Anyone I have talked with in the last few weeks about our second scripture lesson for this morning has at least winced when they heard Jesus’ words from Mark. As Dave noted to me earlier this week, it is hard to celebrate these written words from scripture.
These words of Jesus bear words of violence that make peace-making, non-violent people flinch. In the Gospel of Mark, this teaching of Jesus follows immediately on his teaching that the last shall be first and the first shall be last, and to welcome a child in Jesus’ name is to welcome him. We are much more comfortable with these words of gentleness and service than words of cutting off hands and feet or plucking out eyes. Why would Jesus say something like that? It has shock value for us, for sure. Did it have the same shock value for his listeners or for the community of the early church?
Throughout his public ministry, Jesus has been teaching and preaching, healing people, and casting out demons. He has been healing the deaf, blind, and lame, and he has healed the child of a prominent synagogue leader as well as the child of a dis-regardable Gentile, SyroPhoenician woman (with some sharp-witted words of argument from her on behalf of her child.) He has restored beggars and a bleeding woman to wellness and community life, and he has cast out demons from children and grown men. He has walked on water and stilled storms. He has fed a crowd of 5,000 men, not including women and children, with five loaves of bread and two fish in Judea; and with seven loaves of bread he has fed 4,000 men, not including women and children, in Gentile country in the region of the Decapolis on the opposite side of the Sea of Galilee from Judea.
He has been teaching the Good News of God’s reign come near with a message of change and transformation of hierarchical power systems (such as the first shall be last; or to enter God’s reign, you must become like a child). This is teaching and preaching of the kind that got John the Baptizer killed.
Gehenna- the Greek word translated as “hell” in our passage from Mark for today was a real place, not necessarily (or only) a place of eternal punishment. It was the city garbage dump outside Jerusalem where trash was burned, where rotting organic material including human bodies was consumed by worms- a place that would have been true to the real life experience of Jesus’ listeners.
Also true to the life experience of Jesus’ listeners, would be the reality that people lost hands and feet to work accidents or illness or congenital conditions. The story of Oedepus who plucked his own eyes out to avoid seeing the children he sired with his mother was a story that existed in the cultural heritage of the GrecoRoman world that Jesus and his listeners lived and moved in. In the GrecoRoman world, people were valued for their place in the social hierarchy and their capacity to produce. Someone missing a hand or foot would be considered less valuable than someone with both hands and feet.
In Jewish tradition, ‘the blind and the lame’- perhaps a catch-all term for many kinds of disability, were prohibited from entering the Temple because they were considered ritually impure, imperfect. Here Jesus is saying that the loss of a hand or foot or eye is no hindrance to entering God’s reign! Once again, Jesus is turning the cultural and social value system of his day on its head. Persons missing a hand or foot or eye have equal value and welcome alongside those who are not missing a limb or organ!!
For whom is this good news? For everyone who is seeking systems of being that recognize each persons’ inherent value and dignity. This is Good News for anyone who is marginalized by their difference from the perceived norm of any given society. Jesus is rejecting the limitation of physical appearance, functionality, and productivity as a marker for who is welcome in God’s reign. He has been healing the children of high profile people and those he doesn’t even want to acknowledge. He does not distribute healing care according to any earthly measure of worthiness, but according to God’s love and care.
God’s healing power through Jesus’ hands is not limited to Jesus, either. He has sent his disciples out to heal in his name. At the beginning of the Gospel passage for this morning, we heard the disciple John reporting that someone the disciples did not know was healing in Jesus’ name, casting out demons. Jesus points out the disciples' error. “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a deed of power in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.” No wonder Jesus is sorry for someone who gets in the way of God’s healing power at work in the world, as he shows when he says- “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.”
Systems of prejudice and disrespect are dismantled when God’s power is at work in the world through Jesus, and his followers, and even strangers who cast out demons in Jesus’ name. The condition of our bodies, our status in our communities, our capacity to participate or produce have nothing to do with our value in God’s eyes. God’s welcome is unlimited, God’s power for healing is available no matter who we are or how we are, and Jesus acknowledges how life-stunting it is when we get in the way and place limits on God’s grace at work in our world through anyone, no matter how disregarded, dismissed, disrespected or discarded. God’s reign dismantles systems of inequity, without limit.
Our first scripture reading this morning comes from an entirely different time and place. With Moses as their leader, the Israelites are wondering in the desert wilderness, learning to be the community of God’s people after their exodus from slavery in Egypt. When the camp followers, the people who lived on the margins of the community, complained about uncomfortable conditions, it spread to the families who also began to complain and cry, then God got angry, and Moses was done. “Just kill me now, God, and get it over with, I can’t do this anymore,” Moses tells God.
And God has a plan to bless 70 elders and officers among the Israelites with a share in the prophetic spirit that Moses carries, the spirit of authority. Moses summoned the 70 elders as God had instructed to the Tent of Meeting where Moses ordinarily met with God. And God shared Moses’ spirit among them, as witnessed by their prophesying, just once. Curiously enough, Eldad and Medad also prophesied, outside the Tent of Meeting. When this was reported to Moses and his assistants, Joshua (who eventually will be Moses’ successor) wants to stop them. He wants to control on whom, or perhaps where, or in what circumstances God’s prophetic spirit appears. But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all God’s people were prophets and that Yahweh would put the spirit on them!"
These two scriptures for this morning share an encounter with the unlimited work of God’s spirit. Who places boundaries on who is qualified to do God’s work? Who places restrictions on where or when or how God moves in our world? Not Moses, not Jesus.
I find myself challenged by our scripture passage from Mark this morning, to consider what and who I flinch away from. I invite you into curiosity and exploration with me this morning. Let’s pause and take a deep breath and move from the world of scripture into our own world and life experience. Where does your curiosity and self-exploration join with mine?
I wonder:
Do I look away when I see someone struggling to move easily into a grocery store? Do I close my ears when I hear one person using ugly words with another? Do I ignore situations where another person’s dignity is demeaned? Do I walk past litter and trash on the trail or in my neighborhood and let it lie? Do I sorrow for native plants that are losing habitat to invasive species without taking any action?
Do I imagine nothing can change in those situations? Do I imagine there is little I can do to help? Do I imagine I will be derided, degraded, or treated poorly if I do respond with care? Do I limit the possibility of God’s healing entering these circumstances? Do I constrain God’s power in me when I turn away from uncomfortable or unpleasant experiences?
Where can I celebrate God’s power crossing boundaries to bring about healing and wholeness? Where can I join God’s healing work by not flinching away, but engaging in care and compassion? Where do you find God’s spirit nudging you, speaking to you, offering you an opportunity to join with God in healing and community?
As descendants in faith of the Israelites, as followers of Jesus, we are called to reject perceived or manufactured limits on the capacity of God to work in and through us to bring God’s reign into full expression in our world. We do this when we welcome others who are not like us into our worship and into our lives. We share Jesus’ Good News when we reach across boundaries of culture and language to care for a refugee. We celebrate God’s abundant love when we share food freely through our Community Fridge without judging the need or worth of those who use the fridge. We show Jesus’ Good News when we give of our resources to support the purchase of protein through Pedal for Protein that feeds food insecure people throughout Northern California and the North Coast. We extend God’s care when we disengage our participation in structures of injustice and work to dismantle systems of inequity by amplifying the voices of persons who have been ignored, marginalized, and silenced. We allow God to work healing and wellbeing in and through us when we celebrate (rather than simply accept) differences and varying giftedness and abledness in our communities as reflections of God’s expansive image in humankind.
God’s spirit will not be contained. God’s healing is not limited by human determinations of worthiness or propriety. Let us live into the heritage of the ancient Isrealites and the early followers of Jesus that brings unlimited healing and wellbeing to our communities and to our world. Let us live out our share in God’s spirit. Let us join in dismantling systems of injustice. Let us not turn away from others who do not look, think, act, believe, or agree with us. Let us not flinch away from the ugliness of the degradation of humans and our environment that we encounter in our lives today. Let us reach out with care, with compassion, with humility, to engage God’s unlimited possibility for healing grace in and through us. God works in and through us and all those around us to bring wholeness and healing, no matter who or how we are. Now that’s Good News!
© 2024 Dvera Hadden
Photo credit: Marlis Trio Akbar
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