Tuesday in the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time, March 1, 2022

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.”

“We have given up everything and followed you.”  Peter’s declaration could be better translated from the Greek as: We sent away all things and have followed you.  The differences of this with what is found in the lectionary may seem subtle, but in the Greek they are quite meaningful.  “We sent away” is in the aorist tense, which means it was a single action carried out once in the past and so was completed then.  It is no longer being carried out.  Peter and the Apostles separated themselves permanently from their former lives when Jesus called them.  The verb is “to send away” or “to dismiss”, not simply to give up.  “To give up” means to walk away from something.  The Greek verb means a rejection of something, not as though a person had found a new interest in something else.  The second verb in the sentence is “We have followed”, which is in the perfect tense, meaning that we did this in the and have continued to do this to the present time.  The sense of the sentence is that we cast aside for good our former lives and since then we have accompanied you continuously.  Peter says they have given up “all things”.  The Greek word admits of no exceptions.  They have held nothing back or kept anything for themselves.  The effect is quite plaintive and there is a sense of shock and terrible hurt in these words.

“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.”  The items the Lord lists here are what the Jews of the time counted as signs of their success and prosperity, and their wealth.  Apart from the love of family members, there was great benefit in a large family.  Many brothers and sisters and children meant plenty of workers on the farm or in the vineyard or orchard or whatever the family enterprise was, bringing in profit and fortifying security.  Parents guaranteed stability, too.  Land meant a way to make a living as well as a heritage within the Jewish world.  To reject this in order to continuously follow a teacher would have been considered madness, no matter who the teacher was.  The Lord assures his Apostles, who have done this very thing, that their “investment” in him would be well repaid “in this present age”.  And certainly it was, as we see from the words of St. Paul to those whom he converted: “I write not these things to confound you: but I admonish you as my dearest children. 

For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the Gospel, I have begotten you” (1 Corinthians 4, 14-15); and “My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4, 19).  St. John also: “My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Just” (1 John 2, 1).  The Apostles received many thousands of children in this way.  They did not call their converts “children” lightly, either, but suffered on their account.  As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians after having scolded them for their waywardness: “Out of much affliction and anguish of heart, I wrote to you with many tears: not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the charity I have more abundantly towards you.”  The persecution the Lord speaks of is fitting among the blessings listed in that it is a certain sign of belonging to Christ and of doing his work.

“And eternal life in the age to come.”  The blessings God will bestow upon his faithful ones in this life presage the eternal life they will receive in heaven.  Our brothers and sisters in heaven will be the saints and angels.  Our lands will be the vast reaches of the Kingdom of God.  Our parents will be Almighty God and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And persecution will become ecstasy.

“But many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.”  The Lord speaks of the difference between those who treasure what the world does versus those who treasure what God does.  Those who pursue and possess wealth, pleasure, and power in the world are considered highly successful by the people who belong to this world, but they are in grave danger of losing their souls because they have not pursued the will of God.  Those who have lived for God with little to show outwardly for their time on earth will be among the greatest saints in heaven.

We might wonder at Peter’s words if we have not given up “all things” for Christ.  What about us?  The main thing we must give up is doing our own will in order to do God’s.  This is what “all things” really means.  Jesus specially called Peter and the other Apostles to reject or send away all their physical things and their people.  He does not call all of us to do this same thing.  We look at the vast array of saints and see that they lived in all classes and conditions: kings and queens, craftsmen and peasants, soldiers and monks, housewives and heiresses.  Among the Lord’s disciples was the wife of Herod’s steward and Joseph of Arimithaea, both wealthy individuals.  The key for all of us is following the will of God and using what he gives us as he wishes us to do.