Unfiltered — Part 3 | The Eye of the Needle
What are you holding so tightly that you could not let go of it if Jesus asked? We live in a culture that sells the feeling of an upgrade for everything, the phone, the kitchen, the coffee, and most of us know in our heads that more does not make life better. We just quietly believe it will be different for us. In Part 3 of Unfiltered, Pastor Jess DiSabatino opens Mark 10 and the rich young ruler, the man who ran to Jesus and walked away sad. It is one of the hardest sayings Jesus ever spoke, and it turns out not to be about your bank balance at all. It is about your grip.
Series: Unfiltered
Scripture: Mark 10:17-27 | Matthew 19:29
Pastor: Jess DiSabatino
Date: September 27, 2026
Key Takeaways
Before the hard word, Jesus looked at him and loved him. Mark 10:21 puts love ahead of the command the man could not follow. This saying does not come from contempt for wealth or disdain for successful people. It comes from the same love that saw exactly what was holding this man back and told him the truth. And he was not a bad man. He had kept the commandments since he was a boy, he ran to Jesus and fell on his knees, a worshipping kind of man. He was simply carrying so much that he could not get through the door.
The eye of the needle is a real needle, and that is the point. You may have heard that Jesus meant a narrow gate in Jerusalem that camels had to kneel to squeeze through. Pastor Jess admitted she was ready to preach it that way, because it makes the verse easier. But there is no first century record and no archaeological evidence that such a gate existed; the idea appears around the ninth century. Jesus took the largest animal his listeners knew and the smallest opening they could picture, a sewing needle, and used deliberate hyperbole to say this is humanly impossible. The point is not that rich people cannot be saved. The point is that no one can save themselves, and wealth is the thing most likely to convince you that you can.
Wealth does not make you bad. It makes you independent. Money is neutral; it is the love of money the Bible warns about. But with twelve loaves of bread in the freezer you stop praying for daily bread, and with insurance you stop needing community. The kingdom of God requires open hands, and wealth held tightly trains your hands to close. Pastor Jess told of overpacking for vacation and trying to force a full bag into the airline's carry on sizer. So the question Jesus asks is not how much money you have but how much of you your money has. Abraham, Joseph, Lydia and Zacchaeus held wealth loosely, while someone with very little can grip what they have for dear life. It might not even be money. It might be a relationship, your privacy, or your kids.
If you have a roof, food in the fridge and a phone in your pocket, you are the rich man in this story. We read this passage in a comfortable church, in a wealthy city, in one of the wealthiest countries in history, and we instinctively locate the rich young ruler somewhere else. Pastor Jess was clear that this is not a guilt trip. It is a fact, and facts are useful when they recalibrate our perspective. The disciples were astonished because they assumed riches were a sign of God's favor, and Jesus flipped that assumption completely. Many of us have quietly rebuilt it, treating comfort as proof we are doing something right. Sometimes the upgrade is a blessing. Sometimes it is the thing making it harder to fit through the door.
With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible, and that line is the point of the passage, not a footnote. Jesus is not standing at the eye of the needle telling you to squeeze harder or handing you a spiritual diet plan. The loosening of your grip is not something you achieve. It happens when you encounter the living God, the way Zacchaeus met Jesus and gave half of everything away on the spot. And Jesus promises in Matthew 19:29 that no one who leaves home, family or fields for him will fail to receive a hundred times as much, in this present age and in the age to come. Open hands are not only a posture of release. They are a posture to receive. So the question Pastor Jess left the room with is this: what would it look like to hold everything you have with an open hand?
