Sermon by:
The Rev. Pamela Dolan
“Walking the Way”
September 29, 2024
Text: Mark 9:38-50
Have you ever heard people say that they want to “burn it all down”? The “it” in question is usually an institution or a powerful force in our society, like patriarchy or capitalism or colonialism. This is intentionally provocative, even triggering language. There is an argument to be made that language like that is not constructive, that it only serves to divide people and sometimes even leads people to commit acts of violence. On the other hand, there is a counter-argument that says that sometimes the only way to grab people’s attention and get them to take an issue seriously is through hyperbole, the use of provocative, intense, and unsettling language.
It’s fascinating that in today’s Gospel, Jesus seems to fall in the latter camp. There is nothing reserved or respectable about the language he uses: it is extreme, it is provocative, and it is designed to make us uncomfortable. And I think it’s important for us to unpack what he’s doing here.
First, let’s remember that this passage comes near the end of a long section of Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus is primarily teaching, as opposed to healing or performing miracles. So, to use language my friends in academia will understand, there is a pedagogical purpose to his rhetoric. He’s not literally telling people what to do, but he is trying to teach people something essential about how we live our lives.
The setting where this scene takes place matters, too: Jesus and his disciples have been described as “on the way,” which in Mark always has a double meaning. At a literal level it means they’re traveling, but it is also a reference to the new way of life that Jesus is inviting people into and modeling for his followers.[i] This way of life is based on radical inclusivity, hospitality, and non-violence. It is what we often call the way of love.
So Jesus is literally and figuratively leading his disciples along the way, trying to teach people about what it means to be ushered into a new reality, a reality that breaks the chains of oppression and domination in order for human beings from every tribe and language and people and nation to see themselves first and foremost as children of God, and his followers keep bickering about power. They argue with one another about who is the greatest. And then they try to exclude someone who is doing good works because he’s not one of them, like being a follower of Jesus is somehow supposed to make you part of the in crowd! It had to be enough to make Jesus weep.
The difficult words we hear from Jesus in this morning’s passage come just after John has explained that the disciples tried to stop someone from casting out demons because he wasn’t following them. (Note that: was it just a slip of the tongue that John says “he was not following us” when the issue should have been whether or not the man was following Jesus? Or is this evidence that the disciples have completely missed the lesson Jesus was trying to teach them about servant leadership?)
The great Markan scholar Ched Myers describes the situation this way:
“John is worried about those with competing power, but Jesus is welcoming all those who do the works of mercy and justice. John is entertaining ‘holier than thou’ delusions, but Jesus points out how his followers will often find themselves on the receiving end of compassion. In other words, disciples have no corner on the ministry of healing and liberation, and therefore should without prejudice work alongside those whose practice is redemptive.”
That’s all Jesus really wants to know: Are you getting a big head by following me, using it as some kind of power trip? Or are you living into a new reality, a kingdom reality, doing the things that show you are truly following The Way? Judged by their actions alone, the squabbling, gatekeeping disciples appear much less faithful than the man who was able to cast out demons. Maybe the disciples felt threatened by this man’s ability—really, who knows? But in their reactivity and gatekeeping, what they weren’t doing was celebrating that someone who had been suffering dreadfully was now free from possession, liberated, healed, and whole.
This is the situation that poor Jesus is confronting when he suddenly pops off about cutting off things that are causing you to stumble. It is clear to him that he is not getting through to his disciples, the people he is depending on to usher in a new reality and to continue his work once he is gone. And so, Jesus uses exaggerated, inflammatory language to shock us into paying attention, and maybe even to start asking some hard questions. Who are the little ones that Jesus is talking about here? And what are the ways that those of us who are followers of Jesus might cause others to stumble?
There are a lot of people today who don’t find Christianity very compelling. Some of you have heard me talk about the “Jesus in America” study that came out a few years ago. One of its striking conclusions was that “while Christians describe themselves as being giving (57%), compassionate (56%), loving (55%), respectful (50%) and friendly (49%) … non-Christians associate Christians with characteristics like hypocrisy (50%), being judgmental (49%), self-righteousness (46%), and arrogance (32%).”[ii] If nearly 50% of non-Christians think that Christians are judgmental, self-righteous hypocrites, we have to face the fact that something is giving them that impression. And it’s not good enough for us to blame the media, or say it’s a problem with other Christians, unless we are actively finding ways to tell a different story to the world, through our words and our actions.
That is one of the reasons why it is matters that we talk about hard things in church. It is so important that we look at our own history and see where we have failed, how Christian teaching has been used to justify terrible things, from the destruction of the environment to the genocide of indigenous peoples to violence against the LGBTQ+ community. It is important because when we show that we are willing to do the work, to it helps dismantle the perception that we’re self-righteous and hypocritical.
More even than that, though, talking about hard things and sharing our efforts at truth-telling and reconciliation, is what will help make us free, help heal us and lead us into a new and more abundant life. Jesus wants his disciples to do better and be better because he loves them, and because their own liberation is intimately tied to the liberation of all. He doesn’t want them to live in a hell of their own making.
Jesus wants us to do better and be better because he loves us and wants us to be healed and free. He’s not asking for perfection, but for the wholeheartedness that builds up community. When we walk on the way of love, we are bound to stumble. But when we walk it together, we can reach out a hand to one another, helping each other up and dusting each other off and moving forward into a new way of being. There is no need for gatekeeping, no jostling for position. The road is wide enough for all of us, and it leads to abundance and peace. Amen.
[i] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Orbis, 2017), 124.
