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Dr. George A. Purnell
September 27, 2009
“The Danger of Competition”
Mark 9:38-50
The gospel reading today opens with a lesson about our relationship to people who claim Christ, but who are not members of our group. The second segment of the reading contains some “hard sayings” about putting the Kingdom of God first in our priorities.
Now the first lesson seems benign. The story shows one of the disciples, John, telling Jesus that the disciples “saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” Jesus responds by telling John not to stop this person, because anyone who does a deed of power in his name will not be able to speak evil of him. Moreover, Jesus says, anyone who offers even a small kindness (a cup of water) to you will be rewarded, because in so doing the kindness is being offered to Jesus himself.
So, the message is don’t interfere with someone doing an act of mercy just because he isn’t in your group. This doesn’t seem too hard to do…
But, it is hard to do. Throughout its life the church has struggled with the question - who is in our group? Historically, for example, women have been excluded from being ordained as priests or pastors. Over the years many Christian groups have excluded people who were divorced, or who danced openly, or were known to drink alcohol, or whose livelihood was earned in questionable pursuits.
More recently our battles have moved to questions about the church’s position on homosexuality. Is this lifestyle sinful? Should the church sanction homosexual unions? Should homosexuals be ordained into the clergy? Another hot button topic for Christians is abortion. Can someone be passionately pro choice and a Christian? Is abortion something the church should denounce as immoral, or something the church should leave to the people involved?
Differences of belief and practice often result in Christian groups squaring off against each other. Indeed, the condemnation of Christians by other Christians is more personal and often more vicious than is the reaction of Christians to persons of other religious faiths. Why is this so? Because many of us find it particularly upsetting when, in the name of Christ, people take positions with which we disagree.
Jesus tells his disciples then and now that we are not the gatekeepers. Think about Jesus’ example. He was a Jew, yet he did not allow that to stop him from having relations with Samaritans and other non-Jewish people. In fact, a good case could be made that Jesus’ rejection by his own people came over his socializing with tax collectors, harlots, lepers, prisoners and others who were “not one of us” in the eyes of religious Jews.
If Jesus drew no lines of division then, he would not do so now. Yet we find ways to justify our behavior in excluding certain people from our ranks…
Jesus’ words in verse 42 – where he says: “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 (a large stone wheel commonly used for grinding wheat in ancient Palestine) were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” – make clear how much emphasis Jesus puts on making sure that no obstacles are put in the way of those who come to faith in him. (By “little ones,” Jesus is referring to those who are newborn in the faith. When Jesus is speaking of children, he is specific in referring to children.)
From here we move to the self-mutilation sayings. By using language that gets our attention, Jesus is asking us to consider what in our life puts a barrier between us and our relationship with God. Then, we are told to take whatever steps are necessary to clear the way and put our lives completely in God’s trust.
While we don’t take these verses literally (though there have been cases of people who literally plucked out an eye or mutilated a limb, believing that they were obeying a biblical injunction of Jesus in so doing), I believe that we can all find analogies which hit home in our lives. For example:
Both these lessons deal with competition. The opening story has to do with competitiveness and pride. Earlier in Mark’s chapter 9, the chapter we are in today, the disciples were asked by a father whose son “has a spirit that makes him unable to speak” to cast the demon from the boy. We read (9:18) that they “could not do so.”
So when they then encounter one from outside their own circle who is successfully doing what they had been unable to do, they try to stop him because, they tell Jesus, “he was not following us.” This man is competing with the disciples, and they consider him an interloper. The disciples feel special because of their unique relationship with Jesus, and since this man is not in Jesus’ inner circle, he has no right to be doing this in Jesus’ name.
Jesus tells them to leave others alone who are doing acts of mercy in his name, adding that putting a stumbling block in the way of another will result in judgment on them.
The second section of our passage – where eyes are gouged and arms amputated and salt is referenced – has to do with taking extreme measures to purify ourselves (salt and fire symbolize purification in the Bible) so that we might “enter the kingdom of God.” We are not in competition with anyone in this pursuit. We are not trying to show ourselves as being more righteous than others, but, rather, we are ridding ourselves of anything that competes with us giving our total allegiance to God.
As we enter this month ahead…and as we reflect on how our lives will discover a deep joy when we embrace simplicity…let’s work toward identifying, in ourselves and in our community of faith, those things that create separation between God and us. Amen.
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