Gospel of Sunday 29 September: Mark 9:38-43.45.47-48
XXVI Sunday Year B
38 John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw one casting out demons in your name and we forbade him, because he was not of us. 39 But Jesus said, ‘Do not forbid him, for there is no one who performs a miracle in my name and then can speak evil of me. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us.
41 Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name because you are Christ’s, I tell you truly, he will not lose his reward.
42 Whoever scandalizes one of these little ones who believe, it is better for him that a donkey’s millstone be put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea. 43 If thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life one-handed, than with two hands to go into hell, into unquenchable fire. 44 45 If thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life lame, than to be cast with two feet into hell. 46 47 If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to be cast with two eyes into hell, 48 where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.Mk 9:38-43.45.47-48
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
He who is not against us, is with us
(see Lk 9:49-50)
1 Christ’s disciples are precious
(cf. Mt 10:42)
Against every occasion of evil
(see Mt 5:29-30; 18:6-9; Lk 17:1-2)
There is here a series of sayings of Jesus linked together by ‘hook words’, key words: in verses 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, there is the phrase: ‘in my name’. In verses 42 and 43 there is the theme of scandal. From verse 43 to verse 48 there is the theme of fire. We are confronted with a series of ‘loghia Christi’, ‘sayings of the Lord’, teachings of the Lord, which were grouped by key words to facilitate memorisation.
The evangelist puts them here for a specific theological purpose. Jesus is giving some teachings and here teaches about the way on community life.
The subject of scandal is a very important theme that recurs very often in Scripture.
Scandal means hindrance. Jesus’ words are a warning not to be a scandal to the faith of others, not to be a hindrance. Paul tells us in Romans 14:13: ‘Do not disturb the faith of your brothers. Do nothing that will be an occasion of falling or of scandal to one of your brothers’. In 1 Cor 8:9: ‘Take care, however, that this freedom of yours does not become an occasion of disturbance for those who are weak in faith’.
Jesus tells us that it is better to be swallowed up in the sea with a millstone used for grinding grain (a large stone made like a cylinder trunk) around your neck than to give scandal to your brothers. The concern of believers is to avoid being a stumbling-block to others: each one, despite feeling sure of certain truths, must always let charity prevail over his intellectual certainties. How many times will Paul say that some things are permitted, some foods are lawful, some customs that the pagans propose are right, but if this is a stumbling-block to the brethren who come from Judaism, he prefers to submit to all their demands.
Rom 14:1-22: ‘Receive among yourselves those who are weak in faith, without questioning their hesitations. 2 One thinks he can eat anything, but the other, who is weak, eats only legumes. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who does not eat; let not the one who does not eat judge the one who eats badly, for God has accepted him. 4 Who are you to judge a servant who is not yours? Stand or fall, that is for his master; but he shall stand, for the Lord has power to make him stand. 5 There are those who distinguish between the day and the day, and those who judge them all to be the same; but let each one deepen his personal convictions. 6 He who worries about the day, worries about it for the Lord; he who eats, eats for the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; even he who does not eat, abstains from it for the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for himself, and none of us dies for himself, 8 for if we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord. Whether we live or die, we are therefore the Lord’s. 9 For this is why Christ died and returned to life: that he might be the Lord of the dead and the living. 10 But you, why do you judge your brother? And you also, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the tribunal of God, 11 for it is written:
As it is true that I live, says the Lord,
every knee shall bow before me
and every tongue shall give glory to God.
12 Therefore each one of us will give an account of himself to God. 13 Let us therefore cease to judge one another; instead, think not to be a cause of stumbling or scandal to your brother. 14 I know, and I am persuaded of it in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself; but if anyone regards anything as unclean, it is unclean to him. 15 Now if by thy food thy brother be troubled, thou shalt no more behave thyself according to charity. Beware therefore of spoiling with your food one for whom Christ died! 16 Let not the good that you enjoy become a cause for reproach! 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food or drink, but is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit: 18 whoever serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and esteemed by men. 19 Let us therefore give ourselves to the works of peace and to edifying one another. 20 Destroy not the work of God for a matter of food! All is worldly, all right; but it is evil for a man to eat in scandal. 21 Therefore it is good not to eat meat, nor to drink wine, nor anything else by which your brother may be scandalised. 22 The faith that you possess, keep it for yourself before God. Blessed is he who does not condemn himself for what he approves. 23 But he who is in doubt, eating condemns himself, because he does not act by faith; for everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Paul reminds us of the absolute primacy of charity, even over theological acquisitions, even over so-called freedom.
But there is another kind of scandal: it is the scandal that each of us places within himself, the personal obstacle that each of us may encounter in following the Lord, which each of us knows very well; each of us has a scandal, a stone that prevents him from running after the Lord: and so we must do violence to the very same.
Mark’s language is very harsh: you have to make radical, decisive choices: you have to pluck out an eye, you have to pluck out an arm, if these are a scandal to your brothers. The choice of discipleship is a choice that at times motivates heavy parts of ourselves, it is a choice that burns, it is a choice that demands personal sacrifice: this is our call. Every choice for the Lord is often a painful choice: there is no logic of ‘sequela Christi’ that is not also the logic of ‘sequela crucis’, that is not the logic of taking up the cross and following the Lord. And taking up the cross always hurts: it is heavy, one falls, one is exhausted, one dies on it. The believer is the one who must make radical choices to remove what is an obstacle in him in order to follow the Lord.
i speaks of the Gheenna (9:45): the Gheenna is the ‘Valley of Innon’, in Hebrew ‘Gheinnon’, south of Jerusalem, between the Mount of Olives and the Temple esplanade. It was the place where, in the time of King Ahaz, children were sacrificed to the god Molok. As we read in the second book of Kings (2 Kings 23:10), the pious king Josiah made this valley, which was a sacred place for the pagan deity, the temple’s garbage dump, the public dump. As in all rubbish dumps, fire burned continuously to burn the large quantities of rubbish that was dumped. Now again in the second book of Kings (23:10) and in Jeremiah (7-9) it is said that in this valley the enemies of God’s people will be destroyed and devoured by fire. In Mark, the punishment is completed with a reference to the text of Isaiah 66, where the punishment of the enemies consists in the destruction of the unburied corpses.
Is 66:23-24:
‘23 In every month at the new moon,
and on the sabbath day of every week
everyone shall come and prostrate himself
before me, says the Lord.
24 Coming out, they shall see the dead bodies of the men
Who have rebelled against me;
for their worm shall not die,
their fire shall not be quenched
and they shall be an abomination to all.’
Here then is hell: you will be rubbish, if you do not follow the Lord, if you lose the immense value that is the following of him who alone is ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (Jn 14:6).
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.