Needle’s Eye

by Mary Luti | published on Aug 11, 2026

Jesus said, “Go, sell everything you have, give to the poor, then follow me.” At this he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” – Mark 10:21-25, abridged (NIV) 

A rich man asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. He’s sincere, but “inherit” is a telling word. It means getting a share, a portion. He hopes to add another portion to his already disproportionate share of material wealth and moral achievement. He’s so accustomed to accumulating that he can only think of eternal life as an acquisition.  

But eternal life is a person, not a portion. And that person loves him and welcomes him to intimacy. With a precondition: he’ll have to make the same first move toward Jesus that God once made toward us in Christ: he must empty himself.  

He can’t do it. Jesus names the obstacle. It’s wealth, and not just our attachment to it. Dispossession is indeed an inner attitude, a spiritual posture, but that’s not all it is. To follow Jesus really means living life in the red.  

They were all doing just that, but Jesus’s disciples are still shocked by his severity. He doubles down, “It’s easier for a camel…” To save the wealthy, God would have to do the impossible.  

We always think someone else is wealthy, not us. Maybe examining that assumption should be our first response to this hard word. But that’s not for me to say. No one can tell you what it means for you in practice to accept Jesus’s invitation to life eternal.  

Only you know what it would take to hope not in goodness and its satisfactions, much less in wealth and its acquisition, but only in what God may yet make possible in you by grace. 

Prayer
I keep going away sad, Jesus. But keep inviting me. Grace may yet push me through the needle’s eye.

Mary Luti About the Author
Mary Luti is a long time seminary educator and pastor, author of Teresa of Avila’s Way and numerous articles, and founding member of The Daughters of Abraham, a national network of interfaith women’s book groups.