(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Sep 27, 2015)
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The Problem Is Not Without—It’s Within
In the portion of Mark that we’ve been looking at, Jesus is leading his disciples to Jerusalem. Along the way, he’s been teaching them about the way of the cross (8:34). The world says greatness is being first and most important and strongest. The way of the cross says greatness means being last and welcoming the littlest. The world prizes upward mobility. The way of the cross is the way of downward mobility. The world wants certainty and security. The way of the cross celebrates the mystery of faith.
Today Jesus continues his lessons about the way of the cross.
John and the disciples have just complained to Jesus about a healer who is working outside their group. They sound a little like tattletales pointing the finger—“he wasn’t following us!” (8:38). For John and the disciples, it was a bit of a scandal to have an outsider healing people. Just as it might be a bit of a scandal for someone to suggest that sometimes the real healing at Gayton Road happens not in this building but in the building next door where the AA groups meet.
In response to his disciples’ concern, Jesus does what he does so well: he turns things upside down, inside out. He says that the real problem here is not to be found without but within. The real danger is not a stranger who heals people. Where else could that healing come from but God? The real danger for the disciples—or the “stumbling block,” as Jesus will start saying—is the disciples themselves.[1]
The “Scandal” of Losing Trust
Actually, the word for “stumbling block” is skandalon in the Greek, or as we would say, “scandal.” Now, Jesus is not talking about the flashy scandal that attracts the media: not the scandal of former governor Robert McDonnell, not the scandal of the Ashley Madison leak, not the common scandal of celebrity mischief. The kind of scandal that Jesus talks about today is what you would read not on the glossy pages of a magazine but only in the secret, and perhaps dusty, archives of one’s heart.
The scandal that Jesus talks about is losing trust, or as we sometimes say, becoming jaded. When Jesus first addresses the disciples, he warns them against “scandalizing”—against putting a stumbling block in front of—a little one who trusts in him. And as Jesus hinted at last week, little children are remarkable in this way. They walk through life with an exceptional trust and vulnerability. They expect goodness. They say, “Yes,” to life just like God did when God created the world and blessed it and called it good.
Jesus says that it would be a real scandal to cause a little one to lose trust in God. To make them dread the morning instead of eagerly anticipating it. To extinguish their dreams of the impossible with a cold bucketful of what the world imperiously calls reality. To shut their storybooks of truth and throw them into the account books of facts.
There is a sense in which it is these little ones who trust in God that are the lifeblood of our world, the real religious leaders. It is their spirit of trust that keeps us open to the God who is always doing a new thing.[2] And so, Jesus says, using exaggeration to make his point: anyone who causes these little ones to lose trust would do better to drown. Because to make the little ones lose trust is to deprive our world of the only hope that it really has.
Deadly Scandals
When I was growing up, my family and I would religiously go out for Mexican food on Friday nights. My tastes evolved over time—from the burritos locos to the enchiladas verdes to chilaquiles calientes. But one thing would always be the same. At the end of the meal, having devoured baskets of tortilla chips and whatever my main course was, I was stuffed. And if my mom or dad asked me how the food was, I would reply, “I’m full to death.” Just as someone still sitting at her work desk after 8 hours might say, “I’m bored to death.” Or like someone who was tired of a nagging problem would say, “I’m sick to death of this.”
They’re all exaggerations, of course. In each case, we’re biologically very far from death. And yet, our exaggerations get at a certain truth. When we say these words, it’s because life has, in a sense, come to a standstill for us.
And I think it’s this kind of exaggeration that Jesus uses when his talk of scandal entertains the idea of lopping off hands or feet or taking out eyes. It’s a scandal enough that we cause little ones to lose trust, but that’s not the whole story, Jesus says, because really, when we do this, it may be a sign that we ourselves have already lost trust in God. To such an extent that it might be said we no longer live. And the real scandal for Jesus—the scandal that leads him to talk about missing hands or legs or eyes—is almost too easy, too plain for us to catch. The real scandal is not the dramatic public failure, but simply our feeling of self-sufficiency. The real scandal—the real stumbling block—is the trust we place in ourselves: our hands, our feet, our eyes.
We use our hands to possess things, and we acquire more and more. To the point that we are full…but unfulfilled. Full to death. And so the real scandal is not when a man is caught for embezzling but rather is the moment that his paycheck replaces his lifelong passion, whatever God is calling him to do. It won’t be long before such a life is nothing more than burnt ash.
We use our feet to go places, to reach a destination that we think will be better than where we are. To the point that we are busy…but bored. Bored to death. And so the real scandal is not the shocking affair that covers the frontpages but the loss of wonder in the here and now. It won’t be long before such a life is nothing more than burnt ash.
We use our eyes to see how we are seen, to see how we stack up against the world. To the point that we can be idolized…and yet somehow sick of ourselves. Sick to death. And so the real scandal is not the paparazzi photos plastered on the tabloids but the heart that no longer receives love freely because it thinks that love must be earned or won. It won’t be long before such a life is nothing more than burnt ash.
The real scandals of our lives go by unnoticed, like a text message we never receive because we’ve silenced our phones. In such moments, we are as good as dead. Biology may confirm that our bodies are alive. But what life is there in a world in which we only can trust ourselves, a world that is limited only to what we can imagine or muster? Such a life becomes meaningless. Or as Jesus would say, flavorless.
The Great Cook
Left to our own devices…we would eventually lose flavor. We would become fossilized around our habits and assumptions. We would become automatized, like a computer program set into an infinite loop.
Thank God we are not left to ourselves, to our dulled desires and our petrified presumption. Everyone, Jesus says, is salted.[3] And so pardon my imagination as I envision a great Cook stirring all of us into a big pot of Brunswick stew, and then occasionally adding a dash of salt. The salt does not magically transform us into something different. It draws us out of ourselves even as it makes us more ourselves. There’s a paradox here. When we trust in ourselves only, in our hands or feet or eyes, our flavor stays locked inside and we lose ourselves. But when we open ourselves up to the unknown mystery and allow the great Cook to sprinkle salt on us, our distinctive and tasty flavor comes out and we become more ourselves.
And I’ve tasted it here at Gayton Road. Not the Brunswick stew—I mean, I have tasted that, and if any of you haven’t, you should. It’s wonderful. But I’ve also had a taste of the Brunswick stew that God is stirring. Ivan’s earnest hellos and handshakes, Emily’s channeling of our children’s energies into creativity, Daniela’s floral enthusiasm, Carl’s buoyant welcomes…each and everyone one of us have a divine flavor within us. And chances are, we’re not even aware of it, because we’re most flavorful, we’re most ourselves, when we’re not even thinking of ourselves. It’s like when a sports player is in the zone, or when a poet is caught in the rush of a spirit deep within herself. We are most ourselves when we are most in tune with the God who stirs within our hearts and calls us out of ourselves.
The great Cook desires this: that the sacred flavors we were created with be drawn forth from our lives more and more. The great Cook desires that we avoid the scandal of trusting ourselves alone and that we give ourselves over to an evolving recipe we will never know completely, that we allow ourselves to be salted and drawn out of ourselves even as we become more ourselves.
The great Cook desires, quite simply, to cook.
Prayer
Draw us away from the scandal of self-certainty, Lord. Salt us anew and from deep within us, from a place we know not where, bring out our unique and sanctified flavors in fresh ways. Amen.
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[1] The word Jesus uses is skandalízō, a verb that means “to cause to stumble.” Its noun form is skandalon, which is often rendered “stumbling block.”
[2] See, e.g., Isa 43:19 and Rev 21:5.
[3] “For everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49). This verse is cryptic, but many scholars read it as a reference to the ancient Israelite practice of salting sacrifice (cf. Lev 2:13). It is not uncommon for the New Testament to envision life as a sacrifice. In such a framework, this verse would be suggesting that we are all salted so as to become pleasing sacrifices to God—in other words, so as to live meaningful lives.
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