Canter Bridge

Jesus made plain to those who would follow him that the cost of doing so was everything they owned and everything they were. His was an exclusive claim upon their loyalty and the virtual extinction of their self-determination. Yet in the odd economy of the ‘kingdom of God’ whose imminence and presence he proclaimed, there was to be recompense for such extreme self-surrender:

Then Peter said, ‘Look, we have left our homes and followed you.’ And he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.’

To this day, many who declare themselves followers of Jesus, both prosperous and paupered by the economies of their time, declare this guarantee to have been made good in their lives. Indeed, it bears a striking and recurring prominence in Christian testimony.

While avoiding reductionistic interpretation of what is self-evidently a promise as comprehensive as the quit claim demanded of Jesus followers, it appears that insertion into a wider family lies at the root of the thing. Those who give up everything to follow Jesus find themselves adopted into a family where goods and kinship abound. The promise and its concrete realization do not annul the real pain of disenfranchisement that lies at the heart of discipleship’s self-abandonment. It is not promised that one will not lose goods and family. Rather, such trauma is presumed.

The promise consists rather of disproportionate compensation. One loses a home, a wife, his brothers, even parents and children. Yet enrichment comes, for the sustaining affection and sufficient provision of the new family overcome the ensuing want. Jesus’ promises are usually this way, impressing sobriety and joy at once into the life of his follower and so, eventually, into the dialect of witness.