“Stumbling Along?”

Mark 9:38-50

October 8, 2006

Saint Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

Imagine the scene. My guess is that you have been a part of it, on one side or the other. There has been an accident, an injury of sorts. It’s not an emergency. 911 does not need to be dialed. The EMTs don’t need to make their way to your house speedily with sirens blaring. The accident involves a child. Are you with me? Are you imagining this?

In the scene, you are either the child or the parent. It is your choice. I guess I should tell you the nature of the injury, shouldn’t I? It’s a scrapped knee. It’s the kind of a scrapped knee where the skin has been torn back and there is a little blood. It’s nothing major, but the injury requires a little attention. The problem is that mixed in the scrape is torn back skin and a lot of dirt.

Have you chosen your role? Have you decided if you would like to be the child or the parent? Let me first address those who have chosen to take on the role of the child. It looks pretty bad. Your mom already has you up on the bathroom counter. Tears are streaming down your face. If you think it hurts now, just you wait.

When I was a kid, this scenario would have brought out cold water, a wash cloth, and soap that was squeezed out of a green bottle that I believe was named Phisoderm. When all that was over, my mother would reach for a small spray can of medicine. I cannot tell you the name of it. I have intentionally blocked it from my memory. What I do remember is that when it was sprayed, it came out a dark shade of yellow. What I do recall is that my mother braced whatever it was that was hurt on me, held me down, and said, “Now John, this might sting a little.” A little? It didn’t sting a little. It stung a lot!

If you chose to be on the other side of the scenario. If you chose to be the adult instead of the child, then you know there is cause for concern. There are things in your child’s body that shouldn’t be there. The blood has to be wiped away. The grass and the dirt have to be removed. In fact if they aren’t infection will set in and the healing can’t happen. What you have in front of you is your child, who at the moment isn’t very rational. He is begging you. She is pleading, “Please, Mom, don’t hurt me!” So you say what must be in a parents manual. You say, “Would you rather me cut it off?” The question hangs in the air. Now let me see. What do I do? Do I allow the stinging medicine to hurt me for a while? Or do I allow my mother to cut off my leg? There is a logical choice. It is a no brainer.

Will your mother really cut off your leg? Of course not. I hope not! She is trying her best to get your attention. She wants you to know that treatment has to happen before the healing can take place. “This, “ your mom is saying, “is serious business.”

That is how I think we are to approach our scripture lesson for this morning from the ninth chapter of Mark’s gospel, where Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. If your eye causes you to stumble tear it out...”

Nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus more graphic about the wages of sin than he is here. “It would be better for you to hang a rock around your neck and jump into the ocean. It would be better to maim and blind yourselves than to walk around until the end of your days and then head straight to hell.” Wow that was strong!

Let me say something you already know. This passage doesn’t show up on anyone’s favorite list. We avoid it. Us preachers usually don’t preach it. It’s too hard. We look for something easier. This passage is too barbaric. To me, this doesn’t sound like Jesus at all! But then again, maybe it does.

Jesus, I think, is trying to get his disciples attention and in the midst of that grabs our attention. Chronologically speaking, these are among the last words of Jesus in his homeland. When he is finished, he’ll head down to Judea and eventually to Jerusalem where death will wait for him. So his words are serious. He knows time is short. He knows the leadership lesson that he began a few verses back has to continue. A few verses back, Jesus reached for a child, put her in his lap, and talked about greatness. Here Jesus is telling us what is good for us. So he says, “It would be better for you...” Four different times, four awful different times he says that it would be better for us to drown or be maimed than to cause one of the little ones to stumble. Now you need to know and I need to tell you that Jesus here isn’t, now just talking about children. He’s talking about those who are new to the faith. Who, as Paul would say, are drinking spiritual milk, people whose discipleship isn’t set firm. It would be best if we didn’t cause one of them to stumble. It would also be best if we didn’t stumble ourselves.

Following Jesus is no casual thing. Jesus is trying to tell his disciples that the things they do and the words they say have great importance. Following Jesus, in fact, is a life and death decision that is about to get dangerous for everyone involved, not just because of what might happen to them in Jerusalem, but because of what we might do to ourselves.

I hate to tell you this, but for us disciples, there is no time off. You can’t take a break. You can ‘t let off a little steam. You can’t tell jokes that offend. You can’t gang up on religious rivals just because they aren’t following you. “Everything has consequences” says Jesus. “Everything you say counts. You are either part of the good news or you are part of the bad news.” We are not invisible. In fact, we are significant. Our lives matter. Our words matter. Our words have power whether we realize it or not. And our words, even our words can cause someone to stumble. Our words can cause others to lose faith, to question God, and to pull away from the light. “It would be better if you were thrown into the sea.”

Now it seems to me that this passages gives a threat. It also makes a promise. Jesus says we are full of power, power that is unrealized. I think he’s begging us to wake up and to use the power wisely. I think he is also saying that our lives are bigger than our bodies. We pay attention to our bodies. We must also pay attention to our souls. Jesus may be saying here that you don’t have to take me literally, but you do have to take me seriously. You have a soul that is just as precious and just as lovely as your body and it’s wholeness should come first, not last. If it is sick, then your good legs cannot take you anywhere worth going.

Now my question for us this morning is simply this, “Why aren’t we as careful of our souls as we are of our bodies?” I had blood drawn on Wednesday. Dr. Dyer wants to make sure that my good cholesterol is high and my bad cholesterol is low and my triglicerides are where they are supposed to be. I’m probably in trouble on that last one. I promised to eat better and to exercise, but I haven’t been doing that. Why aren’t we as careful of our souls as we are of our bodies? At the very least, these scary words of Jesus ought to grab our attention and keep it. What we do matters. What we say counts. We have the ability to build one another up or tear one another down. Which will it be? Now, I don’t want you to worry about what you’ve done in the past on this. I don’t want to worry about what I have done in the past on this. I want us to focus on the future. Now that Jesus has our attention, what will do with the warning?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about stumbling this week. Stumbling. How do we do it? How does the fear of doing it claim us? How do we cause it in others? Perhaps we do it by talking one way and acting another. Maybe we do it by acknowledging Jesus with our lips, but denying him with how we live. We talk about the gifts of God inside of us, but then we hold on to them and don’t use them and hoard them refusing to share ourselves with others. We talk about God’s amazing grace and then save up old hurts like we used to do green stamps for a later prize when there are enough of them. We remember the time he did that, the time she said what she said. We catalogue our hurts and our griefs.

Then there is the fear of stumbling. D.C. Talk sings, “What if I stumble, what if I fall? What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all? Will the love continue when my walk becomes a crawl? What if I stumble and what if I fall? Wow! Sometimes the fear of causing others to stumble paralyzes us.

What is the answer? I guess you should know that if anyone is equipped to care for people both their bodies and their souls, it is us. We are baptized. We have been given the gift of second sight. We can see the spirit as well as the flesh.

One of the questions that John Wesley hoped would be asked in accountability groups forever is this one, “How is it with your soul?” More goes on than meets the eye. Outside things look all right. Inside we’re hurting, needing forgiveness, needing to offer grace.

Because of all of this, Jesus thought his followers should not take part in anything that diminishes anyone else. Disciples can’t sit back and watch while someone is hurt. We can’t sit back and watch while someone is talked down to. We cannot stand by. I believe God’s desire for us is an abundant life. If we want to be whole, we can use our eyes to see the world the way Jesus saw it. If we want to be complete, we can use our two good feet to carry us in to life as deeply as we dare. If we want to be sound, we can stretch out our arms to someone in danger of stumbling so that God can save us all. Let us pray.