The Camel and the Needle

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." —Matthew 19:21-24

This seems fairly straightforward to me. It's not the only time Jesus suggested giving away money was a godly thing to do, of course, but this passage seems to sum it up nicely. The message I take from this is that concentrating on keeping wealth—caring about doing so—is detrimental to your relationship with God. Note I say "detrimental", not "an absolute bar", yet either way, I'm not sure I understand why so many Christians seem to be amongst the most greedy wealth-seekers, and I definitely don't understand prosperity preachers.

Brotherly Love

Via a comment on slacktivist, I was pointed to this post, reporting on a Christian "demonstration" at the Gay Pride parade in Chicago... one where the Christians wore shirts saying "I'm sorry". They were apologizing for the years they and/or their churches have treated gays like... well, the way too many Christians treat gays.

The article links to the blog Love is an Orientation, maintained by the founder of the group The Marin Foundation, which is a non-profit outreach group trying to work towards a better relationship between churches and the GLBT community. I recommend taking a look at both, because we all could use some more love and acceptance in our lives.

As a side note, the founder's blog mentions that he and his wife live in the Boystown neighborhood in Chicago, which, for those of you who don't know Chicago, is where the most open GLBT community in Chicago is centered. It's the neighborhood I first saw pairs of men and women openly together back when I was much younger, and it was just a couple miles up the street from there I first worked with three openly gay people... which is how I learned that the only difference between me and a gay woman was who we were attracted to.