"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 were
hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand
causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life
maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable
fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is
better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be
thrown into hell., And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it
out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye
than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm
never dies, and the fire is never quenched. "For everyone will
be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its
saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at
peace with one another."
This is just the conclusion to this sermon,as the rest was unwritten, but thought it might be useful to some anyhow. Hope you like it and/or steal it for a sermon of
your own :)
Intro... Intro... Into... [Sermon begins by recapping Mark's Gospel from CH1-Present]
Conclusion:
And
just when we get all worked up and happy about Jesus
Just
when we get so excited that Jesus is this awesome, radical,
pro-love,
pro-including-everybody,
pro-the-least-of
these, kind of guy,
just
when we're so happy
that
Jesus is pro-forgiveness and grace and so on,
just
when we start to get all worked up about Jesus,
(pause).
suddenly
he starts telling us
to
chop off our arms
and pluck
out our eyes
so
we don't go to hell,
and
that:
it's
better if a big stone was hung around your neck
and
you were thrown into lake Michigan
than
to cause someone to stumble....
And
so,
if you're like me,
you ask yourself:
if you're like me,
you ask yourself:
Is this really the same Jesus from the previous chapters in the Gospel?
Is
this the same Jesus we've been reading about?
The
guy who was telling us to love one another,
is now almost offering us death-threats....
is now almost offering us death-threats....
I've preached on this passage many times,
and of course have interpreted it in various ways,
and of course have interpreted it in various ways,
but
this week,
during morning mediation,
I heard it in a new way.
during morning mediation,
I heard it in a new way.
I remembered that
according
to the popular religion of Jesus' time,
the religion of which Jesus and his followers were a part,
to lose a limb
would be to be made unholy, impure,
to lose a limb
would be to be made unholy, impure,
incomplete,
To have lost one's limb, to have become asymmetrical
would have made one not welcome in God's temple
would have made one not welcome in God's temple
not able to make a sacrifice to God,
to
be pleasing to God,
to have access to the Divine..
Jesus (If I am correct in my interpretation) is saying to us this morning that
Jesus (If I am correct in my interpretation) is saying to us this morning that
it
is better to be unholy
It
is better to be seen as unclean before God—
or
at least God's people
(very
different things, of course)
It's
better to be seen as unclean or unholy,
to
be excluded from the temple,
from
the hierarchy and institutional power of organized religion,
(and
it was powerful back then)
it's
better to be excommunicated
even
“thrown into hell” metaphorically speaking
if
you get there by welcoming a little one
a little child,
an
insignificant person,
one
of “the least of these”
(even
one of the 47%) …
if
religion is keeping you from loving other people
I
think, says Jesus,
if
religion is keeping you from loving other people
and
embracing other people
and
acknowledging other people
either
change what holiness means to you,
or
be completely satisfied being unholy,
knowing
that (in the words of James)
“love
covers a multitude of sins,”
(pause)
And
in the words of Jesus
(from
a few weeks ago)
“it's
not what goes into the body that defiles it,”
but
rather what matters is what comes from the heart,
And
in the words of Jesus this week,
“it's
better to be at the bottom of the sea” than to exclude a sister or
brother in need of God
And
it's as bad as Hell,
It
is Hell-ish
if
we, as people of faith, become the stumbling blocks that keep anyone,
especially
the world's most vulnerable
from
entering God's Kingdom,
where
the last shall be first,
the
first shall be last,
the
lowly lifted,
and
the powerful brought down from their thrones.
May
we as God's people continue to pray for that Kingdom to come,
and
may we work to build and to-be-in-community that
Kingdom
on earth
as
it is in heaven.
Amen.
Brilliant!
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