For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.
Mark 9:41
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched.
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched.
Mark 9:42-43
Most of us remember scripture, if at all, in one of two ways: first, as stories like The Nativity, or The Wedding at Cana, of The Last Supper, etc.; and, secondly as Bible verses - snippets of scriptural text - such as Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth,” or John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” or Mark 9:41, “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
What we fail to recall are the sharp contrasts that Spirit has inspired Biblical writers to draw. Those contrasts call on us to to more than read Scripture as we do a novel, the sports pages, or a magazine: they call on to read with an urgency to decide---what is meant? what is right? what is my reaction?
Most of us remember scripture, if at all, in one of two ways: first, as stories like The Nativity, or The Wedding at Cana, of The Last Supper, etc.; and, secondly as Bible verses - snippets of scriptural text - such as Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth,” or John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” or Mark 9:41, “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
What we fail to recall are the sharp contrasts that Spirit has inspired Biblical writers to draw. Those contrasts call on us to to more than read Scripture as we do a novel, the sports pages, or a magazine: they call on to read with an urgency to decide---what is meant? what is right? what is my reaction?
For instance, we certainly remember aright when we remember that God created the heavens and the waters, but many of us believers would be far more humble if we remembered equally well that the announcement of creation’s author is paired in Genesis 1:2 with the expression of a prior coterminous subsistence of God and chaos, “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
I am equally liable when quoting John 3:16 - usually to affirm some sinner’s need for God’s grace- to forget that Jesus spoke these words to a putatively sincerely religious seeker, Nicodemus, just after having told him that over and against his apparent incredulity, he must be born again. When Nicodemus professes not to understand, Jesus inquires how Nicodemus can hold himself out as a Hebrew teacher, if he can’t make sense of this—i.e., Jesus avers that however incongruous this concept of being “reborn” is with the Jewish drive for purification, it is in the corpus of Hebrew scripture. However he goes on to contrast the “minor” difficulty of that with the major difficulty that the long awaited Son of Man must be lifted up---to die, and that as a criminal or outcast, furthermore asserting that this is the prefigured meaning of Moses lifting up the serpent.
I am equally liable when quoting John 3:16 - usually to affirm some sinner’s need for God’s grace- to forget that Jesus spoke these words to a putatively sincerely religious seeker, Nicodemus, just after having told him that over and against his apparent incredulity, he must be born again. When Nicodemus professes not to understand, Jesus inquires how Nicodemus can hold himself out as a Hebrew teacher, if he can’t make sense of this—i.e., Jesus avers that however incongruous this concept of being “reborn” is with the Jewish drive for purification, it is in the corpus of Hebrew scripture. However he goes on to contrast the “minor” difficulty of that with the major difficulty that the long awaited Son of Man must be lifted up---to die, and that as a criminal or outcast, furthermore asserting that this is the prefigured meaning of Moses lifting up the serpent.
In other words, Jesus is not, in John 3:16, espousing an especially pithy compact formulation of the ultimate truth of his redemptive ministry as much as he is plainly telling Nicodemus that over and over Nicodemus’s interpretation of scripture is not what's concordant with God’s prophetic voice. Jesus goes on to tell the putatively sincere religious seeker who has sought Jesus out at night that the real sin is that men (such as him) have chosen to love this darkness of not understanding rather than the light. The nice, all inclusive, non judgemental Jesus (after all, the passage, in part, reads "for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son...) is telling Nicodemus to get off the dime, and that to persist in not understanding, now that he has come to Jesus, is to embrace the darkness---to do the opposite of what he is all about.
Jesus’ kindly and assuring words in Mark 9:41 are also preceded by an encounter. This is one in which the disciples forbid a man from healing in the name of Jesus because the man is not one of the disciples. Jesus rebukes His disciples, telling that if the man heals in the name of Jesus, he can’t later testify against them with any credibility. Then just to make sure the disciples don't miss the point, Jesus makes the large claim that whoever isn’t against them, is, in fact, for them. He drives the point home by giving his disciples the example that even one who merely give one of them a cup of water ---even if someone does as little as this, he, or she, will not lose their reward. Notice that Jesus does not say they belong to Him if, once they give their cup of water, they forswear their gossiping, or stealing office supplies, or cheating on their taxes or spouses or relinquish their homosexual partners or vote for pro-life candidates.
However extreme this may sound so far, Jesus doesn't leave His disciples to shrug their shoulders, but he moves the disciples into Nicodemus's position with this sharp contrast that emerges from verses 42-43. As easy as it is to be numbered on His side-as minimal as the requirements prove to be--- it would be better not to have existed than to cause one of "these"(the children who have received him and one of who is in Jesus's embrace on his knee while He speaks) to stumble. What is this: easy in, easy out? Teach one doctrinally incoorect precept; perhaps, still not get that parable about the seeds and suddenly one is in a position where it was better that one wasn't born?
Jesus’ kindly and assuring words in Mark 9:41 are also preceded by an encounter. This is one in which the disciples forbid a man from healing in the name of Jesus because the man is not one of the disciples. Jesus rebukes His disciples, telling that if the man heals in the name of Jesus, he can’t later testify against them with any credibility. Then just to make sure the disciples don't miss the point, Jesus makes the large claim that whoever isn’t against them, is, in fact, for them. He drives the point home by giving his disciples the example that even one who merely give one of them a cup of water ---even if someone does as little as this, he, or she, will not lose their reward. Notice that Jesus does not say they belong to Him if, once they give their cup of water, they forswear their gossiping, or stealing office supplies, or cheating on their taxes or spouses or relinquish their homosexual partners or vote for pro-life candidates.
However extreme this may sound so far, Jesus doesn't leave His disciples to shrug their shoulders, but he moves the disciples into Nicodemus's position with this sharp contrast that emerges from verses 42-43. As easy as it is to be numbered on His side-as minimal as the requirements prove to be--- it would be better not to have existed than to cause one of "these"(the children who have received him and one of who is in Jesus's embrace on his knee while He speaks) to stumble. What is this: easy in, easy out? Teach one doctrinally incoorect precept; perhaps, still not get that parable about the seeds and suddenly one is in a position where it was better that one wasn't born?
It is easy to belong---belonging should include everyone, but those of us who belong should want more than anything for Christ to be the reality of that membership. Now the term, “ Christ,” means anointed, so what is it for the belonging ones to want the anointing more than anything else. Well Jesus has addressed that in the immediately previous verses of the ninth chapter of Mark. The anointed one is one who must be killed, and having been really dead (i.e., three days) is raised up by God, and is then the servant of all (Mark 9:35).
Mark 9:41 is a very radical and demanding claim: Jesus is including in his reward even those who have done as little as give a disciple a cup of water because the disciple is of Jesus, and our job—it would be better for us not to have existed than not to do it---is to serve them all even to death- till the coldness of the earth seize us in its grip even until the God in whom we have believed raises us up. Paul may or may not in the famous passage in Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:10) give you permission not to dine with a fellow “believer” who continues in an unregenerate life, but Jesus admonishes you to serve even them even unto death.
Mark 9:41 is a very radical and demanding claim: Jesus is including in his reward even those who have done as little as give a disciple a cup of water because the disciple is of Jesus, and our job—it would be better for us not to have existed than not to do it---is to serve them all even to death- till the coldness of the earth seize us in its grip even until the God in whom we have believed raises us up. Paul may or may not in the famous passage in Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:10) give you permission not to dine with a fellow “believer” who continues in an unregenerate life, but Jesus admonishes you to serve even them even unto death.
That death that is our assurance of resurrection. That death becomes our choice--not to be saved, that is a gift of grace---and it is our choice over doctrinal correctness, over anyother and everyother sign of standing and preferment: the most baptized new believers, the biggest Sunday School class, tithing of pre tax income rather than after tax income, most Facebook friends, best Twitter rankings, most trips to African villages or central American slums. Everyone who can make the slightest acknowledgement of God's annointed being present is on Jesus' side, it is our sole concern to serve them all (i.e., without exception).
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment