Full service can be viewed HERE.
Pentecost 18B
September 26, 2021
Mark 9:38-50
INTRODUCTION
In two of our texts this week, Numbers and Mark, we get stories about one group of people judging another because they don’t act or believe the right way. That’s nothing we know anything about, right? Haha, right! We are all too familiar with having strong feelings about how something should be done, and who should be doing it, just like the Israelites and the disciples. These texts show us that, as Jesus says, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” We all want the same thing and have the same goal, so have some grace for one another along the way. James will show us what the Church could look like instead – praying for the suffering, celebrating with the joyful, confessing when you’ve done wrong. It’s all so simple to say, but difficult to do when our pride and deeply held convictions are at stake!
As you listen today, think about the ways you have, even with good intentions, tried to bring others down a notch, or tried to get them to see things your way (that is, of course, the right way), or accused them of something before recognizing the behavior also in yourself. We have all done these things. Let’s listen to how humans have done them all along, and what God has to say about it.
[READ]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
This week at the United Nations General Assembly, General Secretary Antonio Guterres sounded the alarm on some major world issues. “The world must wake up,” he said. “We are on the edge of an abyss and moving in the wrong direction. Our world has never been more threatened, and more divided. We face the biggest cascade of crises in our lifetime.” He went on to cite the pandemic, climate change and multiple wars, and added, “A surge of mistrust and misinformation is polarizing people and paralyzing societies.” This is not news to anyone who has been paying attention, of course, but hearing it put so starkly on the global stage is unnerving. World leaders, including President Biden, tried to declare an effort toward peace, but of course the problems are big, as are the stakes and the egos of those involved, so peace can often seem like a far-off dream.
Now, I am a firm believer that Scripture cannot be honestly read in a vacuum. Because it is the living Word of God, it speaks to us differently based on what is going on in the world around us and in our personal lives. Even as it remains steadfast and unchanging, this living Word of God reveals to us different truths, depending on what we are going through. It hits on different parts of our hearts. And so, in light of what is happening in the world around me, and around us, the line that hit me especially hard this week was the last one of Jesus’ sermon: Be at peace with one another.
Do you remember a time when we felt at peace with one another – globally, as a country, or even in our personal lives, which are also wrought with pain, brokenness, and conflict? I can think of a few moments, but by and large, “peace with one another” is a dream unrecognized, or even one that seems unattainable. And yet, I believe it is something we all want, right? I mean sure, there are some who really thrive on drama and conflict, but in the end, to be at peace with one another sounds to me like a pretty good thing.
Turns out, peace was an unrecognized ideal for Mark’s community, too. Scholars generally agree that the community for which Mark was writing was dealing with some level of division. We don’t know what about exactly – perhaps it was gnostic versus orthodox views of Jesus, or people who had stayed steadfast in the midst of persecution versus those who had left when the going got tough and now wanted back in. Whatever it was, there were significant divisions. And so, Mark includes this little incident from Jesus’ life and teaching as a way of inviting them to use Jesus’ story to reframe how they think about their lives, their commitments, their identity and their understanding of what makes up an authentic Christian community.
Two thousand years later, this story serves the same purpose for us. We, too, live with painful divisions, in our homes, in our country, and in our world. We too, need some guidance from our Lord.
Of course, Jesus doesn’t offer the disciples or us any kind, sweet words. That would have been nice, wouldn’t it, because when we are in pain, we just like to be comforted, sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and move on. But in today’s text, Jesus takes a different route: he uses a shock tactic. The disciples come tattling on someone who is not doing things the way they think they should be done, and the harsh language Jesus uses in his rebuke is a really good reason not to read everything in the Bible literally – because if we did, we’d all be trying to stay afloat with millstones around our necks, with eye patches and wrapped stumps instead of hands and feet. These are not the sort of loving words we long to hear from Jesus! Could he possibly have really meant we should resort to self-mutilation when we realize we have sinned?
This is an example of something that should be taken seriously, but not literally. Jesus is being hyperbolic, or perhaps using metaphor, to get our attention and hit home a point, to show us how very seriously we are to take sin, sin that would keep us or someone else from reaching God. Take very seriously the danger of stumbling blocks along this path – so seriously, in fact, that you would go to great lengths to be sure that these stumbling blocks are removed.
In Jesus’ hyperbolic language, removal is straightforward: simply cut it off and throw it into the fire. Drown it in the sea. Discard it. In real life, removing stumbling blocks is not so simple, because the stumbling blocks themselves cannot always be clearly seen. So how do we find them? Well, with something like a tumor, it is more straightforward: you get a scan to determine where exactly the tumor is, so you know what, exactly, needs to be removed, and then remove it. While sin is more complicated, the principle is the same: the first step for removal is to take a self-scan to determine what is blocking your path to a life-giving relationship with God and with God’s people, and then work to remove it.
So let’s do it: what sorts of things could be stumbling blocks for us? Think for a minute… Could it be your pride? Your insistence that you are right on an issue and anyone who doesn’t believe that must be ignorant or blind? …
Could it be your temper, how quick you are to jump to judge, attack, and dismiss or push away, rather than reflect and respond thoughtfully and compassionately? …
Could it be your envy, jealousy, or insecurity, and a desire to tear down another so you don’t feel so bad about yourself? …
Could it be a grudge, that thing that you just can’t bring yourself to forgive, because holding onto it gives you a sense of power and control over the offender, or it just makes you feel safer? …
Could it be an addiction, a place or substance you go to when you feel lonely or self-loathing so you can self-medicate, rather than finding your strength in God?
You see there are so many stumbling blocks in our lives. I can check several of those boxes myself, and many more that I didn’t mention. There are so many things, you see, that get in the way of the path I want to be walking, the path that leads to Christ, the path that leads to life.
It is painful… but once we can recognize what those stumbling blocks are, we can hear Jesus’ harsh words more like redemptive ones: cut it off. Get rid of the stumbling block, that thing that really is causing you to continue in your suffering. Get rid of it by whatever means necessary. Stop nursing the grudge. Move past that relationship that is draining the life out of you. Reconsider that point of view or defense mechanism you have developed that has kept you safe all these years, but that is tearing down other beloved children of God and damaging your relationships. Change that unhealthy lifestyle. Kick that addiction.
Of course, life-giving as those choices may ultimately be, none of them is easy. In fact, they might even feel like what Jesus describes: like losing a limb or an eye, or like drowning, or even like death. In a way, it is – anytime you say goodbye to something that, unhealthy though it may be, has held a prominent place in your life, it requires a sometimes painful adjustment. As one commentator writes, “Jesus knows what he is talking about; it hurts to change! It hurts to cut off the precious, familiar things we cling to for dear life—even as those things slowly kill us. The bottle. The affair. The obsession with money. The decades-old shame. The resentment, the victimhood, the self-hatred, the rigidity.”
But, once we do cut those things off… there is where new life begins. There is where the pathway to God gets a little less rocky. There is where we can live into that final line of Jesus’ sermon: “be at peace with one another,” experiencing the hope and love and grace of God not in some heaven some time and distance away, but right here, right now. Because that, my friends, is how God works: death must happen in order for us to get to new and abundant life in Christ. It may well hurt along the way. Jesus knows that! But the reward – whether a cup of cold water, or an important reconnection, or peace on earth, or life everlasting – is worth it.
I wonder what would happen in our world, our country, and our families if we could follow Jesus’ advice: cutting off greed, pride, anger, grudges, and a need for control, and instead seeking understanding, self-awareness, genuine listening, and compassion? We might just find that living at peace with one another wasn’t some far-off dream after all. We might find that we would all be just a bit closer to the new life that is promised through Christ our Lord.
Let us pray… God of peace, you show us the way to life, but the way is rough and difficult. In your grace and mercy, help us to remove the stumbling blocks along the way, so that we might, with all your children, live at peace with one another. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment