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Sermon: Will rich people go to heaven?
Don’t judge by a bank statement. Judge by what a man is willing to sacrifice for God’s kingdom.
Last week we contemplated Christ’s answer to the question about how many were going to be saved. I concluded by saying: It’s easier to follow Jesus than it is to spend your life trying to get rich.
Several people wanted to know: Can rich people be saved? Again, Jesus had an answer for that question, too; and it was not the kind of answer that will make rich people sit back and relax.
Jesus gave the answer when a rich young man walked away—and walked away sad—after Jesus asked him to abandon his riches by giving the money to the poor and, then, to join him, together with the apostles and the holy women. Can rich people be saved? Jesus said: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mk 10:25)
I often wonder about this. At what point does a person qualify as being so rich that he has to worry about being a camel? If I was back in the United States, my present income would place me in the lowest 10 percent of the population.
Being a Catholic priest in Kenya is enough to place me in the top 10 percent, so I answer the question by recalling that one of our Lord’s disciples was very rich: Joseph of Arimathea.
While all the ‘poor’ disciples of Jesus ran away, he was the one man who had the courage to go to Pilate after Jesus was crucified to ask for the body, so he could bury it in the new tomb he had prepared for himself. Don’t judge by a bank statement. Judge by what a man is willing to sacrifice for God’s kingdom.
