Tuesday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, May 28, 2024

Mark 10, 28-31

Peter began to say to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

This Gospel Reading follows the episode of the rich young man who would not follow Jesus because he prized his possessions more than he prized life with the Lord.  The Lord’s responded, as he watched the man walk away, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!”  This greatly agitated the Apostles, who, like all the Jews at the time, believed that riches indicated God’s favor, so naturally these would be saved.

“We have given up everything and followed you.”  Peter speaks for himself and for the other Apostles.  They made themselves poor, that is, in the expectation that when the Lord restored Israel, “the Kingdom of God”, as they expected, they would be enriched with wealth and authority.  Jesus seemed to say that his followers must always be poor.  The Apostles are not thinking of the Kingdom of God as heaven but as the restored Israel. Jesus reassures them: “Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age.”  Holy poverty, accepted for the sake of the Gospel, frees a person to accept fellow believers as “brothers or sisters or mother or father or children”, all heirs of heaven.  And the freedom from being tied down to a plot of land or to the care of possessions allows him to go throughout the world, accepting hospitality wherever it is offered to him as a missionary, a legate of Jesus Christ.  “With persecutions.”  The Lord does not hide from his Apostles that they will be persecuted for their faith in him as well as rewarded.  The persecution, in fact, would affirm for them that they were doing affectively the work he had given them that required their poverty.

“And eternal life in the age to come.”  And this is the purpose of it all: the Kingdom of God is not made of brick and stone but of the glory of God, and they who give up all on earth for Jesus shall enter into it.  How do we give up our “all”, though, since so many believers must have money and possessions to take care of those entrusted to their care, such as their children or the elderly in their families?  The most important thing we give up, and that “wealth” signifies, is our will.  The rich young man walked away from Jesus because his will was set on his possessions.  The Apostles left the relative little they had, but they turned their wills towards Jesus and were gradually giving their wills fully to him.  So when we give the Lord our wills and follow him unreservedly we pass through “the eye of the needle”, whatever our station in life.  Therefore, “Many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  Those who make themselves first, dedicating themselves to furthering themselves in the world, will be made last by Jesus.  Those who make themselves last, making themselves the “handmaids” of the Lord, will be made first by him in the Kingdom of God.