Lent Bible Challenge | Day 37
April 7
Luke 18:18-19:10

18:24-27 in Peterson's the Message translation grabs me:

Seeing his reaction, Jesus said, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who have it all to enter God's kingdom? I'd say it's easier to thread a camel through a needle's eye than get a rich person into God's kingdom.""Then who has any chance at all?" the others asked.
"No chance at all," Jesus said, "if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."

Isn't that our problem? Or at least mine! We want to save ourselves, and when we can't we fear we're beyond saving. Maybe that's part of why so many men have been opening fire this past week: on their families, in community centers, elsewhere. As American-acculturated males we are groomed to believe not only that we can do it all ourselves, but even more that we have to. Maybe something is deeply wrong with or culture and society. I heard someone quick to blame that on other sub-populations of our nation earlier this week (basing that decision upon race and orientation). Yet maybe we don't recognize the truth before us: our culture is anti-Jesus in the sense that we are anti-interdependence. We glorify conflict, autonomy, independence, victory. Yet isn't community, inter-dependence, mutuality and collaboration what most often leads to "victory" in life?

Jesus preaches this: radical risk, a new way of living, not in isolation, not in passive community, but in committed, authentic interdependence. He preaches it, not just in words, but first and foremost by his own actions, lifestyle and incarnated worldview with the youth rich ruler, his followers, even with the tax collector Zaccheus who seems to represent the pinnacle of go-it-aloneness. How is it that we still don't get it today? I think it's not just a question of getting our minds around it, or praying enough. Maybe it's foundationally about getting that good news message around, in and under or culture.