Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, you sent you Son into our world to seek the lost and to save those who dwell in a land of darkness and despair. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, stir in us compassion and concern for those who think that they are beyond hope and your saving grace. Protect and keep each of us from the snares of hell, and restore in us a sense of value and potential for our lives and for the growth of your church. This we ask, in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
In our Gospel lesson for this morning, there appears to be a real contrast between the first four verses, and what follows. And so, I invite you to enter this contrast with an open heart and an open mind.
Our lesson opens with Mark telling us that John, one of Jesus’ closest disciples, tells Jesus that they happened upon a person who was casting out demons, or healing people of various diseases, and doing so in Jesus’ name. But this person wasn’t a disciple. He wasn’t even a person who had been following after Jesus, from place to place, as so many had been doing.
Oh, this person may have heard Jesus speak once or twice. This person may have even seen Jesus perform a miracle of healing. Or perhaps, this person had never even seen Jesus, or heard him speak. This person may have just heard about Jesus from others, as Jesus’ reputation as a healer
and prophet spread throughout the region.
To bring it into modern day terms, this person may never have joined a church, but heard others tell about their own encounter with Jesus, and believed their witness enough to pray for the healing of others in Jesus’ name. And according to Biblical scholarship, to perform an act “in the name of Jesus,” means to perform that act “by the authority of Jesus.”
So John, as spokesperson for the disciples, tell Jesus, “we tried to stop this person from healing people by invoking your name, because he was not following you, was not a member of your church.” But Jesus rebuked his disciples, saying, and “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. Whoever is not against us is for us.”
Then Jesus goes on to say that even if a person gives you a simple drink of water because you are a follower of Jesus the Christ, that person will not go unrewarded. It sounds as though Jesus is saying that it really doesn’t matter if you are a member of his church, if you perform an act of kindness in his name, you will receive his blessing.
But after saying this, Mark tells us that Jesus addressed his disciples, those of us who follow him as members of his church, with some rather stern warnings. Jesus tells us that if we put a stumbling block before any person who might believe in him, if we hinder their growth in faith, it would be better for us to be drowned in the sea. And then he goes on to tell us that if our hand or foot or eye causes us to sin, it would be better for us to cut them off from our body, and enter into the kingdom of God without these parts of our body, than to be thrown into hell.
Now there is the contrast! If someone acts to perform a healing in Jesus’ name, and is not a member of Christ’s church, they will receive their reward. If someone even gives a thirsty member of Christ’s church a drink of water in his name, that person will receive his or her reward. But if we, as members of Christ’s church do anything to cause someone outside the church to lose faith in Jesus, Mark tells us that we should cut out our sinful eye, or arm, or leg, rather than risk being thrown into hell.
Now, the first thing that we need to recognize as we begin to interpret this lesson, is that it cannot be taken literally. To “cut off your hand,” or to “pluck out your eye,” because it has caused you to sin, has never been advocated by the church. In fact, persons in Christian history who actually mutilated their bodies, such as Origin, a theologian who lived in the third century, were severely criticized by the Christian community.
Rather, the church has historically held that Jesus often used hyperbole – a common teaching technique of his day – to teach his disciples. In other words, Jesus used obvious exaggerations and overstatements in
order to stress a point and catch the attention of those he was teaching.
I do not believe that Jesus was literally telling us to cut off those parts of our bodies that cause us to sin. Rather, I believe that Jesus was stressing the idea that we need to be, as members of his church, self-critical – to realize that the cause of sin comes from within our selves, rather than from someone or something outside of ourselves.
For example, I still enjoy an occasional cigar. I used to chew snuff, until my dentist told me that I needed to get off of that stuff. But who am I going to blame, if I develop lip cancer or lung cancer. Many have sued the tobacco industry, but the truth begins with me. I am the one who has used those products, with their warning labels clearly evident that I use their product at my own health risk. I have no one to blame but myself. And if my use of tobacco, and imbibing in a few beers causes any one to doubt my faith in Christ, I am, as your pastor, in need of Christ’s grace.
Now, without trying to diminish the contrast that Jesus makes in our lesson, there is still a point that needs to be made. First of all, I am not a “hell, fire and brimstone” preacher. And the reason for this is, that in all of Scripture, the word that is translated “hell” only appears thirteen times – all in the New Testament – and nowhere in the Old Testament. And as it is used here in Mark’s Gospel, it refers to a specific place, in the actual landscape of the people living during that time.
The word that is translated “hell” is “Gehenna.” Gehenna was the name given to the Hinnon valley outside the city walls of Jerusalem, where centuries before the time of Jesus, it had been a place of pagan idolatry, where unfaithful Israelites once offered up child sacrifices to the pagan gods of Molech and Baal. As a result, it had long been condemned by Josiah as an eternally unholy place.
Thus, by the time of Jesus, Gehenna had become the city dump. This was the place where rubbish, decaying carcasses of various animals, and leftover bones of the meat consumed by the people living in Jerusalem, was discarded. This place was constantly kept burning, in order to purge it of the rot and decay that infested it.
Since Gehenna was an actual place at the time of Jesus, detestable as it was, filled with flesh eating worms and perpetually burning rubbish, many Biblical scholars question whether Jesus was literally describing a place in the hereafter. This thought provides us with a rather stark contrast to the long held belief that there are two eternal kingdoms waiting to receive us after our death – one the eternal flames of hell; the other the golden lined streets of heaven.
In all honesty, I have no doubt that Jesus invites us, through our faith in his death and resurrection, to experience life beyond death, together with him in God’s heavenly kingdom. This is the true message of the Gospels. It is the message that we are called to proclaim, as his disciples.
But whether there is, or is not, an eternal place of “hell,” does not diminish the impact of this morning’s lesson. For the difference between our life ending with our bodies simply being thrown on the garbage dump of Gehenna, or passing through the gate of death to be with our risen Lord in his Father’s kingdom, makes an eternity of difference.
What Jesus seems to be stressing in our lesson for this morning, is that we should worry less about those who call on Jesus’ name, but do not follow us in our forms of worship and theology – as much as we should worry about our own lives of faith. He calls on us to confront our own sinfulness, and strive to amend our own lives as disciples of Christ. Jesus calls on us to live by faith, to trust in him, even through those times in which we might be tested with fire. “Have salt in yourselves,” he says, “and be at peace with one another.”
May God’s Spirit so grant us the ability to do just this.
Amen.
