Pentecost XVI, Cycle B

"Plain and Simple Talk on Sin"

September 28, 2003

The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel

Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Lessons:  Numbers 11:4-6; 10-16; 24-29,  James 5:13-20, St. Mark 9:38-50

     As some of you know, I was at the annual General Retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity, outside Baltimore this week, and because I had to fly in a day early, I rented a car and enjoyed driving the short distance from Baltimore, up to Gettysburg, where I stayed Monday night--having the change to visit our seminary once again.  The retreat began at noon on Tuesday, so I was able to drive out Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, through the rolling hills and fertile farms of the Amish.  The plain and simple Amish.  If you've every visited that area, you know that in the gaudy commercialism that's grown up around the Amish, everything supposedly "Amish" is advertised as "plain and simple".  "Plain and Simple" cooking!  "Plain and Simple Café".  "Plain and Simple Fashions".  It's a little hard to believe that any of that stuff is really "plain and simple", because the whole area along Highway 30 is so commercialized.  Plain and simple there, is just a marketing slogan.  But if you get off the highway, and drive a ways across the farmlands to where real Amish live, you find what plain and simple really is.  My first year field education parish in seminary was outside Quarryville, Pennsylvania, surrounded by Amish farms and schools and communities.  The Amish really do understand, "plain and simple".  Their dress is plain and simple.  Their homes are plain and simple. Their religion is plain and simple.  And surely, their understanding of scripture, is plain and simple.   And that comes to mind, because while I was driving, on Tuesday morning, amongst the plain and simple Amish, I was also thinking about our gospel lesson for this morning.  And I thought, if only scripture was always, plain and simple. 

     Our gospel lesson for today, is anything but, plain and simple.  In fact, in some ways, these words of Jesus are so difficult that it's hard for a preacher to know what to say about them.  The first paragraph we can make some sense of, as Jesus is saying to his disciples, "don't hinder anyone who's working in my name…because whoever is not openly against us, is for us."  That we can understand, because its plain that the disciples had their noses out of joint because this fellow who was casting out demons, was not "following them", the disciples.  And Jesus, once again, throws open the door to the kingdom of God, and says, “Guess what...if someone gives one of you disciples, just a cup of water in my name...that person will have the reward.”  And--that makes sense.  That's plainly and simply put.  We can grasp that.  What follows, is a little more, elusive?   Or maybe it’s not elusive, maybe its not that we CAN’T grasp what Jesus is saying in this next section, it’s that we don’t want to grasp it!

     Because from verse 42 to verse 48, we have some of the toughest, most unpalatable words of Jesus found anywhere in the gospels.  He says, “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.”  And if that’s not bad enough, Jesus goes on, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off;  it is better for you to enter life maimed, than to have two hands and go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.  And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off;  it’s better for you to enter life lame, than to have two feet, and to be thrown into hell.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out;  it’s better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than with two eyes, to be thrown into hell, where the fire is never quenched.”   Wow!

     Let me first say, quite plainly, Jesus was not encouraging self-mutilation!  In times past, desert fathers and ascetic monks had a tendency to want to take these instructions of Jesus seriously, and there are written accounts of Christians doing exactly the grotesque, terrible things Jesus suggests in this passage, presumably, because their hand, their foot, their eye, caused them to stumble, and rather than have it happen again, to the offender, or to one of these little ones Jesus is talking about, they hacked off, or plucked out, the guilty organ to be rid of it once and for all!  And in this crazy world of ours, where there are always some few people who will hear and take such things literally, a preacher preaching on this text needs to remind his hearers, that this is NOT one time when Jesus wants to be taken literally.  Jesus does not intend, here, for each of us who have ever caused someone to stumble, to sin, to tie a big stone around our necks, and go jump into Prospect Lake!  Nor does Jesus really intend for me, or you, to pluck out an eye, or cut off a hand.  No matter how grievous your sin, or how often you’ve repeated it...self-mutilation is not the answer.  If it were, there would be a whole lot of us, either laying at the bottom of Prospect Lake, or shaking hands with the left hand, or wearing a patch over the hole where our eye used to be.  The truth is, we all have caused others to sin.  We all have done things with one hand or the other, that has caused us to sin...whether it was stealing something, or carefully editing a report at work, or simply striking someone in anger!  We all, have looked with an envious, or a jealous, or a lustful eye, at someone or something, so that it could be considered sin, and warrants, if you take Jesus literally here, the loss of a hand or an eye.  In some places in our world, in some religions, that’s what happens when you offend God, or others with a hand, a foot, or an eye.  But that’s not what Jesus means here.  What he does mean, is that sinning, or causing another to sin...to stumble, (Bibles translate the original Greek both ways)...is that serious an offense...and Jesus wants us to take our own sin, that seriously.  He wants us to consider, any time we cause another to sin, any time we are tempted to sin, what it would mean, if by this sin, I would loose a hand, or an eye?  He wants us to think about our tongues, and how we use them, not always for prayer, praise and thanksgiving, but sometimes, for cursing...sometimes, for lying and deceiving...sometimes, for spreading gossip and ill will.  It wouldn’t be a bad exercise, for you and for me to stop and think, before we speak... “If what I am about to say, might cause me to have my tongue cut out--would it be worth saying?”  If not, maybe I shouldn’t say it in the first place!  And as harsh as that sounds, that is precisely the point here.  That's Jesus’ meaning, plainly and simply put.  Is this sin you are about to cause, or to commit--worth the loss of a hand, or an eye?  If what you are about to do will cause one of these little ones, someone weaker, lesser, younger, more vulnerable, to stumble and sin...is it worth your life?  Jesus wants us to stop, and think, just that!  He wants us to take sin, and it’s consequences so seriously, that maybe, we would think twice, before sinning!  Because, he says, with regard to sin, you have two choices.  You can sin, Jesus says, and end up in hell, in the unquenchable fire, or you can refrain from sinning, going to extreme lengths to keep from sinning, if need be...and enter into the kingdom of God. 

     And certainly, not in this passage from Mark, but in other places, Jesus does offer a third choice, with regard to sin.  He does say, that when you sin, you may repent, and be forgiven.  We hear that over and over again in the gospels, where Jesus says the kingdom of God has come near, repent for the forgiveness of your sins!  But interestingly, Jesus isn’t talking about repentance and forgiveness here.  He doesn’t even bring it up!  It seems odd, to those of us who lay our sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God.  It seems unusual, to those of us who trust in Jesus’ blood and righteousness, for our forgiveness and salvation, that Jesus doesn’t offer that here, but instead, leaves us kind of shaking in our boots, worried that we might sin.  And maybe that’s what Jesus wants, here.  Maybe he wants to catch us, here, BEFORE, we sin...BEFORE, we do or say something, that causes another to sin.  Maybe he wants us to realize, that some sins we may overlook, and not repent of. He wants us to understand, plainly and simply, that what He would prefer, is that we not sin in the first place!  That we realize the gravity of our sins, BEFORE, we, or someone else, stumbles.  And to help us to see;  to get us to look, honestly, at ourselves and the consequences of our actions,  Jesus states, in no uncertain terms, how bad sin is, how dire ARE,  the consequences, and to what lengths we are to go, to keep from, sinning.  And as much as I might like to be able to explain these hard words of Jesus away, or at least, to soften them up a bit;  as much as I might wish I could let you off the hook, and show how this is really just a poor translation of what Jesus was saying, and what he really meant, was...this or that.  Just as we can’t ignore this passage altogether, neither can we deny that it’s right here in the canon of Holy Scripture.  St. Mark records it for us, perhaps too plainly and simply for our modern-day sensibilities.  And it’s translated pretty much the same everywhere you find it.  And it causes me as much distress as it does you.  Because, we have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.  We have all, caused others to sin.  The words of Jesus convict, and caution us all.  “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.  If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.  If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, for it would be better for you to enter into the kingdom of God lame or blind, than to go, complete, into the fires of hell.”  THAT, IS HOW SERIOUSLY JESUS TAKES SIN...and that, is how seriously you and I are to take it, as well!  It's as plain and simple as that. 

     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.