Hard Texts:  Cut It Off?

Mark 9:33-50

October 1, 2006            (Click the date to see the bulletin)

 

1.  I must tell you that no one asked for this hard text – this passage is the lectionary Gospel Lesson for today.  But it is hard – at least, I think it’s hard.  Actually, when you get right down to it, the whole Bible is hard!  So let’s get right into it.  Listen to this portion of a day in the life of Jesus from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the original text that he calls The Message.^[i] 

They came to Capernaum.  When Jesus was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you debating on the road?”  The silence was deafening – they had been arguing with one another  over who among them was greatest.  [Jesus] sat down and summoned the Twelve.  “So you want first place?  Then take the last place.  Be the servant of all.”  He put a child in the middle of the room.  Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me – God who sent me.”  John spoke up, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t in our group.”  Jesus wasn’t pleased.  “Don’t stop him.  No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down.  If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally.  Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side.  Count on it that God will notice.  On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t.  You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.  If your hand or your foot gets in God’s way, chop it off and throw it away.  You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in the furnace of eternal fire.  And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away.  You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.  Everyone’s going through a refining fire sooner or later, but you’ll be well-preserved, protected from the eternal flames.  Be preservatives yourself.  Preserve the peace.

2.   What’s so hard about this section is hearing once again how inclusive Jesus expects us to be.  The disciples had been playing humanity’s favorite game of One-Ups. Not only had they been arguing about who among them was #1, John even boasted that someone else had been casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and he told him to quit because that fellow was “not one of us.”  And when Jesus said “Don’t do that!” he turned their world upside down, and ours, too.  Greatness as God sees it is totally opposite from greatness the way we see it – and the way we act, too!  Karl Barth describes this radical acceptance of others as the basis of all Christian ethics,^[ii] and it should be the foundation of our decisions.  He says Jesus teaches us to think of every human being as one to whom Jesus Christ is brother and God is father.  Every human being.  Every one!  Remember the Great Commandment?  Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself.  Treating every person as a brother or sister is The Great Commandment in action.   And this little scenario is one of many ways Jesus taught his disciples to live it out.

3.  As if being totally inclusive weren’t hard enough, imbedded in this difficult section is another “hard part” – the “chopping off your hand/foot and pulling out your eye if they make life difficult for another believer” part.   Chop it off?  Why would Jesus say that?  Professor F. F. Bruce, who taught Bible at the University of Manchester in England, has the answer. ^[iii]  He says Jesus is using a figure of speech to make a point, and is not to be taken literally.  When the New Testament was first translated into English in 1525, there was great concern that these instructions from Jesus would be taken literally, and England would be full of blind, maimed people who couldn’t do anything.  But, Bruce points out, there is no record of anyone ever mutilating himself because of these words in the Gospels.  Jesus was trying to make a point, to get a message through to his heard-headed disciples.  Flannery O’Conner was a master at getting through thick skulls.  She once defended her graphic short stories by saying “To the almost deaf, you shout; to the almost blind, you draw large and grotesque pictures.”  These sayings from these verses fall into that category.  Jesus wanted them to know the importance of living faithfully.  It takes ALL of us working together to make the world go ‘round the way God wants it to revolve!  God wants all of us to work together.  I wish we were not as divided as we have become through the centuries.  I wish we had “church districts” that resemble our school districts.  That way, everyone in the same geographical area would go to the same church.  Everyone would be unified in their service, rather than competitive.  There is no reason for there to be so many different denominations; much less so many different Presbyterian churches in our area.  I wish we could give up our belief that somehow we have to be possessive about “our” church!

4.  On this World Communion Sunday, we need to remember our place.  As we gather around this Table, we must begin to break down the walls that divide us from one another.  Rather than find reasons to keep us apart, we need to find reasons to bring us together.  It may seem nonsensical to some.  And it may take a while.  It may be like the time a little snail started to climb a cherry tree.  It was a cold, windy day in early spring.  Some birds in a nearby tree couldn’t keep quiet.  “Hey, you dumb snail!  Where do you think you’re going?”  “Why are you climbing that tree?”  “There are no cherries on that tree!”  The little snail didn’t flinch.  And he didn’t slow down, which was a bit hard to detect, no faster than he went.  His only comment was, “There will be some cherries by the time I get there.”^[iv]   Would that we could work for inclusive unity, just like that snail worked for his food, in Jesus name!