Mark 10:28-31

Finding True Family

Mark 10:28-31 – Leaving and Finding

Without necessarily having taken to heart the clear point that Jesus had been making, Peter turned the attention from the rich man to himself and the other disciples.

28 Peter stepped in and said,
“Look at us.
We left everything and followed you.” 

The unfolding narrative would show quite clearly the lack of clear self-knowledge reflected in Peter’s claim. He had not yet left behind his own self-reliance, or his need for prestige and position.

It was not clear from the storyline whether Peter was making his claim enthusiastically, contrasting himself and the disciples with the rich man, and being somewhat proud of their choice and generosity. His comment could also have hidden a deeper sense of doubt, a wondering what they would get out of it, an uncertainty about their entering the Kingdom and of experiencing salvation. Whatever about that, it would seem to have reflected his current assessment of their position: they were not at this stage experiencing life in the Kingdom – or he would not have needed even to voice his doubt.

29 Jesus answered him, “I tell you clearly,
there is no one who has left home
or brothers or sisters
or mother or father
or children
or lands
on account of me and on account of the gospel
30 who will not receive a hundred times more in this world,
homes, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and lands –
with persecution –
and endless life in the world to come.” 

Jesus took Peter where he was, and began his reflection from there. It is interesting to note that among those things and people that disciples had left behind, and then would receive back a hundredfold, no mention was made of wives or husbands. Jesus had already made the point that the two became one flesh, yoked together by God. It is also worthy of note that he omitted mention of receiving hundredfold fathers: he had also already made the point that in the Kingdom all were to be like children – there was no place for patriarchs.

Though Jesus also mentioned endless life in the world to come, the hundredfold would be experienced in this age. It would be a now experience.

Mark obviously had in mind the situation of his community of disciples. (Jesus’ disciples had probably not reached the hundredfold, even though they had each other – and they were encountering tensions there!) In Jesus’ mind the experience of the unity, affection and mutual commitment within the community of disciples would be immeasurably more bonding than the ties of natural family.

Peter’s observation would seem to indicate that such hundredfold had not become his own experience. Yet Peter was one of the community of disciples, companions of Jesus and consequently companions of each other. Why had he apparently missed out on the experience of the hundredfold?

Jesus had said that the hundredfold was the result of leaving all for his sake and the sake of the gospel. Peter had left all at the invitation of Jesus, but he was yet to see his leaving all as a response to the good news as proclaimed by Jesus. 


The Good News

The point that Jesus had been trying so insistently to make was that each person was loved by God; each person had a wonderful intrinsic dignity, beauty and worth. The reality of the Kingdom was the acknowledgment of this beautiful insight in the depths of one’s being.

The reality of the Kingdom required a profound conversion of heart, impossible for the human person unaided, but possible and passionately desired by God. It called for a genuine enlightenment by God, a new way of seeing: it needed nothing less than eyes healed by the touch of God.

When such a capacity for insight had been truly acquired, the response of the rest of the community did not matter. The disciple was free to love even those who otherwise were difficult to love. And this freedom, insight and inner power constituted together the experience of the Kingdom, the hundredfold now in this age.


Mark’s own recognition of the truth of the Kingdom was probably behind the comment that the Kingdom was still compatible with persecutions. The point of his brutally clear observation was to dispel any unrealistic anticipation of the Kingdom, and possibly to challenge his fellow disciples to be in touch with their truth.

Peter was far from that. If anything, the cohesion of the band of disciples was in the process of breaking down. Along with the other disciples Peter was still arguing who in the community was the greatest. The other disciples did not yet receive each other as brothers; they were competitors for honours.

Jesus also promised endless life in the world to come. The mention of endless life drew to a close the reference made to it in the request of the rich man. Jesus did not elaborate on the concept. However, he had made reference also to treasure in heaven. Is it possible to get some sense of what he was referring to? 


Eternal Life

Eternal life is not a synonym for human immortality. Eternal life is the kind of life that God lives. It is necessarily a gift of God. 

Genuine eternal life would seem to be a richer way of living humanly, of seeing and loving others, beyond the reach of unaided human effort but essentially supposing and transforming such human cooperation, the outcome of relationship with God and essentially the gift of God. Seen in that sense, it begins whenever a person lets go of the need to control, and surrenders to the wise and powerful, creative and life-giving God. Such living begins very much in this world but is precisely what continues on and reaches perfection in the world to come.

Eternal life is not the reward of goodness, a kind of extrinsic recompense for effort expended. Such motivation would seem to assume a God who has not so much fashioned us in his own image and who transforms us from within, but a God who commands hard things as a test and then rewards the ones who pass with something totally unrelated to personal growth and inner experience. Discipleship must be its own reward, or else life in the community becomes destructive of our own dignity and of our relationships. 


The final comment repeated the general message of this section of the narrative. At first sight its message seems clear. It is certainly a promise of reversal. On closer inspection, however, it becomes more like a parable: its message seems clear, but yet is not so.

31 Many who are first will be last;
and many who are last will be first."

Jesus was not saying, for example, that those now with riches would have them taken from them, and those now poor would be given wealth; or those now in positions of power would lose their power and those now oppressed would gain it. Too many revolutions have finished in disillusionment.

Unless systems changed radically, reversal remained a case simply of “business as usual”, still with rich and poor, still with oppressors and oppressed. Jesus had come to bring radical change to the system of relationships, to establish God’s Kingdom where all shared in the “enough” and the “hundredfold” and where no one’s dignity was greater than that of others, because all bore the image of God.

What Jesus was saying rather was that those who classed themselves as first did so only because they were not in touch with the essence of human dignity, even their own. If they had been, they would have seen the radical equality of all. Ignorant of their true dignity they became enslaved to substitutes. Their inner experience was not one of peace. The rich man of the story provided a perfect illustration of lack of such peace (10:17-22).

Those, however, who were not enslaved to substitutes, who saw “wealth”, “honour” and “power” for what they really were, who were content with their sense of personal God-given dignity, were the ones who experienced true inner peace. Common estimation might have rated them as “last”. In fact, they were the truly happy. They had no trouble with that judgment. Instead, seeing their own dignity, they saw also the dignity of others, and could treat others with the same deep respect and care that they showed to themselves: Whoever wants to be first must be the last of all and servant of all. (9:35) 

Next >> Mark 10:32-34