preoccupied with what we own and what we can achieve, grasping, controlling. Our annual pledge drive is one way that we can reassess where our hearts belong, what we really believe, and how we will go forward practicing giving thanks. Are we walking with God or with the Camel? That Camel is hard to let go of.
But, the point of the parable is not about what we can or can’t achieve.
The point is that God makes everything possible. Everything. Everything.
The point is simply God.
Let God hold our attention. To behold God is to be changed. To behold God is to find life, to find breath, to rise from death. The glory of God for us to behold is a living man, Jesus the Christ, he is the miracle that makes the impossible come true.
If you think getting a camel through the eye of the needle is pretty fancy, you haven’t seen nothing yet.