Mark 9:38-50
38 “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.”
39 “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, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 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.
Causing to Stumble
42 “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. 43 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. 45 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. 47 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, 48 where
“‘the worms that eat them do not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’
49 Everyone will be salted with fire.
50 “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.”
Jesus uses this phrase “to enter life” and then later clarifies it by saying “to enter the kingdom of God.” What are we talking about here?
Traditional interpretation would of course assume Jesus is talking about eternal life, and I believe this is correct. But there’s a conflict going on between Jesus and his disciples. We already talked about a difference in vision: the disciples want a supernatural warlord, but Jesus seeks a deeper and more eternal victory in death and resurrection.
A piece of this, and it’s a big piece, is that Jesus called and equipped his disciples to take part in the kingdom of God, not merely to be subject to it. This purpose broke down when the disciples were flummoxed by Jesus’ challenge to feed the multitudes. Ever since then, Jesus has been disappointed and frustrated with his disciples, and they have become increasingly befuddled.
Just before this scene, the disciples were found arguing about why they were failing to cast a demon out of a child. Now, as Jesus cradles a different child in his arms (the one he picked up to say “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me”), John reports that they had shut down an exorcist who was successfully casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but who wasn’t following them.
Jesus was infuriated. “Do not stop him,” he says, and follows with a marvelously inclusive promise that anyone who is in the least bit kind to any believer would be rewarded, presumably with the same eternal life Jesus is offering. On the other hand, anyone who trips up a believer (like John and his associates just did!), well, the punishment for them will be more severe than being drowned. Pretty harsh words for his own disciples!
Which is where the promise of entering life, of entering the kingdom, begins. It has to do with whatever it is within the disciples that is keeping them from doing so. They’re out there shutting down a successful Christian exorcist when all of them together failed to cast a demon from that child.
They can’t get their heads, or their hearts, around what Jesus is telling them. The kingdom of God is upside down to the realms of the human world. They cling to human ideas of power and authority, and look to Jesus to be their strong man, the God-empowered king who will supernaturally win their battles for them. But the unauthorized exorcist gets it and they don’t. The exorcist has entered life, has entered the kingdom of God, and this is why God’s power flows through him just as it flowed through Jesus.
He had dumped whatever was in his mind or heart that would have prevented him from doing so, without regard to the cost to him.
Jesus, in all four gospels really, is incredibly gracious toward those who don’t believe, contrary to a lot of Christian’s beliefs. He is compassionate towards them, and gives them a very low bar really. Give a drink of water to a Christian, win eternal life. Or as Matthew’s parable of the sheep and the goats tells us, if someone who doesn’t know him or believe in him cares for the poor, the imprisoned and the sick, they are welcomed into the kingdom.
But if he calls me to be his follower, and I accept that call, he becomes a pretty demanding rabbi. Perhaps we should think of him like a good coach, the kind that drives you hard, precisely because he wants you to win the game. Or maybe the drill sergeant, who seems horribly abusive until you understand that learning what he’s teaching you will save your life and the lives of your comrades.
The terrible consequences Jesus’ threatens are summarized in the Greek place name Gehenna, which is traditionally translated “hell.” Gehenna was originally known as the Valley of Hinnon, a place where the worshipers of the god Moloch sacrificed people, including children, by burning them alive in a huge, constantly burning pit. Israelite kings eventually stopped the human sacrifice, but kept the pit, using it to burn organic waste, including sometimes the corpses of executed criminals. As Greek ideas about Hades crept into Judaism, which originally had no concept of an afterlife, Gehenna was used as an image for divine punishment.
Jesus, in his day, was predicting a terrible conflict that would end in thousands of dead Jews, one that indeed happened about forty years after his resurrection. He was promising a quite literal way to avoid ending up among the dead, a way of being saved through the radical practice of peace. He rightly understood that those who give into the worldly craving for wealth and power are precisely the ones who continually bring about strife and suffering.
And the truth is that seeking after wealth or power is indeed a toxic path for the soul and the body. It becomes the basis for a life of fear, grievance, and a constant sense of lack. If that isn’t roasting in a burn pit, I don’t know what is.
Just as winning a game is in the punishing exercises necessary to build strength and skill, just as a successful military unity must suffer all kinds of indignities in order to become a smoothly operating team, so there is to discipleship, to entering eternal life, to entering the kingdom of God.
Hand, foot, eye. What we do, where we go, how we see. The cost of discipleship is changing what we habitually do, where we habitually go, and most of all, how we habitually see.
Jesus promises that everyone will be salted with fire. By this I think Jesus means the effects of the resurrection. These befuddled disciples will ultimately be forgiven and the Holy Spirit will be showered upon them.
Salt chemically interacts with any food it touches, bringing out the best of its flavor. In ancient times, it was also used as a preservative. Standing in the way of anyone who believes in Jesus, including ourselves, is like removing salt from food, rendering it tasteless and spoiled.
And so it is that Jesus ends his diatribe: “have salt within yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Amen.
