197. Harsh Dealings

Short Meditations in Mark’s Gospel: 197. Harsh Dealings

Mk 9:42    If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire  never goes out

We said in the previous meditation that this all started with the subject of servant-heartedness, but Jesus has taken it on as an opportunity to teach more widely on discipleship, because that is what all these verses are actually about.

He’s just previously spoken against divisive superior attitudes and the need to be open to all and sundry, the mature and the not so mature and then suddenly, it appears, he makes this apparently incredibly harsh statement. If this is what discipleship is about, it is not comfortable.

To catch its full meaning we really do need to see it in the context of what has gone before. Remember what we’ve just said, it’s been about servant heartedness and openness to others and those are attitude things that have outworking in behaviour towards others.

But Jesus is a realist and he knows what we are like. Have you ever noticed this particular thing? We can be a good Christian, fully committed we think to God, doing all the right things, but then in one little corner of our lives we have this area of vulnerability, whether it is in respect of a particular temptation or it is a particular attitude. Let’s see it in respect of relationships. We re outward going, loving and caring, but suddenly we recognise that in our thinking there is one particular person who drives us crazy, who annoys us, upsets us and makes us angry – just one person, but they are there for some reason as a little dark corner in our lives.

Or perhaps it is the case of a single action. Normally we are a good Christian, loving and caring and righteous, and then one day we are confronted by a circumstance and we handle it badly – just like the disciples and the man with the deliverance ministry. it may be a sign of an underlying wrong attitude that needs dealing with or it may just be a one-off failure.

Now our temptation is to be gentle with ourselves and write it off as something of no consequence, but Jesus knows otherwise. Jesus knows that if we don’t deal with these wrong attitudes, or even wrong failures, they will grow and be repeated and if we allow them to do that, they may eventually bring about our eventual complete downfall.

Thus Jesus says these shocking words, words meant to convey the seriousness. Does he want us to do this literally? No, but he wants us to realise how incredibly important this is, this dealing with things so that they don’t grow and bring us down. Think on these things and act.