Mark 10:17-31 Commentary

The thing about this rich man is that he seems sincere. Unlike say, the Pharisee praying out loud and comparing himself to others in a pompous way (Luke 18.10-14), this man “kept all the commandments” and sought after the good teacher.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to describe the rich man as searching. Having kept God’s law, he seems to have an inkling that there’s more to the spiritual life. Presumably, he’s sought the wisdom of other rabbis; and presumably, they’ve probably pointed him to what he’s been doing: keeping the commandments. And yet, the feeling that there’s something more cannot be shaken. So when the man hears of Jesus being around, he runs up to (hence the sincere earnestness) and kneels before Jesus and asks him the big question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Ultimately, Jesus’s answer is that there is nothing humans can do to inherit eternal life, but everything God can do (v 27). And yet, in the way that things like the gift of salvation and the Spirit’s presence in our lives bears fruit through our actions, there are things for us mortals to do. Or, as Jesus puts it with all love in his heart, “follow me.”

But instead of going away with joy in his heart because he has found the answer to what has been niggling at him this whole time, the rich man goes away gloomy, vexed, irritated, grieving because he cannot “have it all.” The irony, of course, is that he could have had what he was losing a hundredfold, as Jesus explains to the disciples.

But such riches requires a perspective change, particularly of what eternal life means in the here-and-now. And before we get too ahead of ourselves, every character in this passage, except Jesus, is in need of a new way of understanding life in the Kingdom. Viewing wealth as a sign of blessing from God is one thing, but then always categorizing it as a sign of righteousness is another. We commonly mistake grace for reward—not to mention commonly misunderstanding what Jesus’s reward actually is…

Like so many of us today, the disciples are also seeing through wealth-tinted glasses. They reveal their deeply-held-assumption that a wealthy person is a blessed person—and blessed in the sense of if you do things right results in God will match it with blessings; more of a partnership than an unearned gift. A rich person, then, clearly had things figured out—including religion. In fact, it’s likely that this rich man and the disciples both sat in religious services and heard how wealth was a sign of God’s pleasing outlook on conduct. Jesus’s teaching that rich people really struggle with salvation and life under the Kingdom values is a shock to them: “If not them, then who?”

Even though the rich man seemed to have an idea that there was something more, this was not the lesson his heart wanted to receive. It really is a shocking lesson—his reaction along with the disciples’ proves it so. When the thing you took as a sign of health is actually a sign of things being way off track, it’s terrifying. So much will have to change!

Where once he ran to find out the answer to his heart’s wanderings, now the rich man goes away shocked and grieving because he knows now that there are other costly ways to measure his heart. The invitation from Jesus remains open: he can sell what he owns and sacrifice whatever those things have become for him—whether that’s status or comfort or self-assurance or belonging—and he can come back to Jesus and follow the Good Teacher.

The story turns to the disciples. Peter realizes that they have done this very thing. It turns out that Jesus has been blessing them with the experience of this truth and shaping it into them all this long while. The disciples’ ideas about things have not yet changed, but Jesus has been taking a round-about approach to this transformation by leading them through experiences, talking about it, and now leading them to reflecting on what they’ve come to know. Jesus has taught them with words and given them experiences of life in the Kingdom: of expanded people and places of belonging even as (as he continues to remind them) there is suffering and hardship.

Jesus tried to reassure the rich man that he would still be rich with a treasure in heaven. Or more precisely, that he would have a treasure chest in heaven since the word for “treasure” is actually the word for the repository and not the treasure itself. So Jesus tells the rich man (and us) to keep in mind that this other place, heaven, is the place where he stores up the goods that really matter.

And when you realize this, you also realize that those treasures are pretty rewarding here on earth. Entering into this Kingdom way is not about keeping the letter of the law perfectly, but of having your way of seeing and being in the world completely transformed because of the bonds of the Spirit of God. By letting loose the ties that bind according to the ways of the world, from family and vocation to riches and wealth, and following Jesus into the Kingdom, a rich world of connection is made real: an expanded family, the sharing of our resources, and the commitment to each other and to Christ to see one another through the hard times.

Textual Point

At the end of our passage, Jesus tells the disciples that those who “lose” their house, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children or fields for his sake receive new houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields as well as persecutions. Besides the addition of persecution, do you notice how the second list leaves off “fathers”? As Jesus says in Matthew 23.9, we will have only “one Father, and he is in heaven.”

Illustration Idea

Entering a new world through a portal is the classic image of Narnia through the wardrobe, Alice through a rabbit hole, or Marvel’s Thor through the Bifrost. It turns out, all we have to do is to follow Jesus into the Kingdom of God and our very lives become a wonderland of possibility. But like these fictitious new worlds, the Kingdom in the present age will still have peril and danger, temptations and our own malformed character traits to be worked through.