For and Against – sermon on September 27, 2015
Scripture: Mark 9: 38-50
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they 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 with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where “‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’
Everyone will be salted with fire. ‘Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.’”
Sermon: For and Against by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Frederick Buechner (Beekner) is a fairly well-known Christian theologian and writer, and he tells a story of his service of ordination in 1958. He recounts that the preacher for the service preached on two Gospel texts. In the first, Jesus tell his followers to go out into the world and proclaim the gospel; and the second was this passage, where Jesus says that it would be better to have a millstone fastened around their necks and be drowned in the depths of the sea than to cause anyone who believed in him to sin. Rev. Buechner says, “As I knelt there in the chancel with the hands of all the assembled ministers and elders heavy on my skull, I had no doubts, if I had ever had any before, that it was a risky as well as a holy trade that I had chosen.”
I appreciated this reminder that although my intention is to proclaim the gospel, to share the good news of God’s love, I have to acknowledge that it has often been the religious authorities and religious institutions that have put stumbling blocks in front of believers, who have led the faithful astray, and in big ways. Think Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades; even Hitler’s holocaust had plenty of Christian supporters, as did the slave economy and the Jim Crow nonsense that followed. And even without such obvious evils, what some proclaim as good news – that Jesus has died for your sins and calls you to repentance – calls you to turn away from worldliness – has had resulted in shaming, condemnation, and self-flagellation. Jesus gives us some harsh talk in this passage – a cement necklace to wear to swim with the fishes, chopping off those body parts that are to blame for your stumbling.
David Henson writes a wonderful essay on this passage. He says:
Like many who grew up in the evangelical Protestant church, I lived out my faith as a young man with a Bible in one hand and an ax in the other. My tradition taught me that faith was primarily about avoiding temptation, resisting sin and secularity, and escaping divine punishment and wrath. In short, I learned to reduce my relationship with God to a transaction that provided me with divine fire insurance. For me as a teenager, this played out in few very vivid ways. For instance, when I was 17, I decided to give away my entire 90s rock music collection so I would no longer be tempted by its swear words and sexual innuendo and so that I could listen exclusively to Christian music. While this was a rite of passage of many evangelicals of my era, my friends thought I had lost my mind. But they didn’t protest too much when I was handing out Metallica CDs like Halloween candy. Less comically, though, was the time I broke up with my first serious girlfriend because she didn’t feel comfortable praying with me or adding a spiritual component to our high school relationship. As I came to find out later, she was the wiser of the two of us. I hacked and cut away at my life, my friendships, and even my choices of colleges, all in the name of God and avoiding temptation. What I didn’t realize at the time, however, was that as I was whittling down my potential temptations I was also whittling down, narrowing and shrinking my understanding of God. God hadn’t just become small, but small-minded, whose primary power lay in the threat of punishment rather than the empowering movement of love and grace. Faith and spirituality became about the rules, about right and wrong, about who was in and who was out, who was going to be rewarded by God and who was going to be punished.
This passage follows immediately after the one we discussed last week, where the disciples were arguing about who is the greatest, and Jesus embraces a child and tells them that those who welcome one such as this child, in his name, welcome him and God who sent him. Then John follows up with his comment about the exorcism performed by an outsider. It’s as if he’s saying, “okay, we won’t compete with each other, but let’s clarify that we, as a group – your followers, are the greatest, right?” Wrong. Jesus says don’t stop him, he is doing a good thing. And those that do such good things will not be able to speak ill of him, and those who are not against the are for them. Why should the apostles be against this exorcist when the exorcist is not against them, and in fact, act for their purpose.
When I first read this passage, the first part of the conversation – about those not against us are for us; and whoever gives you even a cup of water in my name will be rewarded- seemed disconnected from the next part, about the millstone around the neck and chopping off and plucking out of body parts. But Henson helped me understand the connection. He suggests that when the disciples so missed his point, again, he went for two exaggerated scenarios, one focusing on reward, and the other punishment. In the first, his lesson is that someone doing the smallest kindness done in Jesus’ name – just offering a cup of water to someone – is assured a divine reward. And the second says if we don’t want to suffer eternal damnation, we should get rid of any parts of us that lead us into temptation. These two extremes can teach us something important about how to live faithfully.
Henson points out how ridiculously high the bar is set when we are focused on avoiding punishment, when we set about the task of living perfectly and without sin. We can only end up disfigured. He says, “Essentially, Jesus is saying if you want a perfect life, the only way you will be able to do that is to incapacitate yourself completely, to go through life so mutilated and so maimed you literally can’t do anything but exist. Seeking perfection will cost you everything, in other words.”
Compare that with the low bar set when our faith walk is focused on generosity – giving even just a little bit is all it takes. Jesus has laid out for the disciples, and for us, two options: the way of perfection and punishment – what we are against – versus the way of generosity and reward – what we are for, that which we support. There is this on-going tension between judgment and mercy. It’s something that people of faith have wrestled with through the centuries. To focus only on mercy, to say that anything and everything can be forgiven with a warm hug, can cheapen the grace that came through the cross. To focus only on judgment, well, it leaves us disfigured and shrunken. There are scriptures and tradition that support both positions, so where you land depends a lot on who you think God really is and what God is about.
I had a wonderful e-mail conversation about it just last week. It was a comment about my last newsletter article about open-mindedness. This person was concerned when I said I closed my mind to the idea of a punishing God. She worried that I wasn’t fulfilling my duty to prepare people for judgment day, and that some might be lost because of my failure. This was said in a very respectful and kind way, and I knew she was truly concerned that I was causing the believers to stumble. Maybe I would end up with a millstone around my neck. Of course I thanked her. I said she could absolutely be right as I ought not claim to know the mind of God. But my ideas about who God is and what God is about cause me to focus on mercy, on generosity, on seeing the kindom of heaven obtained in offering someone a cup of water.
And really, I could be wrong. I believe in the power of being for something. In fact I often try to reframe the things I am against into being for its opposite. I’m not against war, I am for peace. One might not be so much against government intrusion as they are for personal responsibility and freedom, more pro-life than anti-abortion, or pro-choice instead of anti-life. Is it semantic games, or is there an energy, or a mindset that matters? I don’t know. I know I am bothered by the FB posts that make a point only by mocking or exaggerating the opposite point. Even when the issue is one I side with, I can’t stand the demonizing and divisiveness.
Anyway, when Jesus was giving this lesson, he was talking about discipleship, not political positions. And his focus was not on what you believe, but on what you do, or don’t do. And I hear him saying that you can’t really go wrong by living out your faith in service – service to God and service to God’s creation – other humans, the animals, the earth, sea and sky. We can let that be the core of our identity as Christians. And isn’t it such a blessing to know that we will never run out of opportunities to practice service. Even if we mess up and miss a chance, there will be another. There will always be someone to care for, a neighbor to reach out to, a place that needs cleaning up. Let’s try to remember this as we move into the long political campaigning season. Let’s not get so stuck in judgment and self-righteousness that we are chopping of parts of others, our own brothers and sisters in Christ, but instead focus on service – on making things even just a little bit better in the world, or our own small corner of it. Let us be loving and merciful and generous. Let us have ears to hear and hearts to open. Amen.
