It's Non Sequitur Teaching Time with Jesus

The lectionary gospel reading for this week (Mark 9: 38 – 50) is full of interesting and difficult statements from Jesus, troubling statements. 

First off – John complains that someone outside of their group was using Jesus’ name to drive out demons.  Was this early copyright infringement?  Was John concerned about the illegal use of trademarked material – or was he trying to deflect attention away from the disciples’ failure (see last week’s reading: Mark 9: 30 – 37)? 

Jesus disregards John’s complaint saying that “he who is not against us is on our side.”  Seems clear enough… at least until we compare this statement in Mark against the other synoptic accounts.  Matthew and Luke record Jesus saying, “Anyone who is not with me is against me and anyone who does not work with me is working against me (Matthew 12:30, Luke 11:23).”  Is there a conflict between these two statements? 

The verses that follow don’t really seem to follow.  It is non sequitur teaching time.

Jesus says, “Whoever gives you a cup of cold water because you belong to my name will not lose the reward.”  We usually hear this verse in Matthew’s voice (Matthew 10:42). In Matthew this is about true disciples giving water in Jesus’ name, but in Mark it’s about the disciples being given cold water because they belong to Jesus’ name.   What does this mean?  Why are the disciples being given water?  And what is the reward that the water giver is not going to lose?

Following this Jesus addresses anyone who would “cause offense to one of these insignificant believers” (or, in another translation, “little ones”) saying that it would be better for them to be tossed into the sea with a large stone tied to their neck. 

This leads – without transition – to a discussion about cutting off and gouging out body parts if they cause you to sin.  This is hyperbole – I hope!  For it is better to “enter life maimed” than to have all your parts and be thrown into hell (gehenna- which isn’t exactly hell but that’s another discussion for another day…) where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.    There is a lot to unpack in these statements, but what I find especially interesting is the idea of “entering life” which is equated in parallel form with “entering the Kingdom of God (vs. 47).  What does it mean to “enter life”?

And then again, without transition, Mark records Jesus saying “Everyone will be salted with fire.”  To which I say, What?  Jesus continues, “Salt is good but if it loses its saltiness with what will you season it?”  I’m not sure how this follows.  What? What?  Jesus goes on without explaining… “have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”  What? What? What?

So we have cold water, and an unspecified reward. We have devouring worms, unquenchable fire and salt. We have a salting with fire (whatever that means).  And we need to have peace with one another.  Is that a connection back to John’s complaint about an outsider breaking into the Jesus franchise? What are we to make of all this? 

Mark doesn’t help much. He doesn’t give us any editorial explanations.  And the context doesn’t help much either.  The next story is about Jesus arguing with the Pharisees about divorce.  The non sequitur teaching continues…