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Context No. 756 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 18:26-30: in context

26Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” 27But he said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” 28Peter said, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29He said to them, “Most certainly I tell you, there is no one who has left house, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for God’s Kingdom’s sake, 30who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the world to come, eternal life.”

Jesus has just watched a rich and religious man walk away unwilling to give up his wealth, and has said that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom than for a camel to go through a needle's eye. The people listening are shaken, because in their world wealth looked like a sign of God's favor. If even that man cannot make it, they ask, then who can be saved? It is a cry of despair about the whole project of getting oneself in.

Jesus does not answer by lowering the bar. He answers by moving it off human shoulders altogether. What is impossible with men, he says, is possible with God. Salvation was never something a person achieves by having enough, giving enough, or being good enough; it is God's own work, and only he can do it. Then Peter, a little anxious, says, look, we have left everything to follow you, as if to ask whether it counted. And Jesus assures him it did, and more: no one who has left home or family for the kingdom will fail to receive many times as much, in this life and in the age to come. What looked like impossible loss on both ends turns out to rest on a God for whom nothing is too hard.

When the crowd despaired that anyone could be saved, Jesus pointed not to better effort but to God. Am I exhausting myself trying to accomplish what only God can do in me?

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