Mark 10:31

BARGAINING IN RELIGION

‘But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.’

Mark 10:31

The Apostles were standing by, and when they saw the young man go away and refuse to do what Christ bade him, it is plain that they began to draw a contrast between themselves and that young man. St. Peter, always the first to speak, turns at once to our Lord and says: ‘Behold we have forsaken all and followed Thee. What shall we have therefore?’ You cannot help seeing that the emphasis lies on the word we. We, in contradistinction to the young man who had just gone away. He was to have had eternal life if he had done so and so. We have already done it. What are we to have?

I. An untrustful speech.—It is most instructive to see that Christ begins by treating the case very tenderly, and then towards the end He conveys the reproof which was rendered necessary. The speech of St. Peter was, as all of us must feel, a cold, hard, untrustful kind of speech, and no one could have wondered if our Lord had met it with some direct reproof. Still, He does not. There is not a word of direct reproof for the question itself. First, the question is answered, and answered encouragingly, and then afterwards comes the maxim of our text.

II. Our Lord’s reply.—It is as if our Lord meant to imply: ‘Have you any doubt of My keeping faith with you? Have you any doubt of My rewarding you abundantly? Put away all such doubts. You will be rewarded—everybody will be rewarded—a hundredfold.’ Then, when our Lord has answered the question, then He puts in the warning which the spirit of the question rendered needful.

III. The warning.—The Apostles were His first followers; so He says: ‘Beware! for though you shall not fail of a hundredfold reward, yet there is such a thing as the first being put last, even though a hundredfold rewarded!’ We may fancy how this must have grated on the ears of the Apostles! After all the high promises they had been listening to, to be told that after all, though they were first now, and though they should certainly be rewarded a hundredfold, and have the everlasting life which had been offered to the young man, yet even then they might still be turned down and put last.

The spirit which God chiefly hates in religion is the spirit of bargaining. The spirit which God chiefly loves is the spirit of prompt uncalculating obedience, the spirit to trust Him without any bargaining at all, leaving it to God to reward us when and how He pleases, and knowing that He is sure to take a greater pleasure in doing well by us than ever we can do in being rewarded by Him.

Illustration

‘Those who think of serving God just so much and no more; those who think about measuring out their services to Christ’s poor or to Christ’s Church according to any spirit of bargaining, are simply mistaking the spirit of God’s service altogether. We are in danger of committing this sin in a spiritual sense every time we come to church, thinking more of the good we are to get by it than of our desire to set forth God s praise. Praise and worship should be our first thought when we come into His courts. Chiefly, and above all, should it be our first thought in Holy Communion, when we commemorate the great love of Christ. And, perhaps, there is no blessing which flows from frequent communion more great than this—that the devout communicant comes to think less and less of himself, and more and more of Christ the Saviour and the Sacrifice, until worship and adoration come to swallow up all other thoughts, and the love of God becomes supreme over all.’