The Child

She cannot buy you anything. She will expect you to buy her
ice-creams, or milkshakes from MacDonald’s. She will not remember your birthday. She will not invite you over for dinner with friends. She will expect you to laugh (authentically) at all her dumb jokes. She will demand your closest attention; you may not scroll through Facebook when talking to her.  She can be innocent and loving. But she can also be noisy, needy, clingy, self-centred, surprisingly cruel; and she can throw the most spectacular screaming tantrums when she doesn’t get her own way, her meltdowns are epic. If you have something she wants she may just take it without asking. She can embarrass you in public. She has no status, nor influence, no income. She relies almost entirely on others for her
well-being.  If you desire to experience God, she must be your best friend. If you want the keys to the kingdom of God, she has them. For it is only in being her friend that you can live a good life.

She is of course a child, one of the little ones who symbolise the message of Jesus and what it means. Beware though, if you cause her any difficulty, if you make life more difficult for her in any way, you will regret it so much it will feel like drowning
(“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck, and you were thrown into the sea”). Who are the little ones? Children, of course. Any who are the least, the lost or the last in society, are the little ones, including outsiders. Outsiders are little ones too.

Deeds not creeds

Mark 9:38–50 is a collection of aphorisms, pithy, pointed sayings that have a sharp end. The theme of the little ones having a privileged perspective on the kingdom of God continues from Mark 9.36. Among the sayings in Mark 9.38-50, outsiders are included as “little ones.” The introduction to the collection of aphorism or pithy sayings is an all too familiar scenario. John points out someone outside their group who is copying their work without a license and needs to cease and desist.  It is not written in the text, but I can imagine Jesus rolling his eyes, grinding his teeth, and doing the first century equivalent of a face palm 🤦. For a change, it is not Peter getting it wrong, but John. Just as John wanted to control who was in and who was out, we do the same. At its best, a license empowers people in a healthy community for servant leadership. At its best a license is practical, it offers a community confidence that those they trust with a license are accountable, trained and operate within beneficial boundaries. Yet these licenses can easily degenerate into the situation depicted with John in Mark’s Gospel 9.38, a way to put up fences and establish power and control.

There is much evidence and anecdote to indicate that 2000 years later, we are not well taught by Jesus. John is operating according to the usual human dualisms, us vs them, in vs out, right vs wrong. Many theorists surmise that religion developed to hold a group together. The origin of religion is that it is a cultural marker that offered tribal identity. Survival is dependent on group cohesion and cooperation and religion originated to support and promote group identity. How much has changed since the origin of religions? We still use religion to build “tribes”. Those that go to heaven and those that go to hell. Protestant vs Catholic. Christian vs Muslim. Muslim vs Jew. Hindu vs Christian. Within Anglican circles there are definite divides between evangelicals and progressives, high church vs low church, conservatives and liberals; too much of “us” vs “them”.

Jesus offers a realistic response to the disciples and to us; to presume the best of everybody unless they state categorically, they are against you.  Jesus validates the liberating practice of outsiders (Whoever is not against us is for us). Jesus goes further in saying that anyone who offers hospitality and compassion to another, is, at that moment, serving Christ (whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward). It is deeds that matter, not creeds.

Metaphorical language

Jesus uses scary imagery to make the point that we should not build fences around who is in and who is out, that can cause difficulties for others (and if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched). The powerfully symbolic language forbids the erection of rigid social boundaries around the community of faith. I have every confidence that Jesus did not mean for his disciples to amputate the legs and hands of wrong doers. The aphorisms Jesus uses are poetic and metaphoric and not meant to be taken literally. The image of hell is precisely that, an image, a metaphor and not meant to be taken literally. What we call hell the Bible calls Gehennem in Arabic and Hebrew, the Valley of Hinnom. Today on the Northern slopes of Gehenna are gentrified townhouses for the rich, cinemas and a concert hall. In the time of Jesus, the Valley of Hinnom was remembered as the place where children were willingly sacrificed by their parents to the god Molech. A valley outside the Jerusalem’s walls, Gehennem was the rubbish dump, a place of constantly burning trash fires, and in some places untreated sewerage. Strong imagery for an assertive teaching on welcoming outsiders: not offering a welcome to outsiders is like living in a rubbish head.

Interpreting the metaphors

How do we best interpret the strong imagery and metaphors Jesus uses? My reflection is that Jesus is saying that evil or hell is not out there or over there. Evil, sin, corruption is not in those people in the out group. Corruption is here, within, in the in group. In fact, corruption is as close as your eye, as close as your hand and closer than your feet. Your greatest enemy is not over there, out there. Your greatest enemy is here, in here. Don’t try to change ‘those’ people ‘over there’.  Focus on your issues, focus on your ‘stuff’.  Let the salt and fire purify you. Often good comes from the outside and betrayal from the inside

Concluding image

This week the fence around the Alstonville Anglicans Church came down. This is because we are building a vegetable garden for the community on our verge. I come from South Johannesburg where we know about fences and walls. Fences are a minimum of 2.5m high and topped up with barbs and electric wires. Some even have security cameras and distress alarms. The little picket fence around St Bartholomew’s is about 40cm high – hardly worthy of the term fence. However, I was surprised at how open and inviting the church property now seems. I suspect that it is not only the physical barrier that was dismantled, but God willing, it is symbolic of the breakdown of any psychological, social, invisible and spiritual boundaries too.