Amputate it

Mark 9.38 to the end

Today's gospel is one of the weirdest texts there is in the entire New Testament. I daresay there are others, but this one seems quite unbelievably bad and most unacceptable to our modern way of thinking.

So just let me test this one out to see whether we are actually following the teachings of Jesus or not.

 I note that we are all sitting here with our eyes, ears and tongues in tact, and presumably our hands and feet. No-one has seen the need to amputate limbs or body parts in order to cleanse their eternal souls this week, so perhaps we've all been saints and no-one has done anything wrong.

Could you imagine me preaching a sermon this morning with no tongue, because I plucked it out on Tuesday after criticising dear Mrs Cannybody down the street on Monday?

No? Well what on earth is this reading all about? What is it trying to say to us this morning?

We must go back to Mark chapter 9 verse 18 to get a fuller picture. In this passage a man had brought his demon possessed son to the disciples, but they had not been able to cast the demon out of him. Therefore the boy had to be brought before Jesus to be healed, and Jesus exorcised the boy, adding that to be able to do this was a result of prayer.

  In our passage today, the disciples are reporting that an ordinary man in the street had been casting out demons in the name of Jesus, so they had forbidden him to do so, because he was not one of them. In other words who was this mere commoner who dared to think he held so great a position of power and authority as they.

  You can almost hear the arrogance of the disciples, and their pride as they tell Jesus that this man had tried to do this, and we note their jealousy because he had succeeded in doing something they were not able to do. How dare he do this, this man who had not been chosen along with them.

   Once again, as with last week's reading we see that:- arrogance + selfish ambition = disorder.

They're not happy bunnies!

Jesus rebukes them. It is not their names, their positions of authority whatever that are going to help them 'do' things successfully for God. Its more about who Jesus is! Jesus tells them "If anyone performs any act of service using my name, then he is one of us!"

This man cast out the demons in the name of Jesus. It is in His name, and in His name alone, that there is power.

If we think about this for a second, we see here an ineffective committee sounding off at someone right there at the coal face, where the suffering and the pain and the heartache is. The disciples were blind to this.

They were also blind to the fact that here was a person who was willing to put himself at the disposal of others, here was a man willing to confront the devil himself and rebuke him, here was a man who believed in the power of the name of Jesus.

Who was in fact doing God's will?

  Jesus has a strong warning for his disciples, "If anyone causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

Amputate those parts which offend, far better this than to be thrown into the fires of Hell.

I don't for a moment suppose that the disciples had realised their faults until Jesus told them off. Many of us don't realise our own faults, and when others do point them out we either get defensive, or we attack back rather than admit to ourselves that we are wrong.

Seeing ourselves as we are can be so painful, rather like cutting off our limbs.

It is so much easier to see the faults of others. That's the painless part. Pointing the finger at others.

What we don't realise is that quite often there are three fingers pointing back in our direction.

If we want to conduct a real amputation this morning, we must come before God and ask him to help us see ourselves as we really are.

We must take a look at ourselves, at what is in effect uncut diamond, and seek to polish it and finely hone it or cut it so that the facets are perfectly chiselled and sparkling, in order to reflect the maximum light of Jesus, the light of the World out into the world around us.

 Let the cutter's knife be there instead. And let us too in all humility go where we are needed most, to deny ourselves and become servants at the coal faces of this world where the real work needs to be done, for Jesus sake and in His name alone.