“Path Clearers”
September 26, 2021
Mark 9:38–50
John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
‘For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.’ ***
Tom had just finished golfing with three buddies and was enjoying the 19th hole. In the room were plenty of people telling tall tales about their spectacular drives and long putts.
Enter Conner, a red-faced, large, and loud man. Everyone knew him as a back-slapping, heehawing fellow both on the golf course and in the town. His strong opinions and overbearing nature meant few wanted to golf with him, so it wasn’t a surprise he spent most of his time at the golf course in the 19th hole.
Conner made his way over to Tom’s table with drink in hand and started talking in the only volume level he knew, loud. He bellowed, “You Lutherans don’t believe in the Bible, do you!” Rather than take the bait, Tom looked at him and smiled weakly, hoping he would pass on by like a spring thundershower.
Conner was referring to a recent decision by the denomination on some topic that was not to his liking. He went on, “Tom, I want to go to a church that is Bible-believing. Do you understand me? A place where the preacher is not trying to tip-toe around the hard lessons of Jesus, not watering down the Gospel. I want a preacher who will be bold and put it out there. No pussy-footing around the message of Jesus.”
Tom wasn’t sure where his response came from, but heard it issuing forth from his lips after taking a long sip from his beer. “You want the full Gospel, Conner? You mean the part about selling all you have and giving it to the poor?”
A pregnant silence fell over the room, after which Conner responded, “Well, not that part!”
All the guys at the table chuckled as Conner slunk away without another word. It was almost as if David had slain Goliath once again and all was right with the world.
Later that evening, after telling his wife about the 19th hole proceedings, she asked: “Ok Pastor Tom, what part of the Gospel do you avoid?” Her inquiry brought him to an uncomfortable truth. There’s a tendency in every one of us to avoid the hard parts the Bible when they confront our habits, lifestyles, and choices.
There is no doubt today’s reading is one of those parts of the Bible that no one wishes to follow. Even those who most want a “Bible believing” preacher and church would find some way to excuse it. Millstones. Stumbling blocks. Maimed bodies. Fire. This week’s reading offers us some of the harshest and most graphic language in the New Testament. It is not a section of Scripture to love. Death by drowning? Self-mutilation? The fires of hell?
Some context is important before we go any further. Jesus is moving south toward Jerusalem from Caesarea Philippi where he first announced his upcoming suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. He has made this announcement a second time and is now speaking openly and frequently about what is to come. Jesus knows time is running short to prepare his disciples and yet they continue to fail grasping the reality of it all.
Today’s reading is a continuation and part of last week’s story (Mark 9:30–37). It’s one story told in two weeks. Jesus and the disciples are still in the same house as last week, the child is still on Jesus’ lap, and Jesus is still deepening and moving the conversation inward. The disciples continue to be focused on competitiveness. Last week we read of them competing with each other over which of them was greatest. Today it’s about competition with others who were doing ministry in Jesus’ name. The disciples are indignant that some outsiders were doing work without proper credentials or paying the franchise fee. So, they look to Jesus to rule the interlopers out of bounds. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” The disciples wanted judgment.
Jesus’s response? Leave him alone. Quit pestering him. You don’t get it. “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus uses the occasion to teach them. “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” Then, in a wonderfully suggestive symbolic image Jesus says “whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ” will find reward. Or in other words when we give of ourselves, we are participating in the purpose of the Divine and we will know joy.
But the disciples are stuck in judgementalism. So, using graphic images, like drowning, burning flesh, and self-mutilation Jesus ramps things up in hopes that shock value will get his disciples on track.
“It would be better for you…” Jesus says four ominous times in this passage — in case we’re tempted to ignore him. Better for us if we what? If we mutilate our bodies to prove our fervor? Drown ourselves in the nearest body of water to keep other believers from losing their faith?
No. Jesus doesn’t mean any of this literally. One of my favorite theologians and authors, Barbara Brown Taylor notes drily that this Gospel passage, gruesome as it is, “defines the limits of Biblical literalism.” She notes, after all, even churches that teach six-day creation and mandatory head coverings for women don’t fill their pews with parishioners sporting “eye patches and wrapped stumps.” This passage, like so many other inconvenient ones in Scripture, forces us to do the hard, messy work of interpretation.
Okay, you might be thinking. I get that. But why such harsh language? Why “worms” and “fire” and missing limbs? Well, because the stakes are so high. Because what we do really matters. Jesus knows it is entirely possible for us to stumble because of our unkindness, dogmatism, biases, unforgiveness, and our fear.
Jesus is once again asking us to look at ourselves, to be self-reflective. It’s as if he saying to John, “Don’t you worry about that other guy. You worry about yourself.” He’s asking us to look within. The greatest stumbling blocks are not outside us but within us: anger and revenge, the judgments we make of others, prejudice, the need to be right, our unwillingness to listen, the assumption that we know more and better than another, living as if our way is the only and right way, pride, fear, being exclusionary, our desire for power and control. These, and a thousand other things like them, are what cause others and us to fall.
By Jesus’ response to John’s request, it seems apparent He want us to think carefully about what it costs to become path clearers. Stumbling block removers. It involves jettisoning those things that get in the way of servanthood. Perhaps that involves plucking out the judgmental way of viewing others who are different from us. We may have to cut off the selfishness that drives our lives. We may have to let go of the resentments that clutter our souls. Anything that gets in the way of us getting in the way of Christ must go. This has always been the radical call of Jesus to intentional discipleship. And it still is.
While this isn’t a favorite bible passage for anyone, we do ourselves and each other a great disservice if we read Jesus’s stark words in this passage and hear condemnation. Jesus isn’t condemning us; he’s reminding us of truths we intuitively know. The way of the cross is hard. It’s costly. It hurts. There is a place called hell that we create for ourselves and for others when we cling to our sins and stumbling blocks, instead of allowing Jesus, in his mercy, to remove them.
The will of God is not that we make the path of faith even rockier than it has to be. God is not interested in our self-loathing. As Richard Rohr puts it: “It is quite helpful to see sin, like addiction, as a destructive disease instead of something for which we’re culpable or punishable and that ‘makes God unhappy.’ If sin indeed makes God ‘unhappy,’ it is because God loves us, desires nothing more than our happiness, and wills the healing of the disease.”[1]
What would it be like to cut away the disease, for our own sakes, and for the sakes of our fellow travelers? What would it be like if the children of God helped each other to succeed? Imagine the charismatic Christian removing stumbling blocks for the liturgical one. The insider befriending the outsider. What would happen if we expanded the circle, lengthened the table, and decided to feast together? We’d become the community of the blessedly wounded, with our missing limbs and our patched-over eyes. We wouldn’t look as slick and infallible as we did before. But we would be path clearers. We’d be stumbling block removers. We’d be healers and exorcists. Best of all, no little one would ever lose her way again because of us.
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, How Do We Breathe Under Water? The Gospel and 12-Step Spirituality, (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2005
