The following was given as an introduction to the reading from Mark:
Our reading from Mark is one that reminds us how important it is to read scripture in context. We need to read it in the context of the book it’s written in and in its historical context. Really, all of our readings are good examples of the need to read scripture regularly and thoroughly. As far as the Mark passage goes, we essentially have two sections today, and they each touch on earlier parts of the gospel that deal with healing and authority.
You may recall that Jesus sent out the twelve in pairs and gave them the authority to perform deeds of power in his name. Since then, Jesus has been the primary actor in feeding and healing and demonstrating the active presence of God. In fact, the disciples even fail to exorcize a demon from one boy.
At this point, he has revealed that he will die on a cross and be raised. He’s invited those that follow to join, and he’s just caught the disciples arguing about who was the best. Last week we talked about the way Jesus offered some constructive criticism by taking a child and while embracing this child, he said that they needed to welcome the child as if welcoming the very presence of God.
In the time of Jesus, that was pretty scandalous. Children did not count. They were utterly dependent. They were vulnerable. Now, bear in mind that Jesus is still holding this child while speaking today. The text doesn’t really say, but I like to imagine that he put the child down around the end of verse 42. Let us now attend to what the Spirit may have in mind for the church today as we read together from Mark’s gospel.
Mark 9:38-50

I’d like to begin my reflections today with a word of confession. I confess to you now that I like to eat weird things. I do. My son finds it disgusting, as he is a far less adventurous eater than I. Anyway, the other day I was trying a flavor combination that he found repulsive, so I asked him if it would be worse to try a bite or take a sharp stick in the eye. He said he’d take the stick.
I said, “You’d rather go blind than endure a taste that you expect to be bad?” He said, “I wouldn’t be totally blind. Just one eye and I would get a cool eye patch like a pirate.” There was obviously a fair amount of sarcasm in all of that, but it does remind me of the way many have felt over the last week.
There have been so many things in the news and social media that we just can’t “unsee”, so many things we can’t “unshare”, so much acknowledged that cannot be undone. We can call it fake or political, but the reality is that we have all been made aware sexual assault happens more often than we want to admit. Worse than that is the fact that so many are willing to accept it as a normal part of growing up.
So many would rather argue about that, or whether or not Drag Queens should read stories to children about bullying, than argue about the fact that there are people who are actually suffering in our community. Strangely I’m reminded of the early 90’s when Aerosmith sang “We’re Livin’ on the Edge.”
I remember hearing, “We're seein' things in a different way, and God knows it ain't his” and thinking, “Wow. If these guys are the prophetic voices telling us that we aren’t in sync with God, then things may be worse than I realized.”
I don’t mean to be all doom and gloom with you. Really, I have something much better if you can stick with me. What I’m getting at is this, we seem to be struggling with what is normative these days – not just what is normal, but what helps us know what should be normal.
As followers of Jesus in the Reformed faith, we go to the Bible for clarity. A word of caution, though, we must be careful not to go to the Bible to prove our views as the correct ones. We must go with open hearts, hoping that God will prove what is right to us. Going to the Bible is not as simple as looking up the rules to be sure that we aren’t the ones that are going to fry. In fact, sometimes it’s more about finding out what needs to let go of than confirming our need to tighten our grip.
So, let’s start by coming back to the scene of Jesus with a child in his arms. He’s just made a clear statement about the importance of vulnerability, and you can almost hear the “WOOSH!” as his point sails over the disciple’s heads.
Clearly, they have missed the point that anyone who recognizes Jesus as the Christ is on the same team! Clearly, Jesus is recognizing from the very beginning what we all said two weeks ago. Our claim that Jesus is the Christ is what unites us. Our responses to Jesus as the Christ are often what divides us.
What really matters here is that he still had the child in his arms. He still had the child when he said, “Look, if you are going to do something that keeps the vulnerable from being the focus of the kingdom, you are better off dead.”
He wasn’t playin’ around with that either. When he said to take a millstone – do you know how heavy a millstone is? This would be a very intentional act. You would need help. You would need help just to lift the millstone, tie I to your neck, and then drag it to the water to throw it in. It would take a group effort of public confession to do drown yourself with a millstone!
Now, I don’t want to go too far off the rails here, but we need to talk a little about Jesus’s use of hyperbole and specifically the word, Gahanna. That’s the word translated as Hell, and it was a real place – a real dump of a place. No, really, it was the city dump, and before that, it was a place of worship to a God named Moloch who people thought required sacrifices – of children.
It was where the bodies of dead paupers and the refuse of the city were thrown. It was always burning and filled with bugs and worms and worse things. Scholars have argued through the years what Jesus meant, but most agree that he was speaking in hyperbole – with a child in his arms – about a place of sacrifice and refuse.
Even John Calvin argued that whatever Hell is, it isn’t that particular pile of bile. Instead, Hell is a separation from God that would be far worse than any of the metaphorical and physiological torments that our simple minds could ever think up. So the pit or lake or whatever of fire is a means of describing what we cannot conceive in a way that it might chasten us into the arms of the God whose grace we can barely understand.
These words about self-preservation through mutilation have been used in different ways through the centuries, but we have no record of a community that practiced it literally. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say that these words were more about self-control than anything else. Think about that for a moment.
What is it that the hand might represent for you? What are you reaching for that ensnares you with selfishness? What are we reaching for that requires sacrifice in order to receive? For an employer, it could be the balance between offering a living wage and making a fair profit. For an employee, it could be taking a job that offers a better balance for your family and your work life.
What about your feet? They represent mobility and choices about where to go and who to go with. They represent larger life choices, but also immediate opportunities. Likewise, your eyes move to things that attract you. They determine your level of interest, your fidelity to those you love, and even the temptation to idolatry, or as Theologian Daniel Migliore calls it, “the terrible weariness and incredible boredom of a life focused entirely on itself.”
Interestingly Migliore also calls hell a “symbol of Christian hope,” because “the fire of God is the fire of a loving judgment and a judging love that we know in the cross of Christ to be for our salvation rather than our destruction.”
The real question in all of this is not whether or not you want to burn, as though that is some kind of motivator. The question is, “How?” Do you want to burn as a result of the choices that you have made, or do you want to burn as a living sacrifice – becoming ever purer as life goes on?
That’s what it means to be seasoned with fire. It means that life is hard, the world is imperfect, and even though we want life to be all about us, it’s not. It means that each of us must determine what separates us from those who are vulnerable. Each of us must find ways to be more vulnerable for the sake of the gospel, and all of us together must remember that we are here to demonstrate the peace of God.
In the same way, the testimony of James reminds us that we are a community that is formed in the image of God. Our speech and our actions must move us to greater unity so that we can become a countercultural force that is still able to thrive. In fact, we can become, at least for each other, the normative community for experiencing, exploring, and expressing the very active presence of God.
Of course, if we only do it for one another we probably aren’t doing it in Jesus’s name. That would probably also mean that we weren’t able to hear or see anyone else doing deeds of power in Jesus’s name, either. Fortunately, that’s not the case.
We are still making ourselves open and available for flood recovery work. We still support other ministry partners in the area. We still have more people in our fellowship hall seeking community and help from a higher power on Fridays than we do on Sundays.
Our Hospitality Vision Team is looking into new ways to connect us to the community. It’s kind of a small thing, but we are going to start by putting some picnic tables out on the corner. We’re also looking into ways to landscape the corner and make it more handicap accessible.
All of this means nothing, of course, unless we can be seasoned by the unquenchable fire of God’s love. It is that love that holds us here and now. It is that love that burns away our sin of selfishness and moves us always closer to the presence of peace that we can be for and with one another. In that hope, and with that expectation, let us give God all glory and praise – now and always – amen!
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