“YOU’RE ASKING ME TO DO WHAT?”

Mark 9:38-50

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

September 27, 2009

 

There are a number of passages in the Bible that I am not fond of; obscure and puzzling, they seem to come from a strange and distant world, full of threats, blood and violence. You know what I mean. I usually feel on safer ground when I turn to the Gospels, especially when it’s the “red letter passages” that purport to be the words of Jesus. Verses such as, “Come unto me all who labour and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” Or “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” That kind of stuff. But even here, there are some surprises – no, downright shockers that make my hair stand straight up on end … “Whoever comes to me and does not hate mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Now that’s a real winner. Or those words that seem designed to discomfit a middle-class minister type who unwittingly asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” only to be told, “Sell everything you possess, and give it to the poor; then come, and follow me.” And then, of course, there is today’s reading… you do remember it, don’t you; in fact, I’ll bet you cringed when you heard it – full of instruction about self-mutilation, backed up by threats of hell, unquenchable fire and devouring worms:

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 go to hell,

to the unquenchable fire.

And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off;

it is better 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 to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes

and be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies,

and the fire is never quenched.

Nice, eh? And why stop there I ask myself… what about the tongue? Other limbs and appendages? The brain? No, if it weren’t for the Lectionary appointing this passage for today, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. Indeed, I don’t think Jesus would have made a good parish minister. It’s one thing to drop a clanger like this, and then head off to the next village; it’s another to talk to your friends, in your home church. I’ll bet I could empty the pews pretty quickly if we had a steady diet of verses like this. Wouldn’t take long at all.

Mind you, I don’t really think Jesus meant his words to be taken literally. I always look forward to conversations with Biblical literalists when I come to passages like this; in fact, I keep them handy in my hip pocket for whenever the occasion arises… and I ask very politely about how much hand-chopping and eye-gouging goes on their congregations. Or do they never stumble?

No, not literal; but metaphoric, symbolic. And that eases my anxiety somewhat. I also recognize exaggeration when I see it. I’ve studied enough to know that this was a common technique in first century Semitic discourse. Perhaps all preachers use hyperbole to catch people’s attention; a little exaggeration always helps a good story move along. “Cut if off!” has a fine ring to it; it’s not something you ignore. Even heard about one minister who toyed with the idea of bringing an axe to Sunday morning service. I also know that Jesus shared in the apocalyptic visions of his time, and believed that the world was coming to a fiery cataclysmic end in the very near future; he felt just fine about lifting some verses from the very end of Isaiah to make his point… that’s where the imagery about devouring worms and unquenchable fire comes from. All this helps, of course, but I’m still left wondering what to do with a text like this; how to understand it; more to the point, how to craft a sermon that might somehow hold a word for us. So here goes…. and let’s see where we arrive.

Maybe the first thing to say is that Jesus is expressing a holy and fierce indignation towards any and every behaviour that diminishes abundant life. Your life… or your neighbour’s! There is no pussy-footing around, no, “There, there, I understand… you couldn’t help yourself; someone else is responsible; it’s not your fault.” It may be true that social realities have enormous bearing upon behaviour and the decisions we make; nevertheless, Jesus is asserting a belief in personal responsibility… and denouncing actions that cause a person to stumble from doing… well, from doing the right thing.

Which then, of course, leads one to ask, well, what means this word “stumble”? I thought about offering a little lecturette about the Greek word “skandalon” from which our English translation “Stumble” comes; how, for instance, it is the word used to describe the disciples’ later “desertion”… when they “stumble”, that is, when they desert him at the moment of his arrest. But I’m not sure how helpful that would be. So here’s a story, instead.

Last night Tim and I were coming home from the symphony, walking along Nelson Street, with Harold Mootoo, in fact… Hi, Harold…. And thanks to Harold, we found ourselves chatting with a musician from the Symphony, a delightful woman who was striding along, at full speed, her violin by her side, eager to get home. All of a sudden her toe caught the edge of the curb, right at Smithe and Nelson, and she went for a full facedown tumble to the sidewalk. Talk about stumbling… her violin went flying off in one direction, her hands splayed out to break her fall, trying to save her face from a bloody crash. We crowded around, along with a few others, helped her up, offered sympathetic noises... She held up her hands, and said, “I’m all right, but I sure couldn’t play a Concerto right now… my hands, oh they hurt.” And I thought… that’s it… stumbling. Something trips us, we fall, off track, crash, no longer upright… and then we can no longer make good music; the music that is within each one of us, our gift, our calling, our offering to the world. Whatever it is that trips us up, that prevents us from making music… that’s what arouses Jesus’ indignation.

When Matthew reworks Mark’s gospel, he is so struck by this passage that he includes it in a couple of different places, in the 18th chapter and the 5th. In the latter, Jesus is very blunt: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.” Here that little word “stumble” becomes an explicit reference to “sin.” Not a popular word, but clear. Anything that causes us to turn away from God, from that which is good and right… we need to deal with it. Behaviour that causes us to lose balance, that imperils our capacity to make music – we need to change. Actions that tempt us away from the deep richness of life, our truest selves, the rightness of being -- we need to stop.

Jesus is clear that this is not a trivial matter. There are consequences. Big ones! It’s not so much that God is going to punish any of us with eternal hell fire when we die… think metaphor; but rather, our actions impact our lives, here, now. It’s a question of the immediate future… you have freedom; you can decide. And you can blow it; you can waste your life; you really can. Makes me think that the image of devouring worms may not be all that far from the truth, as bit by bit we find our best selves disappearing, as one stumble leads to another… and the music slowly fades out, the music dies.

A friend of mine, fellow minister David Ewart, noted that this passage really isn’t so much about punishment as it is about prevention. Here is Jesus trying to grab our attention… “Listen up! Take a look at your life! Stop making lousy choices! Take action! Do something about the situation!”

Many years ago Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was killed by the Nazi regime when he attempted to take action, he came up with an interesting phrase, “cheap grace,” which I think helps us understand what is being said by this “cut off your hand” stuff. Bonhoeffer pointed out that we slide too easily into an undemanding gospel, where we proclaim that “God loves us!” … full stop. We are quick to embrace forgiveness – after all, that’s God’s business… Hallelujah, praise the Lord. And then we get on with our lives, basking in that love – and nothing changes. Not so fast, said Bonhoeffer. It is true that we are loved by God… absolutely and without condition… just as we are. However, that is only the first movement of the symphony; it’s not where it finishes. You need to keep listening for the next movement, the one that invites us to make music with God. We need to respond, and offer a human “Yes!” to God’s affirmation; we need to do something as a result of receiving grace. It is costly; demands something of us.

Some people call it repentance… a change in our way of living; a 180 degree turn around. Some people call it “coming to ourselves,” and like prodigals, making our way home. Methodists, I believe… and I look forward to conversation with Kathryn, our new minister (who comes from the United Methodist church in Texas)… they call it sanctification, as we seek ways to live more faithfully, compassionately, justly. The Dalai Lama, who has been in town this weekend… and hasn’t it been an exciting weekend… he talks about education of the heart, about acting differently. In the editorial which he wrote for yesterday’s “Vancouver Sun” he said, “We can strive gradually to become more compassionate; we can develop both genuine sympathy for others’ suffering and the will to help remove their pain.” It’s possible; we’re talking about changing our lives, friends. That’s what following Jesus will actually involve… changed lives

It will be hard work… let’s not kid ourselves. Probably that’s why Jesus used such hyperbole. I read an article the other day about the fellow who just pared another minute off the Grouse Grind record… something like 23 or 24 minutes is all took him to run up the mountain. Not my idea of a good time. However, I was impressed by his willingness to do the hard work of getting in shape. The article pointed out that he had spent the last three months down in South America, running up and down the Andes, just engaging in a little bit of high altitude training. He was not going to stumble on the way up to the top of Grouse.

It’s so strange… we all recognize the hard work necessary to get our bodies in shape. My nephew, Gabe Robinson, some years ago was a player for the Toronto Argonauts. He’s a big guy; when you give him a hug it’s like wrapping your arms around a fridge. He told stories about spring training camps… I tell you… brutal! I don’t even want to go into the details. No stumbling permitted! But the end results? -- their team went on to win the Grey Cup that year.

Or think about musicians here today, with voice, guitar, organ, keyboard. Then I think of last night’s symphony, and the years of practice necessary to let the music soar. Fingering, scales, over and over and over. The dedication; the determination. And not to engage in exaggeration, but I remember a scene from the novel, Zorba the Greek, where Zorba was learning to play the santuri… again, years of practice; but Zorba also described how his little finger kept getting in the way, and messing up his ability to play; so he cut it off. Hyperbole… metaphor… maybe it really happened.

So what makes us think that getting our soul, our heart, our spirit into shape does not require an equal commitment? Why do I think that a couple of minutes of prayer every other day are enough to do the trick? Soul work; spiritual discipline – I think that’s what Jesus is asking of us. And he’s starting by trying to convince us to do some letting go, some cutting back, some renunciation. Begin your soul work by taking a good long look at yourself, your life… taking a moral inventory, perhaps; and then start paring back, simplifying, dropping whatever behaviours are pulling you off track.

We understand this need when we think “gardening” – pruning, for example. Cutting back, cutting off, in order to enable better growth. We understand this need when our physical body is ill; when afflicted by cancer, flesh-eating bacteria, gangrene, we agree to let the doctor remove part of our body… a limb, the prostate, a section of colon, a breast. We cut off whatever it is that diminishes the possibility of abundant life. I think the same needs to be true of destructive behaviours, from bad habits to serious addictions. I am thinking of too much drinking, too much money and stuff, too much crackberry and video gaming. Your life, my life… we’re called and challenged to let go of whatever it is that is getting in the way of a rich life in the spirit, which Jesus calls entering into the Kingdom of God. Here and now.

I read somewhere that whatever you cannot give away, possesses you. So I’m inviting all of us into an experiment… look at your life; look at what happened last week, or what will transpire in the next several days. And be honest… what could be cut away that would improve your spiritual health? Won’t be easy; sometimes it might even feel like you’re cutting off your hand or your foot. But it’s possible. And since I’m a preacher, I want to offer up a suggestion about what might help… I call it the “ 3 P’s” – Pray… you’ll need spiritual help; you won’t be able to do this on your own; otherwise you’d have already made the change; pray and trust that the Spirit will be there to help you. Then… Practice! Engage in those day-to-day activities that will strengthen your heart, your will. Do them over and over; again and again! And seek out Partners… people. Ask for help; support; accountability. Prayer; Practice; and Partners. And trust the music… that first holy movement of God’s love; and your own grace-filled response…. Ah, such music.