I just heard about the new words that have been added to the Scrabble dictionary this year. Among them is “ew.” I like that. I mean, I don’t like the word, but I am amused that it is now something you can play in Scrabble. Ew, the sound you make when the milk has gone bad; what you say when your kid eats his boogers.
My spell-checker still doesn’t know it’s a legitimate word – every time I type it the angry red squiggle lines appears underneath, warning me that I have made a faux pas. But it’s real now, it’s okay to say ew.
The word, ew, will forever and always remind me of the 18-year-old woman in Texas who asked me what I was studying at the university, and when I told her I was working on a PhD she said “ew.” As in, that sounds hard. Boring. Definitely not cool.
Ew. The swift, efficient two-letter judgment.
I don’t know if it’s English. It might be a universal word. After all, it’s more of a reactive noise than a meaningful word, sort of like “huh.” Maybe ew is something you could hear any place in the world, no matter what language is spoken. Maybe the people in ancient Palestine said, “ew” when they passed the lepers.
Except Jesus. He didn’t say “ew.”
Maybe I’m talking about the word ew today because it’s easier than talking about the gospel passage. It is. This passage from Mark is moving into territory no preacher wants to enter. Jesus is saying weird stuff. He’s talking about hanging millstones around your neck, cutting off your hand or foot, tearing out your eye. That’s a big “ew” for me. He throws out the possibility of being cast into hell – three times, he mentions it. And then ends with, “Have salt. Salt is good.”
I am afraid this passage is chock full of stumbling blocks. But let’s try to get through it.
It begins with the disciples coming to Jesus and tattling on someone who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. “Teacher, teacher, he’s casting out demons and you didn’t say he could.” Someone outside their small group is battling the demons, evidently with some success. Are the disciples happy about that? No. It’s making them jealous.
You see, just a short time before this happened there was a man who brought his son to Jesus’ disciples to be healed. The boy was suffering from terrible seizures, which was attributed to a bad spirit within him. The father begged the disciples to cast out this demon from his son. But they couldn’t do it. They tried, but couldn’t do it. When Jesus saw what was going on, he did it himself.
So, just a few short verses later, when they encounter someone who is not one of them, doing what they were unable to do, they were not happy. I suppose it just seemed unfair to them that some Joe Blow steps out and gets it on the first try! Here they have been training for this, but still can’t do it right. It doesn’t seem fair. Of course, it makes no difference to the one who has been healed if their healer was an official disciple or not – he has been healed of an evil spirit. But for the disciples it makes all the difference in the world, and they can take no pleasure in this. They feel that someone ought to stop such things from happening. Jesus should stop it.
But Jesus says, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Anyone who is doing good work in my name can be on my team. After all, it’s not a competition. Is it?
It’s not as though you would put a block in front of someone who was running the same path as you, so to make them trip and fall, losing ground. It’s not like that, is it?
Is this a competition in your eyes? That you would be judged in comparison to one another, so it is necessary to keep others from getting ahead of you?
But Jesus, they might reply, someone we don’t even know is casting out demons in your name, Jesus! He’s not even a disciple, Jesus. Ew, Jesus. Make him stop. Better we should all fail, than someone we don’t even know, who isn’t a part of our program, should have some success.
Well, Jesus answers them, if you want to put stumbling blocks in front of any of the little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you to drown in the sea.
This is not an easy passage to deal with. It’s confusing when he talks about stumbling blocks, because first he is accusing them of putting blocks in front of others but then suggests they are making stumbling blocks for themselves. It’s unclear when he talks about the little ones, because it sort of sounds like he’s referring to children, but it’s not clear that there are children here. It’s unnerving when he talks about a choice between cutting off our limbs or going to hell because that doesn’t sound like much of a choice.
I don’t know exactly what he meant when he speaks of hell – none of us really does. The word in the original text is Gehenna– the name of a place outside Jerusalem, which was a regional garbage dump. A burning, stinking, smoldering garbage heap. It was not uncommon at the time to use this reference, to speak of Gehenna as a kind of hell. Maybe you can think of a modern-day reference that has the same effect.
But, of course, it is unlikely that he simply means the literal Gehenna. Jesus is very serious here; he wants to convey a state of being that would be painful, intolerable, suffering. Hell.
This is something we don’t like to talk about these days – if we ever did. The idea of hell is frightening – whether it is the image of eternal flames or the dark, cold void of being separated from God. Hell is a place we do not want to go. But Jesus wants us to hear about it.
If any one of you puts a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me – this is the danger that leads to hell. If you cause a little one to stumble, you are not doing my work. You are doing the work of evil.
When he speaks of these little ones here, you might want to assume he is speaking of children. After all, it was just a few verses ago that he lifted a child onto his lap and said, “whoever welcomes such a child, welcomes me.” But given the context, I don’t believe it is necessarily children he has on his mind. It is likely that when he says “little ones” he means weaker, less important ones. When he speaks of putting up stumbling blocks before others he means taking advantage of your relative strength to hurt another who is relatively weak.
Perhaps he is referring, at least in part, to the ones who are casting out demons in his name. His disciples, who are trying to maintain a belief in their own greatness – remember last week, that’s what they were arguing about – are united in bringing down someone else. They seem to be demonstrating a kind of “herd mentality,” as they seem determined to keep strict control over who is in and who is not. They have made themselves the gatekeepers.
Amazingly, they elevated themselves to such a height, they say, “this guy – he wasn’t even following us.” Not, “he wasn’t following you,” but “he wasn’t following us.” Apparently, they no longer think of themselves as followers of Jesus, but more like equal partners in his firm.
They are wrong, though. They are not his equal partners. In fact, it should be as clear as day that they still have so much to learn. Perhaps a little talk of hell will wake them to that fact.
Because in these recent passages we have seen the disciples behaving badly – even toward each other. They try to bring down one who is not in their inner circle, and they even try to bring each other down. They want to be seen as the best. The first. The greatest. They are willing to put stumbling blocks in front of one another, for the sake of being the greatest.
And it really isn’t about that, not at all. It’s about the community – the ever-growing, always-loved, community.
One thing Jesus is very clear about, not just here but throughout the gospels, is that his concern is for the wide, wide circle of God’s beloved – a circle that extends well beyond the boundaries of this little band of disciples. At every opportunity, he challenges the boundaries people want to draw. He’s not in it for ego, or for his “brand,” or for any propriety self-interest, he’s in it for God’s boundless love for the world.
So when he speaks about salt, he is talking about salt’s preservative qualities. He is suggesting that they be a little more like salt, in preserving the beloved community he came to draw together and lift up. James, in his letter, has some excellent suggestions for doing that: confess your sins to one another; pray for one another; help one another to stay on the path of righteousness and holiness. XXIt’s a messy passage, to be sure, this section of Mark. But often the hardest things to say, and hear, are the most important. I pray that we will not put any stumbling blocks in front of one another or ourselves, that we might hear his words and follow his will.
