The first and second lessons of this morning are sequential. Mark puts together things Jesus said, maybe on the same occasion and maybe on separate occasions. Both readings have something to say to contemporary seekers of the way, the truth, and the life.
In the first reading, John, who was part of Jesus' inner circle, complained to Jesus that someone who was not part of their group was healing people with serious emotional or spiritual disorders and doing the healing in Jesus' name. John's complaint was that the healer was not in the band of people who followed Jesus around. He was "outside the camp."
I find it interesting that the early Christian Church remembered what Jesus said in response to John's complaint. Luke records the same incident. With regard to John's apparent wish to have strict boundaries around Jesus' name and the power inherent in that name, Jesus said, "Whoever is not against us is for us." That's a very inclusive statement, and it comes from the boss himself—and I mean Jesus and not Bruce Springsteen. "Whoever is not against us is for us."
There's a lot of breathing room in what Jesus said. And we need to breathe these days, don't we.
Walk out into the sunburst street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I've found grace inside a sound
I found grace, it's all that I found
And I can breathe....breathe now.
(That's Bono. I went to the U2 concert at Giants' Stadium Thursday night, and there was grace in the music—and in the atmosphere.)
For me there's grace in the sound of Jesus' words "Whoever is not against us is for us." Let's make the circle bigger, not smaller. Let's welcome some new faces. Maybe they speak of a Higher Power. Maybe they pray to Allah. Maybe they say "Hail, Mary, full of grace..." Ah, that word—grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. God's grace enables us to breathe and find our center and keep our circle open.
Can it be that friends of mine who tell me how well they know the Bible don't understand that verse? "Whoever is not against us is for us." Yes, I know the reverse is in the Gospels also. "Whoever is not for us is against us." The context for that statement is very different from the context of Jesus' grace-filled declaration "Whoever is not against us is for us." And context is always important in dealing with the Bible.
Jesus was responding to a well-intentioned follower who wanted to draw the boundaries of authentic faith very narrowly. "He is not following with us." Or, he's something of a free spirit. Or, he's unconventional. Can you imagine telling faith-filled young and talented members of a band they shouldn't play rock and roll music because it's "not Christian?" Who says it isn't Christian? From my perspective, I heard a lot of Christian truth Thursday night. But I don't impose my judgment on anyone else, just as I tell you to listen to what I say in preaching, to take what you like and leave the rest.
What Jesus said in our first lesson or reading makes us feel good—at least in this church where we work very hard to be inclusive. What Jesus said in the second lesson is another matter. Heard in a twenty-first century setting, what Jesus said can sound like the very opposite of grace, like something a narrow-minded televangelist might say in order to have people send in money. "Put your hands on the TV and feel the power that will save you from hell. Then empty your wallet in my direction." No wonder people are skeptical when they enter a church for the first time or after a long absence.
This is what Mark remembers Jesus saying about stumbling blocks to faith:
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. [The same things about an eye] It is better to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
What are we to make of that in 2009? I think the mention of hell distracts people from understanding what Jesus was talking about in these verses. Friday I had lunch with a friend who said he used to go to church because he was afraid of going to hell when he died. I told him that was true for a lot of us. That's what the Church talked about when I was growing up.
I think of hell differently now. I think of quarterbacks who keep coming out of retirement even though their bodies betray them, but they can't face life without the roar of the crowds on Sunday afternoon. I think of film stars who aren't getting leading roles anymore, so they go to the doctor for one more surgery.
Read the plays of Aeschylus, Lorraine Hansberry, or Tennessee Williams if you want a glimpse of hell. Ask African-Americans what is was like growing up in white America thirty or forty years ago. Ask gays and lesbians what is was like going to high school and coming of age in small towns in the Midwest five or ten years ago. Ask Jews about the Holocaust. Sit with a parent who can't afford medical treatment for a desperately sick child. Talk to the family of the man written about in last Sunday's Style Section of the New York Times. He struggled with persistent depression and finally took his own life because he could no longer afford to live in Chelsea. Depressed as he was, he couldn't conceive of moving anywhere else. Talk to an alcoholic or drug addict or foodaholic who wants to get better and for all kinds of reasons just can't make it. Or talk to addicted people's parents, partners, or children, who are powerless to help them.
Oh yes, hell is real. It's not fire and brimstone after death. It's loneliness and emptiness and meaninglessness in the here and now. It's those and lots of other things, and it's all around us. It's with that in mind that I listen to Jesus' strange and troubling words:
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell. And if your foot causes you to stumble or your eye causes you to stumble, get rid of them. It is better for you to enter life lame or maimed or half-blind than to have all your parts and be thrown into hell.
What I think Jesus wanted his hearers and us to know is that anything with the capacity to bring us satisfaction and happiness, whether it be our hands and feet, our looks, our talent, our homes, our money, our family, our partners or lovers, any of those things can move us toward some kind of hell if they become attachments or obsessions, if we think we can't live without them.
It's one thing to own a home, an apartment, a bank account, a career, a reputation—all of which can be good and rewarding. It's another thing to be owned by those things so that ownership becomes attachment, and possession becomes obsession. It's a wonderful thing to love another person or other persons—a partner or spouse, a family or a group of intimate friends. It's another thing to cling so tightly to the loved one or loved ones that connection becomes enmeshment. Enmeshment can be another word for hell. Healthy relationships always require some kind of distance as well as some kind of closeness. But that's not something we talk about very much, is it. It isn't the stuff of Hallmark cards and romantic ballads.
But a balance between closeness and distance is part of healthy spirituality, truth for our souls. The longer I live the smaller the number of things I believe in or commit myself to, and the surer I become about some very simple truths. The simplest and surest truth is that God is love. Another of those truths is that letting go is central to deep inner peace, another way of talking about what Jesus called entering the Kingdom of God. God's unconditional love and letting go are recurring themes in my preaching. Yes, I am committed to peace with justice, to the church's involvement in the great issues of social justice like the one Suzanne Spears talked about earlier in this service.
But Sojourners does that better than I can. Move-On does it well most of the time, and Bono and U2 do it well all the time. In this congregation we are blessed with quite a few people who have a passion for peace and justice, and I support them wholeheartedly. What life has equipped me in a special way to talk about is what Jesus was pointing to when he talked about getting rid of whatever keeps us from finding that deep inner centeredness promised in his words "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you." His peace is a sense of well-being before we close our eyes in sleep each night and before we close our eyes in death.
What I hear in this morning's Gospel reading is a word that tells us to live life fully, to breathe in its pleasure and its pain; to buy things, own things, enjoy things—and hold them very lightly. I hear Jesus encouraging us to take the risks of loving and caring, to allow ourselves to be healthily vulnerable to the people we love and trust—and to hold very lightly the people we love and the people who love us.
That way of living doesn't come easily, and it doesn't come quickly. I'm still working on it, and I know I'm not there yet. I'm coming to believe there is a kind of restlessness built into our psyches, our souls, as human beings. St. Augustine called it a thirst for God. I'm developing an easy friendship with the longing of my soul. I've come to understand that my deepest yearning will not be fully satisfied, at least not in this life. I'm hopeful about the next.