Numbers 11:25-29 | James 5:1-6 | Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

 O God, who manifest your almighty power above all by pardoning and showing mercy, bestow, we pray, your grace abundantly upon us and make those hastening to attain your promises heirs to the treasures of heaven.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

We’ve been listening to Mark’s gospel these last couple of Sundays, and it’s clear that one of the things that this section is speaking about is the distance between who the disciples were at this time and who they would become after Jesus’ death and resurrection and the Spirit descending upon them, radically changing their understanding of who they are and who God is and why they’re here.  If we go back to the very beginning of the story of salvation history, we have this interesting story about a garden called Eden, and the first human beings are there.  And they’re in a situation where they’ve been told one thing, and they had been tempted to do something else.  And the way we’ve interpreted that story varies, but I think the thing that I’ve grown to understand about it, it’s not so much about simply saying that the real problem with human beings is that we don’t do what we’re told.  We don’t follow the rules.  We break the rules.  We disobey, and it’s much more nuanced than just simply saying human nature has a resistance to being told what to do, because some of that is really valuable, because we should not be governed by something outside of ourselves but by our own inner decisions.  And that’s the goal of Christianity, to change our heart so that we’re not being told what to do, but we do what we know we should do.  It’s who we are.  But the interesting thing about the sin, as it’s described by many people, is it sounds like it’s just about breaking the rules, but basically what it’s about is a deep longing in human  beings to work to become everything that God wants them to be.  It was a temptation to follow the ego, to be as good as you possibly can, to be as good as God is.  When you think about that, it’s a little bit less attractive in a way.  Well, I’d say it’s more attractive than thinking that we just don’t want to be told what to do.  What we’re seduced into is a misunderstanding of how it is that we serve the God that has created us, and we tend to want to do it by being the best that we can be, to be like God.  And then if we’re like God, if we’re as good as he is, then he’ll like us.  It’s almost like we don’t have a comfort level with the way in which God describes our relationship with him, where the only way we exist in that relationship is because of God’s mercy, his understanding, his compassion.  That’s why he had to teach and preach the fullness of his message with the idea and the ideal of forgiveness.  His whole focus is not so much to look at whether or not we are who we should be but rather can we allow God to enter into us as we are and taking us where we are to the next level.  It’s very different.  One takes humility; the other is all bound up in pride.  So in this particular part of Mark’s gospel, we’re watching, in a way, Jesus pointing out the selfishness, in a sense, but it’s the humanity of the disciples.  They’ve  been arguing about who is the greatest.  They’ve been trying to figure out — they know that God, Jesus is going to save the Jewish people, and he’s going to put them in power, and they’re going to run the whole situation, all the ego, ego, ego stuff.  And so in these readings, we’re having a kind of refresher course about the way human nature is and what it’s really made for.  

So you take that first reading.  One of the things that we love is not only to be the best that we can be or better than other people, but we want to be in the in group.  We want to be among the chosen, and so it’s interesting.  When God called Abraham,  he said, “I want you to choose these people.  I want you to tell them that they’re my choice, and they’re my favorites.  They’re the best.”  And so right away, you have this image in the followers of Abraham, the followers of God under the direction of Abraham, that they are the special ones.  So you can see, in this first reading, that when they think that somebody outside of this group is able to do what God asks them to do, it bothers them.  It says, “Wait, this isn’t fair.  God does not favor anybody but us.”  But by saying that, “I’ve taken you as my chosen people, it’s not to say that I haven’t chosen everyone, in a sense.  It’s to say I’m working with you as a special group so you can understand who I am and what I’m up to and why I’m in your life so you can tech it.  I need to get — I need to form community.”  In a way, that’s the way we grow in anything.  Education about anything, you get a community together, a group of students that are studying something.  We work together.  We feed each other.  So that’s why God called this community of the Israelites together, not because they were better than everybody else but just because that’s the way it works, to be a part of a community.  So when there’s a complaint, Moses stopped them, stopped them.  He says, “If they’re for us, why should we be against him?”  Nobody that is working for what God is calling them to is considered to be an outsider.  That’s what Moses is basically saying.  “Look, if they’re doing what we’re doing, they’re not against us, so leave them alone.”  

And then the next thing that comes up, in the reading from James, is the whole idea of wealth and riches, and in the Old Testament particularly, and in the New Testament also but more in the New Testament, there’s this condemnation of people with wealth.  The reason is not because they happen to have money, because wealthy people can be extremely valuable and philanthropic.  And there were wealthy people that took care of Jesus and things like that, but the point is that so often, when you look at the way wealth was developed in the time that James was writing this letter, is that simply they were always, in almost every case, rich because they were stealing from someone who was poor.  They didn’t run great companies and end up developing a wealth that they earned and struggled for and then shared with other people.  That’s not the image that is being condemned in these words from James.  So what basically this is underscoring is that there’s a part of all of us that remains greedy, and we want the best of everything.  

So right away, we’re looking at images in this set of readings that have to do with our ego, and we get to the gospel.  And basically we start off with the same theme, exclusivity.  The followers of Jesus were special, and they were the ones who were able to do the things that God enabled them to do, and no one else could do them, because they were in that special group.  Well, the same thing is in the gospel that says, “Look, someone’s driving out demons in your name, and they’re not part of us.”  So John’s saying, “Stop them,” again.  No, anyone that’s out there, whether they belong to our company or not, if they’re loving, if they’re forgiving, if they’re doing anything good, they’re part of us, and so don’t get caught up in this image of being part of the exclusive group that God loves in a special way.  And that is such a shadow of all religions.  

Catholicism, we used to do it in spades.  When I was growing up, I thought that my Methodist friends, my Baptist friends, my Presbyterian friends, they were all going to hell, because they weren’t part of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and other religions have done the same thing.  Isn’t it ironic when you think about it?  Believing in this generous, loving God is the heart of every Christian religion, and yet we like the idea that he only really loves us.  So what are we dealing with here?  A universal problem of what we would call basically undeveloped, unevolved — or low-level of evolution of human nature.  “I want to be special.  I want to be really, really good in the eyes of others and the eyes of God.” 

So then we get to the part of this gospel that is the heart of what I want to talk about today, because I’ve looked this up in commentaries on the gospel, and sometimes they just skip this section, a weird, kind of, little statement — not a little statement, a powerful statement coming from the mouth of Jesus.  “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  Better the life entered maimed than with two hands.  If your foot is your problem, cut it off.  Better to be lame than to be — than to enter into — and if your eyes are your problem, pluck the other eye out.”  It’s crazy.  Where does this come from?  Why would he make such a dramatic statement to people about self-mutilation?  And it’s got such a beautiful piece of wisdom in it if you can just hear it, but he used something so dramatic.  And I know in the scriptures, when Jesus does this, when he throws out something, he just completely flips your mind, like, “Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you can’t be a part of me,” things like that.  This is one of those kind of statements, and can you imagine the discussion of the disciples after he finished this?  “What are you talking about?  It’s better to be lame, to be half-blind, to not be able to do work?  Is that the best way to be in life?”  Well, maybe what he’s saying is unless you embrace, unless you accept, unless you recognize that our human nature, by its very nature, is never going to be enough to accomplish the work that we’re here to accomplish.  We’re not capable of any of the work that God is calling us to do, in terms of the real depth that it has as a potential.  We have to be guided with and filled with and aware of a Spirit dwelling in us, dwelling in us, giving us the wisdom that we need, the insight that — we can see so much.  We can see so far, but we can’t see the depth of what’s out there.  And so we only have one eye.  If we can accept the fact that we have only one eye, then we know that we need two eyes to be full, and the other eye is not ours but God’s.  Same way with your hand.  How do you do and accomplish all the things that you’re called to do?  The gospel makes it so clear that you and I are called to care for the needs of other people.  Do you think that then that’s up to you to be the one who does everything for someone?  Do you realize that, when you actually reach out and give someone something, your time, your energy, your love, your advice — do you think that that’s all that’s being given through you to them?  Or do you really believe than, when you have an intention to give something to someone, you’ll give some things that are valuable, but they’re more than what you can give, though I’m not diminishing that.  It’s what God gives you through the intention that you have when he flows through you, because when you’re in the flow of life between you and someone else and God is in that trio, he is so powerful and effective.  And if you don’t feel that the little you did is not all that’s been given but so much more has been given, unless you have that, you’re not going to really feel the fullness of what it means to be his follower.

And the image of a foot, we’re on a journey.  We have to go and move and evolve and change, and all of that seems so beautiful to me, that we do stretch our imaginations and try to find the newest insight.  But at the same time, if we think we get those — they come from us, that’s where we’re limited.  So the image of entering life maimed is the image of entering life needy, never expecting you to be enough for the things that you’re called to do and never using your gifts or your talents as a sign that you are loved by God or that you’re esteemed by other people or that you’re part of a special group.  Wow, that’s not easy.  Who said it was supposed to be easy?  It’s impossible.  All the things we’re asked to be are impossible without him, but with him, everything is possible.

 Father, without you, we cannot achieve the goal that you’ve set for us. Yet we struggle, and we try to please you by attaining it out of our own energy, our own strength. So bless us with the humility that is key to being able to engage in a relationship with you where we can find the peace, knowing that we are the instrument that you’ve called us to be, feeling the effectiveness of us working with you, and we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.