Mark 9:38-50
Forsaking All
Others
James Sledge September
26, 2021
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| Jesus Teaching His Disciples from 1684 Arabic manuscript of the Gospels The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore | |
I found one, and when I went in I was in the chair, and the woman was cutting my hair, and she said, “I don’t recognize you. Have you ever been in here before?” I told her no, that I was a Presbyterian minister and that I was leading a clergy seminar. And she brightened up and said, “Oh, I’m a Christian, too, you know.” I said, “Really!” She said, “Yes, I’m a member of Creflo Dollar’s church.” You may not know Creflo Dollar, but he is the latest incarnation of the “God Wants You to be Rich” theology. He drives a black Rolls Royce, he has a corporate jet, and his congregation has bought him millions of dollars of real estate. He is known locally as Cash-flow Dollar, and here is this woman telling me, “I’m a member of Creflo Dollar’s church.” I’m thinking to myself, “I’m already getting a bad haircut, now I’m going to get bad theology as well!”
But to be hospitable I played along – she was holding a razor, after all. I said, “Well, have you got your blessing yet?”
She said, “Oh yes, I’ve gotten my blessing, all right!”
“Well, tell me about it,” I said, expecting her to say something about the Lexus in the parking lot or the diamond earrings in the scissors drawer.
But instead she said, “Two nights a week I get to volunteer in a shelter for battered women. I was one myself, you know, and they trust me. They need me. They know I love them.”
I sat there silently thinking, “My God! Jesus is loose in Creflo Dollar’s church!” It’s amazing the way he does it… He goes into Creflo Dollar’s church, and he finds a nine-dollar-an-hour hair cutter, and by the power of God he ordains her in the Holy Spirit to be a minister of the most high God…[1]
Tom Long was preaching on a different scripture and a completely different topic than I am, but I thought of his sermon when I read about this non-disciple who is casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Apparently it was not uncommon for pagan magicians to invoke Christian or Jewish names they thought powerful. The disciples, quite understandably, try to stop to it. This guy shouldn’t be allowed to borrow Jesus’ name so he could make a buck.
Creflo Dollar is not so different. He uses Jesus’ name to make himself rich, although in his case, he does claim to follow Jesus. You would think Jesus would get all riled up about such a thing, but at least in that pagan magician’s case, Jesus says, “Leave him alone. It will lead to something good in the end.” And Jesus goes on to say that the most trivial good deed done because of his name will be rewarded.
That’s mighty cavalier of Jesus. Obviously he lived in a time before trademarks and copyrights, but this could be dangerous to his brand. His name could get associated with all manner of shady goings on, and indeed that happens quite regularly. But Jesus seems none too worried about it in our scripture.
Jesus sets an incredibly low bar for using his name or getting rewarded. It’s like anyone drawn to his name is welcome to lay claim to it. No reference checks, no theological litmus tests, nothing at all. I suppose it says something about how welcoming and open Jesus is.
But then he goes and ruins it all by talking about millstones around people’s necks, cutting off your hand, and tearing out your eye. Suddenly tripping up a “little one,” Jesus speak for newbie Christians, sounds almost unpardonable, and he seems to require a devotion so single-minded that nothing, not even one’s own safety, is more important.
Some scholars suggest these are some random sayings of Jesus that just got plopped down here by Mark, and they aren’t really related to the “Whoever is not against us is for us,” that comes before. But I wonder if Jesus isn’t discussing two very different sides of the same coin.
It may help to realize that for Jesus and his audience, hyperbolic speech was the norm. None of those listening to Jesus thought he was actually suggesting they maim themselves. But he did expect those who professed to be his disciples to have a single-minded devotion to their calling such that they would do anything to stay on the straight and narrow.
I also wonder if Jesus only addresses some Christians, those who are leaders, who claim to be of mature faith, who are the respected members of their faith community. They are the ones in a position to help or hinder those new to following Jesus, and they are the ones whose lives are supposed to show these new Christians the correct path.
Mature faith is
what all of us should aspire to. It is what Jesus asks of everyone who would
follow him. And while Jesus is incredibly welcoming and open, we can’t actually
grow into a true relationship with him without some of the devotion he
describes with such vivid hyperbole.
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There’s a traditional wedding vow that goes like this. “Will you have this woman/man to be your wife/husband, to live together in holy marriage? Will you love her/him, comfort her/him, honor, and keep her/him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her/him as long as you both shall live?"
Forsaking all others… That’s a pretty extreme statement when you think about it. Beyond the obvious call to marital fidelity, it also means that no one or no thing will come between faithfulness to one’s spouse, not a parent, not a child, not a career, not any pursuit or passion. The marital relationship takes precedence over all others. Jesus says something very similar about relationship with him. In essence, he says that we are to forsake anything that would come between our relationship with him.
I’ve shared before this quote from Anne Lamott, explaining why she made her teenage son go to church. “Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don’t get to meet people who love God back. Learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.”[2] I think we hear something similar from our scripture this morning. All people are adored, loved, and welcomed by God, but learning to love God back is hard, maybe, in fact, the hardest part of being alive.
God loves us. That is something we never have to worry about. It is simply a given. And Jesus calls us to experience that love fully by following in his footsteps, by loving God back with all our being. That is hard work, as any deep and abiding relationship is, but Jesus promises that it is the way to life in all its fullness.
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