disclosing new worlds

Esther 7: 1-6; 9-10; 9: 20-22
Psalm 124
James 5: 13-20
Mark 9: 38-50

Phew! Not the easiest set of texts this week, by any means! Commentators seem to struggle as much as the general reader. There’s the whole business of why Esther is in the canon at all (other than because the instigation of the Feast of Purim – thanksgiving for deliverance from Israel’s enemies, which is echoed in Psalm 124). James speaks about healing as a sort of “daily reality” in ways that sit very uncomfortably with our experience. Jesus speaks about extreme measures to avoid hell – and in what context, exactly? What is the meaning and context of the injunctions concerning “causing these little ones to stumble”? The passages are connected as much by their difficulties as by their interrelated themes!

There are connections, of course. There’s the connection between Esther and Psalm 124, and between Esther and the dispute over the exorcist from outside the community of faith in Mark 9: 38-41. James is linked to the gospel passage through a shared context of persecution and questions over how to treat those who have fallen away under its pressure. Yet the difficulties remain – and these are the questions that will probably be uppermost in people’s minds when they read or hear the passages.

Community boundaries: the “Good Outside” (Mark 9: 38-41/Esther 7 & 9)
Jesus has just been attacking the disciples’ concern for power with his example of a child to illustrate the radical status –reversal in the kingdom. In this pericope, Mark goes on to show how little the disciples understand Jesus and the Way of the Cross. The issue is about boundary control. Who’s “in” and who’s “out”? Very particularly, who has the right to patrol those boundaries and create the rules?

Look at what happens. The group of disciples encounters an exorcist and try to stop him. Interestingly ironic, isn’t it – they try to stop him? Does Mark mean that they had as much lack of success in stopping the exorcist as they had had in exorcising the demon from the boy in 9:14ff? What is most interesting, though, is their reason for trying to stop him: “… because he was not following us” (9:38). The exorcist is using Jesus’ name to exorcise the demons (with apparently conspicuously more success than the disciples enjoyed!), but the disciples’ objection is not that he wasn’t a follower of Jesus, but of them! In other words, the disciples have taken upon themselves the role of “owning” Jesus. Their attitude is “To follow Jesus is the same thing as belonging to our group. You can’t follow Jesus unless you do it our way! We make the rules!”

Isn’t this a story repeated daily by the Church? In the minds of so many people, there is no difference between discipleship of Jesus and church membership; between faith in Jesus and belonging to the institutional Church. This is precisely the assumption that Jesus challenges here in the passage. Just as Esther – a “foreign” book about “righteous foreigners” (in which Yahweh doesn’t even get a mention!) is an example of Yahweh working outside the covenant community, so Jesus refuses the disciples’ attempts to draw confessional boundaries around him. It isn’t about “right theology” but about “right practice”! The exorcist who is using Jesus’ name but is not part of the community of disciples is sharing in the liberative, healing and saving power of Jesus’ ministry.

Of course, it is extremely unlikely that these were the exorcist’s motives! In all likelihood, what we have here is the case of a wandering exorcist who made a livelihood out of exorcising demons. The reason he used Jesus’ name was probably because Jesus already had a reputation as a successful exorcist, so that using his name was effectively saying, “I command you by the same power as that bloke Jesus of Nazareth uses to come out …” Jesus’ name worked. It was an effective – and therefore lucrative! – technique. The disciples’ outrage isn’t as self-seeking or obviously wrong as it may sound. They were effectively saying, “Hey! Jesus’ name isn’t some sort of charm! He’s not just a “miracles-for-hire” merchant! He’s the Messiah – and you should be following him!”

This makes Jesus’ response all the more startling: “Do not stop him!” Why not? This is a strange response, made all the more so by the fact that Jesus is in the process of making following him more costly and more difficult! The disciples, as we well know, are battling more and more to “follow Jesus in The Way”. Even their best theological attempts to “get Jesus right” meet only with a stern, “You shut up about this!” This exorcist isn’t even trying to understand Jesus or follow him!

Look at Jesus’ reason for not stopping him: “No one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me”. There is a real irony at work here. We’re in the throes of the narrative of the progressive disintegration of the discipleship narrative. It is precisely John’s “us” who will end up denying and abandoning the person they follow – because he doesn’t conform to their picture of messianic power! They want Jesus’ power, but not on Jesus’ terms. The disciples want to be followed rather than be followers.

That leads to his second reason: “Whoever is not against us is for us”. Elsewhere in the gospel tradition, Jesus says the opposite: “Whoever is not for us is against us”. In Mark’s context of persecution, not to strive actively on behalf of the oppressed Christian community – not to challenge the status quo – is to be instrumental in that oppression. Jesus here makes a different point: to be engaged actively in the same sort of liberative ministry of compassion is to be “for” Jesus. That same compassion will be manifested in instinctive acts of caring and provision for the persecuted community: they will “give you a cup of cold water to drink because you bear the name of the Messiah”. To act compassionately to the disciples is the same thing as acting compassionately towards Jesus. It is to share in God’s character (compassion) and mission.

Interesting, isn’t it, that this is the only time (apart from 1:1) that the term “Messiah” appears on Jesus’ lips outside the context of confessional struggle. Jesus is happy to own the title! It’s significant because he wants to draw the parallel between being Messiah and liberative acts of compassion. “Following”, proper messianic confession and being part of the kingdom have far more to do with being and doing (praxis) than “believing” (theology). Being part of Jesus is about following – but it has less to do with immediate proximity and institutional relatedness to Jesus than it has to do with the shared practice of mission! If the Church could only spend less time and energy making enemies out of those who are not against it, and recognise in a shared practice of liberation a genuine fellowship in Jesus and the kingdom, just imagine how different the landscape would appear. Oh – and there would be the added benefit of being where Jesus is on the matter!

Messianic acts of compassion: Healing – a sign of the kingdom (James 5: 13-20)
Let me tell you my own story about this passage. Between the ages of 20 and 21I served as an Assistant Pastor in a small Baptist church in South Africa. The Pastor (a theology professor) was away for a year, lecturing in the US, so I was it. One Sunday morning the phone rang. It was Arthur James. He had been involved in the Wooden Horse breakout during World War II. Arthur is one of the most wonderful, godly people I have ever known. But he was dying. He’d suffered 3 heart attacks in quick succession. The doctor had told him that a fourth was inevitable and imminent. It would also be fatal.

Arthur told me he’d been preparing (to die) and had been reading James 5: 13-20. Having read it, he wanted me to bring the deacons, anoint him with oil, lay hands on him and pray for his healing. I calmly told him I’d be round before the service that morning and replaced the receiver … and panicked! I had no idea what to do. I certainly didn’t think it likely that God would heal him. And I was terrified of failing Arthur – for his own sake. So I rang the oldest, wisest deacon, and told him what Arthur had asked. He panicked! “How do you anoint someone with oil? What do you say in that sort of prayer?” he asked. “I haven’t a clue!” I replied. “Why do you think I’m ringing you?” “Well, I’ve never done it before!” he said. “I suppose we’ll use the oil to make the sign of the cross, and pray! We can all lay hands on Arthur”, I suggested. So that was decided upon. We duly assembled, complete with some cooking oil from the kitchen, all of us pretending we were on top of the situation. I dipped my finger in the oil, made the sign of the cross on Arthur’s forehead, we laid hands on him, and I prayed a prayer for healing with plenty of “Get out of jail free” clauses (“If it be thy will” etc) to cover ourselves when nothing happened.

The doctor was due to see Arthur the next morning. Instead, Arthur drove down to see him. There was nothing wrong with his heart. Arthur went on to live to a ripe old age and eventually died “full of years”.

That was 26 years ago and at least 26 different theories of healing! I’ve had one other similar situation, praying for a friend who was dying of cancer and who was also healed. But I’ve had many, many more experiences of instances where God doesn’t heal. Does God heal people when we anoint them with oil, lay hands on them and pray for their healing in Jesus’ name? Heck yes! Is there healing power in the name of Jesus? Heck yes! Does God do it every time? Heck no! So what’s going on? Whose faith is rewarded? How much faith do we need? Why doesn’t God heal more regularly? I haven’t a clue! But I do know that we ought to do far more anointing, laying on hands and praying for healing – not because there are any guarantees, or to prove something about God, or for any reason other than that it is a sign of the kingdom of salvation, liberation, wholeness, justice and peace proclaimed by Jesus. What happens then is ultimately up to God. At the end of the day, God is God, like it or lump it. The Lord healeth and the Lord healeth not. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

The “Bad Inside”: Stumbling blocks and amputations (Mark 9: 42-49)
Jesus moves from affirming the reality of kingdom things happening outside the messianic community to the reality of non-kingdom things happening inside that group. It seems to me that Mark’s account has two different contexts: what is happening in Jesus’ ministry at the time, and the situation of persecution faced by his own community. The passage says different things in these different contexts, and each is valuable in its own right.

(a) Sexual abuse of children
On the level of Jesus’ ministry, this reads as a passage about the sexual abuse of children. The context, you will remember, is about abusive use of power, and Jesus has stood a child in their midst. The obvious sense of “these little ones”, therefore (9:42) is a reference to children. “Hand”, “foot” and “eye” are traditionally the seat of wrongdoing: “hand” refers to theft, fraud and forgery, “foot” to robbery, persistent theft and runaway slaves, and “eye” to sexual misconduct. Commentators have drawn attention to the fact that the injunction to amputate the offending members of the body are a liberalisation of the laws on capital punishment: rather than put the offender to death, amputate the offending piece of the body! This is how the Islamic laws about cutting off a thief’s hand, for example, were intended.

But Jesus appears to be doing more than making a very general point about legal arrangements within society – however strongly we (or he) might want to draw parallels between the laws of a society and the kingdom. He’s talking here specifically about children. Children were powerless. They were “property”. They could be used by the “owner” for the owner’s benefit without much comment. We ought, therefore, to note the unmistakeable sexual connotations of hand, foot and eye. “Foot” in the bible is frequently used as a euphemism for a penis; hand and eye are far more obviously relevant to a context of sexual abuse. The process of “seeing, coveting, taking and using” is about the exercise of power, and sexual abuse is all about power. It is the power differential in sexual relationships that constitutes abuse: it prevents them being equal and therefore truly consensual. Jesus, then, is talking about an issue that was disturbingly prevalent in his own society – the sexual abuse of children. It would seem that neither Jewish society nor the Church was an abuse-free zone!

I don’t know what you believe about hell. To be honest, I’m not sure what I believe about it, either! That isn’t quite the point here, though. Jesus refers to the valley of Hinnon – the rubbish heap outside Jerusalem where the rubbish continually smouldered. Traditionally, it had been the place of child sacrifices (Hmmm! Accidental in this context, or not???) and was used as a metaphor for God exacting a fitting sort of revenge against the terrible suffering inflicted upon the Jewish people through the ages. It was an affirmation that God cared! The sufferings of people at the hands of the powerful – sufferings that couldn’t possibly be put right or “made better” – were of concern to God. It was the promise that God was just – that, in the end, the last word belonged to God, and not to the torturers and murderers. Those whose lives were made living hell were not abandoned by God. And just as sexual abuse is frequently, for its victims, a life sentence to emotional and psychological destruction, so God’s vigilance on behalf of the victims is eternal. God’s memory will not be dimmed by the passing of time. God will not forget!

If we instinctively shy away from reading this passage as a reference to the sexual abuse of children, we do only what has been done for generations. In the information age, we have become only too painfully aware of the extent and frequency of child abuse within religious institutions, and the ways in which institutions like the Church move instinctively to close ranks and protect reputation. Folks, it happens! It happens time and again. And because it is so horrible, we find ourselves continually shocked and ill-prepared for it when it emerges. That’s when we make all the wrong moves – moves that only perpetuate the awful damage that has been done to the victims. The book, Time for Action – a new dawn for the survivors of sexual abuse is a timely publication. It’s something that should command instant welcome and application within churches, and yet it is proving disturbingly controversial. Christian – human! – realism demands that we actually expect it to happen, rather than treating it as an inexplicable and unimaginable horror. The Church is no less a part of society than the wider context is. Christians are no more immune to the seduction of power than other human beings are – at least, according both to Jesus and experience! And when you put together a cocktail of sex and vulnerability, you have a potent brew!

It isn’t that we ought to become paranoid about the issue. We simply need a gritty, unflinching realism about it. It happens. People will do it because they want to and have the power to do so. They will go to extraordinary lengths to keep it hidden. We know both its nature and its power. The power of the servant – “power-on-behalf-of” – is the power to face its reality and deal openly and wisely with it. Pray God we find that power!

(b) People who mess up
If we take the passage at the level of the persecution of Mark’s community, a different emphasis comes into play. The issue for the Church then was how to deal with people who “fell away” – who renounced faith in Christ under torture and threat of death. Even more importantly, there was the question of how to deal with informers within the communities – the Judases who sold out their brothers and sisters to the authorities.

In this context, we ought probably to read “hand”, “foot” and “eye” within the metaphor of the Church as a body (as Paul does). Jesus, on this reading, is saying that people who are apostate and who betray the covenant community ought to be “cut off” (excommunicated) for the sake of the whole body. This will better enable the community to keep the faith under persecution (the “fire”). The fire of persecution is the proving ground for the Church (9:49: “Everyone will be salted with fire”). The community will need to be ruthless about “amputating” offending parts of the body if it is to survive.

Church discipline is not in vogue much anymore! Many mourn its passing. On the other hand, Amish communities practise “shunning” – the casting out of offending members, and point to this and other passages in support of what appears to be an extraordinarily heartless way of treating even close family members. It’s important to note that this is not some sort of general rule about our treatment of people in the Church who mess up. It is very specifically about the context of persecution and two categories of people who damage the community by a sort of creeping poison that threatens to infect everyone: apostates and traitors. The point is that these people were deemed worthy of capital punishment for these crimes. Jesus is saying (at the very least) “No, don’t kill them. Cast them out – for the sake of the body – but don’t kill them”. It is difficult to find contemporary parallels in the situations of most churches. Most are at threat of ridicule and irrelevance, rather than persecution and death. This isn’t a mandate to excommunicate or shun those who mess up.

In fact, the opposite is true, for those of us whose very existence is not under constant threat from persecuting authorities. For us, the challenge is to take the image of “body” more seriously! Note that Jesus talks of “amputation”. Amputation leaves the body disabled and mangled. This is a very different image from casting people out as though they were never part of the community in the first place! If we took seriously our deep, intrinsic connectedness in Christ; our inability to be whole without one another and one another’s ministries, then we would be looking for every reason to keep fellowship with one another. That is why the Church ought to be a place of peace (v49) – not because we’ve got rid of the awkward squad, but because we’re a living sign of forgiveness, restored relationships and peacemaking.

Indeed, the much-disputed v49 can be read as Jesus saying, “… but in spite of all the damage that people do, you ought always to be looking out for every opportunity to make peace and restore fellowship!” That was a hot potato in the New Testament Church. It isn’t ours. Our hot potato is more the fact that we (unofficially) shun people who mess up; that the word on the street is that it is easier to mess up and be forgiven in the pub than it in the Church!

Boundaries of in and out. We love ‘em! They keep us safe. They make sure that following Jesus also means following us! They give us chance to flex our muscles – to be the kingdom’s gate-keepers. And history is littered with the corpses of the millions who have died at the hands of the Church in an effort to patrol those boundaries in the conviction that people who didn’t play “our” way deserved to die! How tragic. How obscene! And how far from the Jesus who meets us in today’s gospel!

Amen.