Mark 10:17-31
Mark 10:17-31 – How Hard?
Lesson Focus: Jesus calls us to let go of whatever it is that is keeping us from truly following him.
Lesson Outcomes: Through this lesson, students should:
Understand that merely following God’s commandments does not mean that we are truly following God.
Understand that Jesus wants us to give up our grip on whatever keeps us from truly following him.
Be encouraged to spend time in prayer and discernment to discover what keeps them from following Jesus.
Catching up on the Story After Jesus urges his followers to be at peace with one another, he and the disciples travel beyond the Jordan River. Again, the crowds are ever-present, and they have gathered about. As was his custom, Jesus began teaching them about the nature of God’s Kingdom.
Not everyone is thrilled with Jesus’ teaching or ministry. The Pharisees seek to trap Jesus with a question. They want to know if it’s lawful for a man to divorce his wife. A lot is going on in this passage, but while divorce is the main issue, that’s not his primary concern. Jesus’ main concern, as it has been elsewhere, is protecting the vulnerable and rejected people of this world. In Jesus’ day, divorce, while legal, created great hardship for the women who would find themselves divorced. Nobody wanted a divorced woman; consequently, they often had to resort to prostitution to survive.
After Jesus squashes the Pharisees’ question, he continues teaching. While doing so, people in the crowd begin to bring him children. Children were not valued then as they are now. It was not expected that there would have been no special teaching time where Jesus would get on their level. If anything, children were a nuisance to the important teaching and work that Jesus was doing. Rather than shooing the children away, as the disciples attempted to do, Jesus embraced them. By doing so, Jesus again emphasizes the nature of the Kingdom of God. Children are entirely dependent on adults for their care. Jesus wants us to understand that the way we enter his Kingdom is through child-like dependency on God.
Another Question Jesus wraps up his time teaching at that location and begins to set out for another place. We aren’t told where only that he was setting out on a journey. Jesus hasn’t made much progress when a man runs up to him, bows down, and says, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
We have to be careful not to read too much in the man’s reference to “eternal life.” The picture of “heaven” that you and I likely have would have probably been foreign to the man. Instead, “eternal life” is likely shorthand for “life of the age to come” or in God’s coming Kingdom.[1]
Jesus responds that the address that the man used is quite odd. Nowhere else in the New Testament is Jesus referred to as “Good Teacher.” Then, Jesus gives what seems to be the expected answer, “You know the commandments….” You’ll notice that Jesus doesn’t recite all of the Ten Commandments. Jesus only references the part of the Ten Commandments that deal with relationships with other people. As the previous section in Mark show, one of Jesus’ primary concern is that people are treated justly. In all of its forms, justice, along with righteousness, is the hallmark of God’s coming Kingdom, the Kingdom that has arrived with Jesus.
Without hesitation, the man responds that he has been a moral and upright Jew since he was young. He has kept all of those commandments. Jesus neither affirms nor denies the truth of what the man has just said. Neither does he praise the man for his faithfulness. Instead, Jesus looks lovingly at the man.
I imagine that the loving look that Jesus gives, along with the internal feelings that generated the expression, are similar to when a child approaches their parent to report that they have accomplished all of their chores without being asked or that they have done something unexpectedly helpful. In those moments as a parent, love and affection can be overwhelming.
To accompany his loving look, Jesus issues one more command, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
A few things are important here. It was a common assumption that wealth was a sign that you were a righteous person, and because of that, you had been blessed by God. To be ordered to give away all that the man had would have been shocking. Second, we can’t make Jesus’ command here an absolute requirement for following Jesus. Jesus’ command may have been aimed at challenging the man to give up what he had been dependent on, his wealth so that he could be dependent on God. Jesus is challenging those things that keep us from truly following him. However, it doesn’t leave us off the hook. We are responsible for using our wealth (and we’re all wealthy compared to a lot of the world) to aid our efforts in participating with what God is doing in our world.
A Teaching Moment Dejected, the man goes on his way. The disciples who have witnessed the exchange are flabbergasted. Jesus doesn’t help things much when he poses his own question to his friends, “How hard will it be for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” Jesus’ words are met with expressions of confusion. It’s almost as if Jesus can see the disciples trying to work out what he’s said. So, Jesus repeats the question, but this time he leaves off the bit about wealth. It seems that regardless of your financial standing, entering and participating in God’s Kingdom is difficult.
To help his friends visualize the difficulty of entering into the Kingdom of God, Jesus likens it to a camel, the largest animal around, being fit through the eye of a needle. It’s common to believe that Jesus was referring to a small gate in Jerusalem’s wall that was referred to as the eye of a needle. There is no such gate. Jesus is simply painting a picture to prove his point. The camel has a better shot than someone who is wealthy!
If we were hearing this for the first time, you would likely respond the same way the disciples do, “Then who can be saved?” Remember, wealth was often seen as a sign of God’s blessing. If the rich don’t get in, then no one will. Jesus seeks to soothe their consternation by stating that entering into the Kingdom of God is impossible on our own. But ushering humanity into the Kingdom is exactly why Jesus has come. Jesus has come to make the impossible possible. The key is learning to follow Jesus truly.
Peter looks around the room, and it dawns on him that he and his friends have left everything they have to follow Jesus. Immediately he points this out to Jesus. Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Yes, Jesus says, you have been faithful. You have left it all to follow me, but you won’t go without. You won’t live empty-handed! No, because you have followed me, you’ll receive so much more in return, hoses and siblings and children and fields. You’ll also get persecution. Jesus turns what seems to be a promise of eternal reward into a buzz kill.
I think it is essential to understand that Jesus doesn’t promise his followers riches. This is no health and wealth, prosperity gospel. One commentator says it like this, “Persecutions are mentioned, as not all will imbibe kingdom values. But the essential point is that giving up is not impoverishment but being free in order to share; such sharing enlarges one’s home, family, and possessions.”[2]
Jesus ends the passage by saying, “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” Giving up so we can share, being last so that we can be first, points to the paradoxical and upside-down nature of God’s Kingdom.
So What? It’s this upside-down nature of God’s Kingdom that can be so disorienting to us. Most of the time, we come to our faith asking the wrong questions. Like the man, we’re tempted to ask, “How much does God want from me? When have I given enough?” But these are the wrong questions. They’re wrong because they view the relationship we have with our loving creator, the one who looks lovingly at us, as a transaction. We cannot barter for our salvation. We’ll never have enough to trade.[3]
More than obedience to any rule or command, God wants all of us. God wants us to follow. Sometimes we get that mixed up too and think that following Jesus is a list of things we check off our to-do list or a list of things we don’t do. Following Jesus isn’t about that, though. Following Jesus is learning to live, in the depths of our very being, as Jesus lived. Following Jesus is learning to become authentically everything that God created us to be in the first place. Following Jesus means learning to truly commune with the God who created us.
We cannot do any of those things if we hold tightly onto things that are not God. We cannot follow God if we are dependent on our wealth. We cannot follow God if we think our identity is found in the things we own. We cannot follow God if we cling to status, prestige, or power.
There’s a line from a song by the David Crowder Band that I think appropriately captures what Jesus is saying, “Maybe like a match being lit, Or the sinking of a ship, Letting go gives a better grip4.”[4] What we get a better grip on when we let go of whatever is keeping us from truly following Jesus, is not more things. We get a better grip on becoming the loving, Christlike person we are meant to be.
Specific Discussion Questions: Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.
Why does the man in the story ask Jesus what he might do to inherit eternal life?
In response, Jesus only quotes some of the Ten Commandments. What do the commandments he quotes have in common? Why would he choose just those?
The man responds that he’s kept all of those commandments since he was young. What do you think the man was expecting from Jesus as a response?
Mark tells us that Jesus was looking lovingly at the man. Why would the man’s response make Jesus do that? What kind of situation might we experience today evoke a similar response in us?
Jesus then tells the man to go and sell all that he has and give it to the poor. Why does Jesus do that?
Do you think that we, too, must follow Jesus’ command? Should we all go and sell all that we have and give it to the poor? What makes you think that?
Mark tells us that Jesus asks the disciples how hard it might be for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. The disciples seem surprised by this saying, “Who then can be saved?” Why do you think the disciples were shocked by Jesus’ question? What do you make of Jesus’ response?
Suddenly, Peter realizes that giving up all they have is precisely what he and the other disciples have done. Jesus responds to Peter’s observation by saying that those who have left what they have to follow Jesus will receive “a hundredfold now in this age….” What is Jesus getting at with his response? Do you think Jesus is saying that if we give up everything, he’ll give us more stuff? Or, do we receive something else?
For good measure, Jesus throws persecutions into the list of things his followers will receive if they truly follow him. What does Jesus mean by that?
We often talk about the reward for following Jesus being eternal life in heaven. Jesus is clear that our following him will yield a reward here and now. Looking closely at the list of things Jesus says we’ll receive, what do you think we receive?
[1] Kim Huat Tan, Mark: A New Covenant Commentary, ed. Michael F. Bird and Craig Keener, New Covenant Commentary Series, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015), 136.
[2] Haut, 139
[3] Boring, M. Eugene, Mark: A Commentary. Edited by C. Clifton Black, John T. Carroll, and M. Eugene Boring, The New Testament Library, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 293.
[4] David Crowder Band, “Foreverand ever Etc…,” track 5 on A Collision or (3+4=7), Sixstetps, 2005, compact disc.