Mark
9:38-50
Today’s reading
from the Gospel of Mark probably doesn’t rank as anyone’s favorite Bible
passage. Hearing about tearing out one’s
eye or cutting off one’s limb is disturbing to say the least. However, there is an upside. As Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest,
points out, this passage in all its horror serves to expose the limits of
reading the Bible literally. Walk into
the most conservative, Bible-believing church, she reflects, where women are
not allowed to wear pants or speak up in church and men refuse to swear oaths
or do chores on Sunday, and you won’t find many folks sporting eye patches or
stumped limbs. That’s because Christians
across the spectrum recognize that Jesus is not advocating self-violence –
something else is going on here. Something
that needs to be taken seriously, yes, but not literally.
So in order to do
just that, we need to back up a bit and see how we got here. Our reading begins with the disciple John
coming to Jesus with the most distressing of news. “Teacher,” he says, “we saw someone casting
out demons in your name.” He goes on to
explain that upon seeing this, the disciples tried to stop him. Why, one might ask, did the disciples try to
stop this man from setting someone free from evil forces? Because the stranger was somehow doing it
incorrectly? Or because he was hurting
someone? Or maybe because he was
defaming Jesus’ name in the process? No. “We tried to stop him,” John explains,
“because he was not following us."
Now perhaps this unlicensed exorcist didn’t speak, think, act, or look
like the rest of them - that we do not know.
But we do know this: The
disciples did not consider him to be a part of their group. He was an outsider getting in their way. And when they are unable to stop him
themselves they reported him.
No doubt Jesus’
response comes as a big disappointment.
John and the rest of the disciples told on this man because they thought
that Jesus would be on their side. That
Jesus would see it their way and shut him down.
But shockingly Jesus comes to the stranger’s defense. “Do not stop him for…whoever is not against
us is for us.” Whoever is not against us
is for us. And with this declaration all
ideas about who’s an insider and who’s an outsider, who’s part of the group and
who’s not, who’s one of us and who’s one of them crumbles. And the conversation takes an unexpected and
even uncomfortable turn.
Taking the
judgment the disciples had for the outsider, Jesus turns it back on them. He challenges them and us to examine our own
lives by considering how we might get in the way of God’s spirit at work in the
world, how might we be stumbling blocks not only to others but also to
ourselves.
Now a stumbling
block in the physical world are easy to identify - a shoe left in the middle of
the room, a bed post that jumps out and jams your toe or the uneven pavement on
a walkway can all make us trip and fall.
These things are all outside of us and things we can see. But the stumbling blocks that Jesus is
referring to are much harder to identify for they exist on the inside and can
seem as much a part of us as our own eyes and hands and feet. These stumbling blocks are habits of life
like fear, guilt, anger, bitterness, envy or gossip - all things that distort
the way we see, think, and act towards God, others, and ourselves. Addiction, racism, pride, or the tendency to
judge are also examples of blocks that can trip us and others up in life. And every time we stumble or cause someone
else to do so we have denied life. We
have diminished the Kingdom of God and the love that reigns.
This is serious
stuff and it’s why Jesus engages in such serious, even shocking, language. But I realize that it’s not just the part
about self-mutilation that makes us cringe.
All the talk about being thrown into hell makes me want to stick my
fingers in my ears and simply block it out.
But in taking this passage seriously it needs to be addressed, so let me
offer this. The concept of hell is a
strong symbol for separation from God - separation which does indeed result in
torment. However, a literal hell with
punishing flames of fire is in direct contradiction with the essential message
of the gospel - the message that God loves the whole world and desires that all
be saved. Although we do have the ability
to resist God’s love in Christ - and that resistance bears its own consequences
- separation from God is never God’s will for any of us.
Jesus does not
use the language of hell in order to seal anyone’s eternal destiny. He uses it to get our attention. To sound the alarm so that we might hear the
news that whatever is in our lives that make us or others stumble needs to be
removed - not as a punishment but as a means of becoming genuinely whole. For as stumbling blocks are removed, the
boundaries of God’s Kingdom of life and love, mercy and grace expands to the
point where no one is a stranger, no one is an outsider - and everyone who is
not against us is for us.
The way we live
really does matter. Even the simple act,
Jesus says, of giving a cup of water to someone in need makes an impact in the
Kingdom of God. Everyone who works and
walks on the side of love is on God’s side no matter how different they are to
us or we to them. So let us use these
eyes of ours to see the world as God sees it.
Which will no doubt prompt our feet to walk into places of need where we
can reach out our still-attached hands in care and service. So that none of us stumble, but together are
steadied in the love of God that never ever fails.
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