This morning’s reading from Mark’s Gospel continues from last week’s reading, and the two taken together form a single episode in the journey of Jesus with his disciples to Jerusalem and all that awaits them there. They have temporarily evaded the crowds that had formed around them and that will do so again, and Jesus has an opportunity to focus on teaching his disciples and trying to prepare them for his coming suffering, death and resurrection.
Jesus’ disciples are not good students. I suppose it is not that they don’t understand what he is saying – as that seems clear enough – but rather that they don’t understand why he would submit to such treatment. They continue to cling stubbornly to their notions of what Jesus’ being the Messiah means, and what it means for his followers. Their wilful misunderstanding provides two opportunities for Jesus’ teaching.
The first teaching took place in last week’s passage, when Jesus challenged their competition for status within the group by bringing a little child into their midst and identifying himself with the child, without status or apparent value in that society. They do not respond to this teaching, and it doesn’t seem to have penetrated their awareness, because in just a little while, Mark will be telling his readers about how the disciples try to prevent people bringing their children to Jesus, and how Jesus has to rebuke them for that.
This week, the disciples through John are trying to assert a different kind of status, the status of being in the group on the inside with Jesus, and assuming the right to prevent those on the outside from acting in Jesus’ name. Jesus makes it clear that they have got it wrong again, and that he has no problem with anyone working against the darkness of this world in his name, whether such a person is formally part of their group or not.
In the reading from the book of Numbers, we heard about two intriguing characters, Eldad and Medad, who appear nowhere else in Scripture. All we know of them is in those two verses. They were among the 70 elders selected by Moses to share his responsibility of leadership of the people. I wonder why Eldad and Medad didn’t join the others when those were gathered around the tent of meeting with Moses.
What we are told is that Eldad and Medad received together with the others some of the Spirit from God that had been given to Moses, and that they also prophesied. It seems significant to me that, while the rest of the group were outside the camp, away from the people, Eldad and Medad were inside the camp, together with the people, when they prophesied.
What a powerful sign that God had not abandoned the people in their faithlessness. God remained in their midst through the presence of those outsiders, Eldad and Medad. And yet Joshua wanted Moses to stop them prophesying, just as Jesus’ disciples had wanted to stop their outsider from casting out demons, seemingly oblivious that to do so would be to oppose the activity of God through such people.
As he continues his teaching, Jesus uses some startling and quite alarming imagery, and I find myself hoping that he isn’t being literal in his talk about millstones around necks and the amputation of various body parts. It does seem to me, at the very least, that Jesus is wanting his disciples’ attention and that he wants them to consider seriously what he is saying.
The unfortunate effect that Jesus’ language as reported by Mark has on me, though, is that I recoil from the stark images of millstones and amputations, and tend to miss what I think is Jesus’ main purpose, which is to emphasize the importance of entering without hindrance into life, which to him is equivalent to entering into the kingdom of God, that realm in which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
What are the attitudes and behaviours that prevent us from receiving the fullness of the life that God would share with us, and that might even cause us to get in the way of those around us who are trying to get to God? Instead of using our eyes, hands and feet to try to satisfy our selfish desires for status and security, we are invited by Jesus to consider how to learn to see compassionately as God sees and to act generously as God would act, in God’s loving desire to bring all people to fullness of life.
Jesus assures his disciples and us that even the smallest acts of kindness have value in his eyes.
The reading from the letter of James invites us to consider how to form communities that welcome and make space for all, supporting one another on the way into the life of God. Such support is given by our prayer and by our being present to the weak, the doubting, the distressed, so that those who are wearied and discouraged by life’s struggles might be rescued and healed and brought safely home to God.