THE 28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B - 9th & 10th October 2021 - Holy Trinity Parish

by Matt Lovegrove - Pastoral Leadership Team

This week’s Gospel is a familiar one – maybe not the entire passage, but the imagery of a camel passing through the eye of a needle is one of Jesus’s most memorable metaphors. And His use of ‘shock and awe’ in his response to questioning still confronts us today as it confronted his disciples and followers more than 2,000 years ago – and in fact, in today’s world is possibly more confronting. This ‘confrontation’,
I believe, was very much by design. It was to cause his followers to question who they were, how they behaved, and why they were followers of God. And to test if they were truly ‘given over to God’. In that sense, wealth creates options and control, and often a false sense of self-reliance, and
self-importance, which creates distance in our relationship with God. While it is admirable that some people do give up their entire wealth to help the poor, the isolated, and the excluded, it’s not a reality for most of us. What is realistic is asking ourselves ‘What is the first step we can take today that will move us towards giving our whole selves and trusting God completely?’