Mark 9:38-50
Proper 21 (26) - Year B
It is so tempting to fall into the trap of talk radio where the most used word is "they". How like the church it is to narrow the perspective to the local expression of faith. We whine, "They're not doing it right!" We would separate ourselves even more widely than we do. Fortunately Jesus is not so quick to take affront - "Whoever is not against us is for us." Can we define people in rather than defining them out?
This is a significant question because, left to our own devices, we would see all "theys" as the hand or foot that causes us to stumble and we would cut "them" off. Aren't we much more prone to prescribing this to others than to ourselves who have extenuating circumstances and will, of course, follow through on our promise of the moment to do better?
Oh to see ourselves as well as "them" as being salted with fire. May we have this fire of confession within and peace all around. As The Message has it, "Be preservatives yourselves. Preserve the peace."
On this day, a celebration of my birth, can I get cabalistic and claim a relationship between this passage and my next year [since I haven't always done a bang-up job with this the past year]? Do you have an organizing scripture passage for yourself? Has it changed with the changes in your life or remained the same? If remaining the same has your perspective on it, relationship to it or use of it changed?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/september2003.html
We have, all of us, been sold. We have sold ourselves and those dear to us. Pottage is that cheap. We have sold the children into the hands of boredom and violence. Our willingness to sell is that great. We have sold our enemies to death and hurried them on their way that we might get our bargain.
In our buying and selling of self and others we lose track of where deeds of power reside - outside of market economies. When we see a deed of power beyond our control we get jealous and covetous. It is so easy to forget that whoever is not against us is for us and when a deed of power is accomplished, not mater to whom it is directed or through whom it comes, we are benefited.
- - -
anyone sick
anyone anyone
its time for a day off
we will wander
and it will save our soul
a multitude of sins
will be blessed
and grown from[* With thanks to Ferris Buhller]
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Bigotry arising from self-absorption is deeply troubling because it substitutes a partiality that denies the expansive and expanding opportunities of love and mercy. Disciples, to this day, attempt to wrestle one another for the top of a totem pole and to deny any not in the loop an opportunity to come in. This includes us all, just different issues for which we battle. So we move from identity issue to identity issue and cycle back through them with a variety of bigotry permutations.
What a gift it is to have this line available to us: Mark 9:40 "Whoever is not against us is for us."
Applying this in any of the cultural "wars" would help to diffuse them. So often we set up figures of straw we can claim are against us, when they are not. When loosed from this process we find the zest and preservation of life renewed.
Thus the Jesus of reason.
And then Jesus does exactly to his disciples as they would do to others not of their esteemed position. Listen to the extreme imagery of cutting off parts of ourself as if such physical absence would make any difference in one's approach to life.
Thus the Jesus of extreme religion.
Now the test in our own bifurcated lives: If "salt" is "fire", have fire/passion/zeal in yourself and have peace with one another and all others. As a practicing saint, practice this combination of fiery peace. Go ahead, try it, you may like it.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
“Someone missed a comma in our authorized orthodoxy! Off with their head!”
So immature disciples react before the individual components of a larger teaching have connected with one another into a nuanced whole larger than the sum of its parts.
At stake is not who is exactly for us or against us, but the connection of folks to deeper powers than they can claim for themselves. Regardless of motivation, whether it comes from one religious tradition or another or none, a blessing is a blessing and receives yet more blessing.
To put a stumbling block in front others based on one’s limited experience is to reduce the value of gifts, including one’s own. When one gift is discounted it turns out that all are reduced. Gifts, like common-wealth, depend on a matrix of gifts that enhance the environment in which they operate.
Consider a list of gifts from Romans 12: Prophecy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Giving, Leadership, and Mercy.
Try prophecying in a culture that does not value teaching carefully considered relationships between categories of life and you’ll see your gift is bound to be relegated to the weird or witchcraft. Exhortation without modeled service based on it turns anything said into pious mouthings and outmoded creedal responses to glimpses of a new heaven and earth. Giving and Mercy unconnected to Leadership reduces giving and mercy to personalized charity bandaids rather than going to the heart of systems to stop hurt being done in the first place and turns our concept of leadership into variations of patriarchy where a few know what’s best for all.
In some sense we don’t get this gift of multiplication without going through difficulties that offer the possibility of seeing beyond the limits of simply addding one cultural platitude to another and glimpsing a better-seasoned life by applying an appropriate tool or gift (mine or someone else's) in a given situation.
Nurture an internal refining fire based on a basic question, “Why not?” and you’ll find a new appreciation for renewal through encounters with “others”. Your gifts will enhance others and their gifts will enhance yours. Now we have a basis for choosing peace together. Peace based on a widening and deepening of gifts is not sweet and ideal, but savory and practical.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/09/mark-938-50.html