Twenty-sixth Sunday In Ordinary Time
MARK 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 (Numbers 11:25-29; Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14; James 5:1-6)
John and James, sons of Zebedee, were the second pair of brothers chosen by Jesus to be his disciples. In this Sunday’s gospel reading John gets his first line in the Gospel of Mark. He also gets a lesson in what is today called the ecumenical movement. He addresses Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, but we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” John’s statement correctly reveals the ambitious jealousy and hot-headed impulsive-ness of the Zebedee brothers. They well deserved their nickname, Sons of Thunder, bestowed on them in Mark 3:17. Soon after this incident they will request from Jesus the most important roles in what they thought would be his political kingdom. Instead Jesus promises them martyrdom.
The present incident echoes the first reading, Numbers 11:25-29. In the context of that reading, Moses was so overworked that he asked the Lord either to lighten his burden or kill him. The Lord told him to choose seventy elders and assemble them at the Tent of Meeting. The Ark of the Covenant was kept in this Tent or Tabernacle. There the Lord would share Moses’ spirit with the seventy. Sixty-eight of the elders were present for the sharing of Moses’ spirit. Moses’ lieu-tenant Josue later was informed that the two absentees, Eldad and Medad, had also received Moses’ spirit and were prophesying in the camp. He complained to Moses, “My Lord Moses, forbid them!” Moses calmed his hot-headed lieutenant, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish all the Lord’s people were prophets….”
Jesus’ reply to John is addressed to all the disciples with him on this private teaching tour in Galilee, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.” Jesus accepted the good done in his name even by those who were not part of the in-group. In this catechesis Mark may be criticizing tendencies of exclusive-ness in the early Christian Church. That there were such tendencies is confirmed by several late first century documents. A quote from one of them: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into the house (the Church) or given him any greeting, for he who greets him shares in his wicked work,” Second Letter of John, verses 10-11. The story may caution us against negative attitudes toward Christian communities other than ours, or a caution against negative attitudes toward groups or individuals of our own Christian community. If they are weeds, let them grow with the wheat, and let the Harvester decide who is in and who is out.
The instruction to be open to outsiders continues, “Whoever is not against us is for us. Anyone who gives a cup of water to drink in the Name, because you are of Christ, Amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.” Such is Mark’s difficult Greek, perhaps best translated as “be-cause you bear the Christian Name,” or “…gives a cup of water to drink in the name of Jesus, because you belong to Christ.” Whatever Mark intended to say, it seems to be close to the idea of the last judgment scene of Matthew 25:40, “The King will say to you, ‘Amen, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my sisters and brothers, you did it to me.’” In the context of first century Christianity, the story seems to deal with how to respond to wandering prophetic exorcists who spoke and acted in Jesus’ name but were not sent by or affiliated with an establish-ed Christian community. The Didache, a valuable late first century Christian guidebook, which today would be called “Christianity for Dummies,” laid down rules to deal with such free spirits.
The catechetical subject seems to change suddenly, when Jesus says, “Who causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone would be put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” That is harsh! But who are the little ones? At first glance the Marcan Jesus seems to be talking about little children. It is however unlikely that Mark would so suddenly change the subject in his catechesis on openness to outsiders. Nothing has been said about little children. That subject will appear in Mark’s next chapter in the context of his catechesis on marriage. So who are the little ones in this instance? If Mark’s catechesis is a logical continuation of the preceding, they are the free-spirited exorcists who are doing good in Jesus’ name but outside the established Christian communities. They must be respected. That takes us back to the first line of Jesus’ response to the disciple John, “Do not prevent them…. Whoever is not against us is for us.”
Since the Marcan Jesus spoke of scandal to the little ones, Mark is reminded of other scandal statements attributed to Jesus. “If your hand, your foot, your eye, causes you stumble (scandal-izes you), cut it off, pluck it out. Better to enter into life maimed (crippled) than to be thrown into Gehenna unmaimed.” These statements sound more like Sharia Law, or a news bulletin from the Taliban. These would not expect a sinner to do his own amputation. They would do it for him.
Gehenna, a corrupt form of the Valley of Hinnom, was a depression outside Jerusalem where in the ancient past children were sacrificed by fire to the heathen gods Baal and Moloch. The mem-ory of these horrors gave birth to the idea of hellfire, and Gehenna became a synonym for hell.
Even the most literalist Christian communities among us do not take Jesus’ amputational words literally. His words instead teach the importance of avoiding temptations to sin.
