Having been called, the disciples had to be trained. They had to be formed in grace to renounce all that stood in the way of their following Jesus completely. That’s what this passage from Mark is about; it’s about what such renunciation looks like. What Jesus is doing here is molding his stubborn disciples into what he wants them to be.
Earlier Jesus had summoned them and sent them. He gave them a to-do list and told them a little how-to: “Take nothing for the journey but a walking stick — no food, no sack;” they were to preach repentance, exorcise demons, anoint the sick (Mk 6:6-13). His advice was almost practical, his guidance mere matters of fact.
But soon enough, Jesus’ guidance goes deeper. It begins to touch the twisted heart.
We saw this in the Sunday readings from a few weeks ago, about what Peter had yet to learn after his profession of faith. To be a true disciple, Peter had to accept the will of God, the wisdom of the cross, which demanded Peter “deny himself, take up his cross.” To follow Jesus truly, Peter had internally to imitate the sacrificial love of the lamblike Messiah. He had to renounce his own will for the will of God. Whatever possessiveness or secret desire secretly serving pride, Peter had to reject it. We must reject all that too. “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? What could one give in exchange for his life? (Mk 8:34-37). Here we’ve moved beyond practical advice. Jesus is no longer talking about walking sticks and food but about the heart, desire and will.
| September 29 – Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time |
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Nm 11:25-29 Ps 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14 Jas 5:1-6 Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 |
Hence, the hard lessons we read in this Sunday’s passage. John (and presumably the other disciples too) is bent out of shape because someone outside the Twelve was “driving out demons” in Jesus’ name. The disciples may have been a bit jealous here; they, you see, had just failed to exorcise a demon, but this guy could (cf. Mk 9:28). But that’s not what really bothered them; deep down it was something else. What really got them, it seems, was that “he does not follow us” (Mk 9:38).
Not Jesus, but us. The problem was that this freelancer didn’t follow the disciples. Here is revealed what needed to be purified in the heart of the disciples — their desire for power, their compulsion of pride. What matters, what’s powerful is the name of Jesus. The power is God’s and not the disciples’. That’s why Jesus answered the way he did, basically telling John to chill out and quit pretending he was in charge of anything. It’s the same lesson Joshua, son of Nun, had to learn in the first reading (Nm 11:25-29). Just be faithful, keep to your own task, and you will have your reward.
Nothing must stand in the way
This truth applies to the following passage in Mark’s Gospel. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Mk 9:43). Jesus is not speaking literally. Some think that Jesus is talking about the deviant desires of pleasure here, sexual sins and maybe even abuse. Perhaps. Whatever the exact meaning, however, the point is clear enough. The renunciation of the will necessary to be a disciple must be a total renunciation. We must renounce violence, all of it. We must renounce prideful power, all of it. We must renounce the desires of the flesh, even the smallest and most secret.
Nothing must stand in the way of our following Jesus the way he wants us to follow him, which is the only way one can follow him at all, and that’s in giving up all we don’t want to give up for the sake of the life Christ offers us in him. And here we are brought face-to-face with all that we hold dear: our prejudices, our addictions, our egos. The hard lesson is that we must give them up for Jesus. That is, if we’re to follow him, if our discipleship is to be real.
The brief mention of Gehenna here, Jesus’ note about hell — the existence of which the Church “affirms” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1035) — serves only to underline the stakes of what Jesus is trying to teach. We must be formed for heaven; we cannot be un-formed and expect to enter it. There’s no way around that. That’s the brutal, blunt point. But, of course, don’t worry too much about that; just worry about the total sacrifice of the will, about what you and I need to do to be disciples fit for the Kingdom, for that is the better reward. Just work on being the best disciple you can be, and God will help you and save you in the end.
