“Comfort and Challenge”
Rev. Rachel Lewis Cooley
Eternal Hope UCC, Fort Walton Beach, FL
September 26, 2021
Mark 9: 38-50 -- Another Exorcist
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.” 39 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. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us. 41 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.
Temptations to Sin
42 “If any of you cause one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. 43 If your hand causes you to sin, 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. 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, 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, 48 where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.
49 “For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 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.”
Will you pray with me?
God of Creation, who continues to create and do new things through us, help us to hear today this ancient text for what it means for us. You call us too sometimes to be hearers yes but also doers in response to your invitations. Stir and support us as we align our hearts and our actions to give life in the world, and to the people around us who we know and those we don't know. And now may the words of my heart and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you, Oh God, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
Our scripture today continues our journey in Mark, following directly after our scripture last week where the disciples debated who was the greatest and Jesus took the little child in his lap and told the disciples that whoever welcomes one of the least of these in his name welcomes him and God who sent him. Jesus has also now predicted his death several times, and is beginning to describe and show what the job description for the titles “Son of Man” and even Messiah really mean. Suffice it to say, the job description is not what the disciples expect, or what they’d hope for. Jesus has turned his eyes toward Jerusalem, and they are making their way toward what would seem to be the end of the Jesus story, where the empire and religious powers that be will feel so threatened by Jesus’s ministry of servitude and healing that they will endeavor to remove him lest their whole system of power and privilege collapse as the people follow a new way, to bring a new kin-dom.
These are the stakes involved. And we can declare them proudly! But as I reflected on the scripture this week, I also felt Jesus calling me—and us—to consider what it means to be a servant. You see, I’ve been known to declare what I think is right about theology and faith loudly and proudly. I do think we are called to witness, and indeed the vivid language of “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” may cause us to believe that we must insist on righteousness to the point that we become severe in our invitations, insisting ours is the right way and declaring consequences if we and others don't follow it. I do think (with the help of the Feasting on the Word commentary) that Jesus’s strong language, with images that speak across generations though our context is different, begs us to consider the consequences of our actions on others and ourselves. But the phrase “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” may actually compel us to cut off or cut out those behaviors which cause stumbling—perhaps like self-righteousness and insisting on our rightness and condemning ourselves or others when we do stumble, as we inevitably will. Do my strong declarations that doing such and such thing is not in line with “living in the kin-dom of God” really help encourage myself or others, or might they just make us feel shame for doing them and wonder if we can ever do better. Perhaps insisting on our own rightness causes us to get distracted from the God who is continually teaching us and the humility required to truly meet others where they are to serve them.
Before I dive into a story about encouraging versus causing stumbling, I want to take a moment discussing possible meanings for the word “hell” in this passage. In our context, it is most often taken to mean… and it is weaponized against those outside the majority by those who hold and wish to protect their power, including LGBTQIA+ people. In Jesus’s Jewish context at the time, however, hell came from the image of a place called Gehenna – which is actually the word used in this passage before it was translated to hell in English. It was a trash heap… so certainly not a place where you or I would want to be. The Feasting on the Word commentary also helpfully noted that some Christian folks have imagined hell to really just be like living without God. Because I don't know about for you, but for me, a life without turning toward God and choosing to follow my faith could feel pretty miserable. I think I’ve been there before, and I don’t think I’d want to go back. But in my view, God is always inviting us to follow, and Jesus and folks following him and communities like this one can sometimes be places where we hear that invitation from God again and again to follow, no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done in the past. Saying “yes” and following in the present is all we can do, and for me at least, it feels right.
Now with that aside, I want to tell you about a conversation I had with a good friend this week, who we’ll today call Maria. She told me about a conversation that upset her, and she’d been wanting to talk to me about. Maria had been talking with a co-worker about faith. As she characterized him, he was often eager to talk about his belief in God and following Jesus because his faith was important to him. She believes him to be sincere and good-intentioned, as we may all be when we talk about the faith that gives us hope and calls us into love and what we can do in the world. And she is a manager who wants to listen and give her team time to feel known and space to share, so she wishes to give him time to talk about his faith. Maria is also often interested in talking about it because she is uncertain what it means to say you “believe” something, and whether you can have questions or doubts or differences of opinion within faith communities, and if you can still be faithful if you do. I know much of this about Maria because of the hours we’ve spent talking about religion and what it means to us, and about her Catholic background. Her co-worker may have known some of this background, if she had told him in previous conversations, though I wonder now if he would really have listened when she shared. She had also told him that her dad was recently experiencing health issues – though she did not tell him about the recent diagnosis and the uncertainty now about how long he would live. During this conversation, Maria’s co-worker began discussing heaven and purgatory and hell, making vast generalizations too about what all Catholics believe and what all Hasidic Jews believe. Maria is particularly sensitive to vast generalizations, as seeing nuance and many sides to a story is one of her greatest gifts, in my view. She also found herself particularly sensitive to the discussion of where we go after death, for reasons obvious to us who know the news she’s having to come to terms with about her dad. Her co-worker said that he believes everyone can get to heaven, they just have to really work at it and choose God. For Maria, who’s father is agnostic and who has had his fair share of struggles and less-than-positive choices in life, this hurt. Yet her co-worker was citing verses in the bible claiming that he knew the truth, he and his tradition, but certainly not those Catholic or Jewish traditions he characterized. For Maria, she thought maybe her co-workers stringent warnings and declarations was possibly God, giving tough love if you will, requiring her to listen to difficult truths in some way that was supposed to better her. But mostly, she just felt upset. She didn’t know what to say in the moment, though now she wishes she could tell him how he might want to be careful with what he says and insists on because the truth is we never know all of someone’s context when we speak to them about faith. We don't know what they’re currently dealing with and whether they’re needing comfort and challenge – when it seems to me that Jesus’s message of the kin-dom is about both, and contains possible messages about both comfort and challenge. I noted to Maria that this impossibility of knowing is why preachers need to give caveats and mention possible complicating factors and nuances, because we never know all that’s within those we speak to. We would seek to meet people where they are, as I believe Jesus did, and always invite folks to look within to know what they need in the moment: comfort or challenge, for they and God are the ones who know fully, and they and God are the ones most responsible for looking out for themselves. Even if we mean well, there are always things we don’t know about those we meet and about God. Maybe in listening to those we’d seek to serve, we might learn something too. Maybe something about how best to encourage and build people up, or how God shows up for them.
All of this causes me too to reflect on the way I talked to Maria after she told me about her hurt. Was my tone too stringent in denouncing what her co-worker had said too? I know there is no perfect way, but I would seek to listen and learn and know I can always better serve. Especially for Maria at this time where faith has been bringing her comfort, and she’s becoming more comfortable with the idea that she can have some doubt, and doesn't have to believe the same as others, in order to still be living the life of faith, and walking toward the mystery of God. Can I more humbly represent to her what I believe, acknowledging over and over that ultimately, God is mystery and we do not know it all – a fact we all know in our bones, even when we try to claim certainty, or that we know the truth, in order to make ourselves feel more comfortable? Can I listen more deeply to her wisdom, and encourage her to listen to hers, and to the spark of the divine within her? For Jesus tells the disciples to accept a cup of water even from those who are not following “us,” as John puts it. Jesus asks us to accept the ministry of others along the way too, for we all need encouragement and learning on the path toward the kin-dom. Maybe in receiving, we learn better how to give. Maybe receiving and giving really both need each other – like comfort and challenge seem to. Maybe receiving and giving, comfort and challenge are like two sides of the same coins.
In an effort to give out of our receiving, I have an invitation for you today. You are invited today to take a card from the table over there to write for a future visitor to Eternal Hope a bit about what this faith community or your journey of faith means to you. How have you been encouraged here? What makes this community special and keeps you coming back? You don't have to share everything, and you don't even have to be particularly profound or well-written. You could share something small that means a lot to you about coming here, or about being on the journey with these people. I also want to mention that if you feel artistically inspired, or if you wish to write just a phrase or short sentence, you could begin to create or work with me and others on some visually appealing pieces to go in our windows, telling folks who pass by a little bit about this community where our current signs outside do say that “All are welcome.” I don’t have supplies for this today, but I’d be thrilled if you want to work on it or contribute – just talk to me after church! We’re putting this all together from input from multiple of us – the idea for the cards for visitors came from Chris Adams and Pastor Booth and now we’re building on it. We all are invited to contribute, and the beautiful thing is, your card or your poster for the window will represent just one story though we know there are so many others – from your own life and from other people. You don't have to represent the whole truth about this church, or about the life of faith, or about God – for the truth is we never can tell or know it all. We know we are woven together in a tapestry with all those other beings in creation – be they part of our group, or our denomination, or even Christianity – for Jesus seems to say here that God smiles on and invites acts of love and service from any and all. And whoever receives and gives compassion is encouraged on their journey of faith. As Jesus says here: “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.”
The stakes are high because the reward is life, truly living in the kin-dom of God. The invitation from Jesus is always there, no matter when we stumble or when we cause others to stumble. We can always do better, as we walk the path of receiving and giving. And we are always invited to. Amen.