by J.D. Neal
Mark 9:38-50
John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “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. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you 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 to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you 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 for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Today’s Gospel is a dense one and, frankly, an odd one. Let’s look back over it for a minute. We begin with the disciples telling Jesus about their encounter with a rogue exorcist who they condemned. Jesus responds with a rebuke, warning them that it would be better to be drowned with a boulder strapped to their neck than to ‘cause a little one to stumble.’ Jesus chases this rebuke with an intense and graphic account of how it would be better to lop off a limb or poke out an eye rather than end up burning in hell, and to cap everything off, he closes with some cryptic sayings about fire, salt, fiery salt, and peace.
I would not blame you if you read this passage, took a deep breath, and walked away feeling like you had rammed your head into a wall. Actually, that’s pretty much how I feel half the times I sit down and read the gospels. But although Jesus is a frustrating teacher, he is a good teacher and so far I have yet to find a puzzling teaching like this that doesn’t have some good pearl buried deep down if I take the time to dig. So, let’s dig.
If your brain works like mine, two questions jumped out at you. First, you wondered just why the disciples shut down this strange exorcist who cast out demons in the name of Jesus. And, second, you wondered why this was such a problem for Jesus that he responded with what is probably the harshest warning he gives in the whole Gospel. What is going on here that earns such an intense response from Jesus?
When we look into the first question, things appear straight forward. With the disciples and Jesus all gathered in a house somewhere in Capernaum after a day of travel, John, one of Jesus’ inner circle speaks up to tell Jesus about how they met someone on the road who was casting out demons in his name. “Not to worry though, Jesus! We stopped him, because he wasn’t following us.” Well, that seems right, doesn’t it? After all, who would want a rogue exorcist running around the Judean countryside shouting Jesus’ name when he doesn’t actually follow Jesus like the disciples do? Except, that’s not quite what John said, was it? It’s not that this spiritual healer didn’t follow Jesus, it’s that he didn’t follow “us.”
As we poke around the context of our passage, the disciples’ motivations become even more complicated. Just a few paragraphs before this, Jesus finds the disciples failing to cast out a demon who afflicted a young boy, and just a few verses earlier in this very conversation — in our Gospel from last week — Jesus confronted the disciples as they fought amongst themselves about which among them was the “greatest.”
Do you hear it? That resentment in John’s voice as he describes this stranger who could do what he, one of Jesus’ closest disciples could not do? That thinly veiled desire to protect his ‘greatness’, his status, as one of Jesus’ chosen disciples (which is the very thing Jesus had just rebuked the disciples for a few verses earlier)?
When John says that they shut down this stranger because he wasn’t ‘following us,’ he meant it. This stranger was casting out demons, opposing the forces of evil that plagued the vulnerable in Israel, and bringing healing to the very people whom Jesus loved and was sent to. This exorcist was doing exactly what we see Jesus doing throughout the gospel, exactly what the disciples had seen Jesus do a thousand times. This stranger was following Jesus, he just wasn’t following the disciples.
This stranger didn’t follow Jesus around, constantly traveling from village to village like the disciples did, he didn’t have to worry about feeding the huge crowds who met Jesus in the wilderness, and most importantly, he hadn’t received the same teaching that the disciples had. This stranger didn’t know everything the disciples knew, he didn’t have all the ideas and parables Jesus had passed on to them. In short, he did not look like what the disciples thought a follower of Jesus was supposed to look like. And so, they rejected him.
Is this starting to sound familiar? You and I live in a world that teaches us to maintain our status by rejecting anyone and everyone that disagrees with us, that doesn’t think or act the way we do — especially among Christians. If I turned on a TV or opened up my phone, it wouldn’t take me more than a few seconds to find someone shouting down another who disagrees with them or writing a manifesto on someone else’s Facebook wall about how stupid they are for believing what they believe. We are taught to reject others, to respond in resentment, jealousy, or defensiveness — especially if our disagreements have to do with our political ideologies or our theology.
We might not be going from church to church standing up and cursing each other in the pews, but I know that it would not take me long to find another Christian on social media saying something that annoyed me so deeply that I found myself writing a little sermon in my head to show them why they were wrong — why they shouldn’t even be wearing the name of Christ while thinking something so foolish. And I would feel validated by it. Or, perhaps more likely, I would see such an interaction happening on the news or on Facebook and I would smile to myself internally, contenting myself with the smug thought that I would never stoop so low as to do something like that on the internet. Whichever flavor we prefer, we are all subject to the temptation to prop up our own ‘greatness’ by looking down on those who disagree with us, who don’t ‘follow us.’
Now, for the second question. Why is this act of rejection so upsetting to Jesus? Again, a little bit of context begins to open up the passage to us. When Jesus begins to warn the disciples that it would be better to have a millstone strapped to their neck or to cut off a limb than to cause ‘one of these little ones who believe’ to stumble, he isn’t suddenly changing the topic to talk about kindness to children. He’s referring back to something he said to the disciples in last week’s gospel, just a few verses earlier.
If you remember Fr. Bill’s sermon last week, you’ll remember that Jesus has just told the disciples that rather than fighting with each other to be the greatest, they should be working to become the ‘servant of all.’ They should be working to become like a humble child, who does not worry about ‘greatness,’ status, or standing and instead works to serve others. Jesus goes so far as to identify himself with ‘little ones’ like this, saying that whoever welcomes someone that is like a child in these ways welcomes Jesus himself, and whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes God who sent him.
When Jesus warns the disciples that making ‘one of these little ones’ stumble is more dangerous than jumping into a lake with a weight tied to our throats, he is telling the disciples that this strange exorcist is one of these ‘little ones,’ one of those who are trying to become a servant to all. Jesus is telling the disciples that he is with this stranger, and that by rejecting this exorcist, they have rejected Jesus, and in rejecting Jesus, they have rejected God. Instead of welcoming this stranger with even something as small as a cup of water to drink, they tried to stop him from doing the work of Christ in the name of Christ and thus the disciples have set themselves against Christ.
Jesus’ warning to the disciples here is a warning to us as well. In a few minutes we will pray the Prayers of the People, like we do every week, asking God to, “Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours, and grant that we may serve Christ in them, and love one another as he loves us.” Today’s gospel shows us that there is a flip side to this prayer. If Christ is really “in” those around us, if he really identifies himself with those who serve, then we run the risk of missing and rejecting him.
When we care more about our status, our greatness, or our ‘rightness’ than we do about recognizing, welcoming, and serving Christ in those around us — even Christ-in-those who we deeply resent or disagree with — then we have set ourselves against Jesus and against the work of God in our world. In Jesus’ words from the end of today’s gospel, we have lost that ‘saltiness’ that preserves us from corruption and brings the taste of Christ into our world.
But this word of warning is also a word of hope. For if we can hear Jesus, if we can learn with the disciples to welcome others, then we will meet Christ everywhere in those we serve and receive him afresh even from those who it would be so easy for us to despise. If we can learn to serve Christ in them, to ‘be at peace with one another,’ then we can become those ‘little ones’ who Christ identifies himself with and dwells within. And if we do this, we welcome Christ into our midst.