This Week: Proper 21B
Gospel: Mark 9:38-50
The thing about reading the gospel of Mark is that we must recognize that it is a whole story. Regardless of the way we read it in church, which offers an episodic feel. And it really feels like a whole story more than Matthew, Luke, and John do, as if these other gospels anticipated that we’d read it in parts.
The themes in Mark are so interconnected that they play off what comes before and after each part. The themes transgress the boundaries of chapters and keep playing off of each other.
So to connect with this moment is to connect with the passion prediction in the previous section, and the first the chapter before. It connects with the fallout from the Transfiguration at the start of the chapter, and with the sending of the disciples out as apostles. All of that is fresh and live in this passage.
We can say this and then still miss why the disciples are confused and conflicted and off-base in this passage. Why that isn’t “normal” for them. And why we shouldn’t treat it like “this is the way things always are”. No, these are people who were in alignment with Jesus and now aren’t. And followers of Jesus aren’t fated to be screw-ups because: humanity. That is a terrible reading of Mark in general and an utter distortion of this passage.
The disciples are off because they think they’re right. They aren’t listening to Jesus (remember, God said to Peter, James, and John: “listen to him!”). They are screwing up now when they weren’t screwing up before. That distinction is important. Because we can be different. And pretending we can’t makes us anti-Christ.
The unsanctioned disciple
This is an easy story to dig into because it always seems relevant, doesn’t it? The disciples see someone exorcizing demons in the name of Jesus and they think: “Hey, we don’t know him! This guy shouldn’t be doing that!” and they try to stop him.
We should recognize both how easy it is to relate to this moment and also why it doesn’t actually connect like that. But because there are emotions buried deep below the surface governing our behavior, we connect dots that don’t go together and call it good.
Why would someone other than them proclaiming the gospel be a bad thing? Why is that something they must stop? Why do they think they are the ones to stop it? What is causing this anxiety? Jealousy?*
So why might we connect so easily with the disciples here? Is it about doing things “the right way” or about “the rules”? Does it have to do with knowing all of the people involved and controlling the outcomes? Is it fear of screwing up the brand or confusing people with a “counterfeit” disciple?
All of this, I suppose is there. But l suspect the more significant question is not why we sympathize or recognize this moment, but perhaps why it might be easier to understand the disciples’ response than Jesus’s.
There’s something about screwing up.
It feels kind of normal. Expected. It’s funny that we can be devout Christians and believe so deeply in karma (and superstition, too).
But this first part of the passage highlights a vision we ought to take to heart. Especially if we understand the meaning naturally in our heads.
The disciples are clearly upset that someone outside the inner circle is exorcizing demons in the name of Jesus. They try to stop him and can’t. They want Jesus to stop him and he’s like “why would I?”
And, I think, we might be able to see the rule here, can’t we? A rule about the gospel being bigger than us. At least, that’s the head talking—wanting to turn this story into a teaching and that teaching into a memorable learning and therefore a rule that can be taught to others like a permanent and expected view of the world. To be able to say here: Jesus thinks shutting down the gospel is stupid.
Honestly, this way of approaching the gospel isn’t very helpful. Especially when it is simply bound to describe the world according to rules and answers.
There are human emotions and reasons why the disciples are fixated on this moment of a stranger succeeding while they are failing. And let me tell you, having spent virtually my entire life in the mainline, this posture of feeling like a failure and watching someone else “succeed” is a constant.
And it also feels so much like how we order our churches, our leadership, and our governance. We want to verify and own and know and control the people we invest with leadership. There are big processes that take years and many tears to complete. We have tests and hoops to jump through and commissions to appeal to. And we do this to make sure our leaders are halfway decent at their work and prepared to do it. We don’t want randos claiming divine inspiration.
Which also kinda means we don’t believe in it. At least effectively.
And if we did, what are we doing to the divinely inspired? Putting them through countless struggles to prove it. Like asking Jesus to prove his Messiahship to us over and over and over again.
When it comes to ordination, we’re on the side of control and distrust.**
The stupid of stumbling
I’ve watched people read this passage and lose track of what Jesus is trying to say. Not because people are stupid, but because Jesus uses a difficult metaphor to track. In fact, the main problem is that people get stuck in the metaphor and forget what it is in conversation with.
Jesus tells his disciples not to be a stumbling block. Which, for the sake of clarity, is literally a block placed at someone’s feet to trip them up. It reminds me of childhood pranks of trying to trip your friends by sticking your foot out when they are looking ahead. It is a way of speaking to the act of tripping them up, making them fall.
Remember, sin is relational. And so is grace.
So our work is to love people, not to cause them frustration, exploit them, or oppress them.
So, don’t be the source of stumbling is kin to don’t be the source of another’s oppression.
Then Jesus uses examples of relationship. He speaks to parts of the body leading to the stumbling of others as examples. This is not a literal instruction to pluck out your eye. Nor is it an expression of maiming ourselves for screwing up. This isn’t about our bodies. It is an example about our relationship to other people.
This also isn’t about temptation.
It isn’t literally about the metaphors expressed, either: mostly, we assume, relate to lust. Touching someone or looking at someone and being like “now I should be dead.”
This also isn’t about making an alcoholic sad and finding out they went out drinking. Saying that we’ve done this thing, caused this thing, and should punish ourselves for it. Or to see this as one minding one’s own business and finding that you’ve encouraged a behavior in someone else.
This is about metaphorically throwing ourselves in front of someone else’s feet to cause their downfall.
We use a lot of words like corruption as a way of distancing ourselves from actions and outcomes. To make the challenge mystical and disembodied. Like we maybe, sort of, did something, and then an evil spirit entered their body corrupting it and now we feel sort of bad because maybe we’re the reason that spirit is there (but thankfully we aren’t that spirit, am I right?).
But Jesus is telling this to his disciples who are trying to shut up an exorcist who is successfully banishing demons that they can’t any longer. And he just told them that they aren’t the most important people in the world. And he’s telling them that this is the mission. This is the mission! So why are they trying to kill the mission? Why are they trying to bring this man down? Why isn’t the Kin-dom on their minds?
A final famous analogy
One of my favorite analogies about alignment, purpose, and foresight goes something like this.
Amtrak is famously the train company. They have been the industry leader for decades. And were the dominant force in the 1950s. They knew their mission was to get people from one place to another, fast and effinciently.
If Amtrak actually understood that it’s mission was transportation, not trains, then they would have started building airplanes.
This analogy is dependent on our understanding how much train travel has been obliterated through the second half of the twentieth century and that an agile company, understanding what its actual business is (travel) and what they got distracted by (we make trains), would make different changes. Perhaps a more obvious analogy would be Kodak with cameras. They got distracted by making film cameras that they didn’t invest in the digital cameras that they created.
My update to the Amtrak analogy goes something like this:
If Amtrak understood its mission is transportation, then they would have started building airplanes. And if Delta understood its mission today is transportation, they would be investing in high-speed rail.
Because mission outlasts the material of distribution.
Anyway, these analogies are about understanding purpose. About what people and institutions are called to do. And this week, we have a gospel in which the disciples have clearly lost sight of their purpose and come across someone who gets it better than they do. And this scares and frustrates them.
The problem this passage highlights isn’t what happens when we lose sight of our purpose, but what we tend to do when we see someone who sees it better. Do we stop them or do we love them?
*yes
**Don’t worry, I’m seeing all sides of this junk. Please don’t jump to conclusions. People like to think in terms of “pro” and “con” about “the issues” and this isn’t what we’re doing here. I’m pointing out a paradox that requires a choice—and willingness to be wrong for a good reason.