Things we avoid

Yesterday I preached the following sermon based on Mark 9:38-50. Click here to read the passage first. I promise you the sermon makes way more sense if you read the scripture first. If you only have time to read one, then read the scripture and not the sermon.

Things we avoid

In the movie Office Space, there is a passive-aggressive boss named Bill Lumbergh. Bill discovers that Milton, one of the workers, was supposed to have been laid off years ago. Except no one told Milton so he continues to come to work and, due to a system glitch, he continues to receive pay checks. Bill, the boss, is passive aggressive and wants to avoid conflict so instead of firing Milton, he moves Milton’s desk to a dingy cockroach infested room in the basement and stops paying him. Bill hopes that in not paying Milton, the problem will “resolve itself” and Milton will just stop showing up for work. Milton through-out the movie tries to tell Bill he’s not receiving a pay check anymore but Bill just brushes him aside and ignores him. Milton repeatedly mutters to himself and to anyone else who will listen that if they push him too far he’s going to burn the building down. In the end, Milton does just that. Fed up with being ignored, pushed around, and unpaid, Milton sets fire to the building. It would seem that the situation didn’t “resolve itself” quite the way that Bill hoped it would.

I think one of the things that makes this Bill character in the movie so funny is because the film-makers take this personality type that we’re all familiar with and have experience to some degree or another and then they take it to the extreme. We’ve all either avoided someone at some time in our lives or we’ve been the person that other people are avoiding. Most of us have never taken it to this extreme but we have experienced it.

For instance, I don’t have a facebook page but I recently typed “avoiding people on facebook” into google and it returned 63,800,000 results. Over 63 million results! That’s incredible to me. Facebook was designed to help connect people, and instead over connecting, over 63 million people are talking about how to avoid people on facebook! We all know what it’s like to avoid others or to be avoided.

In the scripture reading for today, we find the disciples acting a little like Bill from Office Space. Except instead of avoiding people, the disciples are avoiding letting the teachings of Jesus sink into their hearts. In the passage right before this, which we read last week, the disciples argued amongst themselves who was the greatest. Jesus settles the matter by telling them that whoever wants to be first must be servant of all. But today we see that the disciples weren't doing such a great job of paying attention to the part of the gospel that says to become great you must become the least. That competitiveness and need to be the best continues this week as they try to stop the exorcist.

It seems like Jesus has barely finished his sentence about becoming the servant of all and welcoming all. And now the disciples are already telling him that they tried to stop someone from driving out demons in Jesus’ name because he wasn’t “one of us.” Maybe the disciples were just trying to divert Jesus’ attention from them to someone else. Or maybe it’s just their competitive nature coming out again. They were competing earlier with one another about who among the disciples is the greatest. So perhaps they see this successful exorcist as a threat, especially since just a few chapters ago we hear how the disciples themselves had failed to drive out a demon. Scripture doesn’t tell us their motivations but it’s almost like the disciples are expecting Jesus to pat them on the back.

Instead Jesus rebukes them and tells them not to stop the man. Jesus even goes so far as to tell the disciples that anyone who is “not against us, is for us.” Jesus doesn’t approve of the competitive nature of the disciples. He doesn’t want them arguing among themselves who is the greatest. Nor does he want them to compete with those outside of the group.

The disciples avoided the words of Jesus about competitiveness and serving all, just like Bill avoided Milton. It’s easy to point fingers or to shake our heads at the disciples. We find ourselves wondering how they could make the same mistake again so quickly. But haven’t we all done that? We all have some part of the gospel that we struggle with, that we wish wasn't part of the bible, that perhaps we choose (consciously or unconsciously) to ignore. We all have certain parts of the bible that that make us uncomfortable, and like Bill we move those parts to a dingy room in the basement in hopes that the situation will “resolve itself.”

This passage from the gospel is often one of those that is ignored. With its intensely graphic images and radical demands it makes a lot of people really uncomfortable. I actually think this passage is more uncomfortable for most people than the passage where Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and follow him. Maybe it’s because the words Jesus uses evokes more graphic images in our minds. Maybe it’s because we have so domesticated the cross that we often forget that is was a very painful and drawn out way to kill someone. Maybe it’s because no one wants to think about willingly cutting off parts of their own bodies or the topic of hell.

When things make us uncomfortable, we have a tendency to avoid them. We do it with people that annoy us or make us uncomfortable. We do it with scripture passages that are a little too graphic. But we also avoid the scripture passages that challenge us. When our life and scripture are at odds with one another, we have this tendency to just avoid or ignore that scripture passage and hope that the tension will “resolve itself.”

We all have parts of the gospel that we'd rather not listen to. For some it's about what we do with our money. For others it's about forgiving those who have wronged us (or forgiving ourselves). For others it's about humility, the struggle to acknowledge that our culture leads us astray when it convinces us that everything is permissible, that life is all about pursuing our own pleasure and happiness. Others of us try to follow Jesus by spending a lot of time talking about Jesus or this theological issue or that but never actually spend time alone with God praying or reading scripture just for our own spiritual growth.

We all have parts of the bible that make us uncomfortable. It’s human nature to try to avoid discomfort. But when we ignore parts of the bible that challenge us and convict us, we in essence are cutting off the hand of the gospel. Instead of observing our own lives and removing the behaviors or attitudes that put us at odds with the gospel, we choose to remove parts of the gospel.

But Jesus says it should be the other way around. Instead of avoiding parts of the gospel, we should remove the things in our lives that in get in the way of us following Jesus. In really graphic language Jesus calls us to follow him regardless of the cost.

So what is it that's getting in our way? What is the part of the gospel that we want to avoid, that we wish wasn't there? What's the part that makes us the most uncomfortable and makes us cringe? Because chances are, the parts that make us the most uncomfortable are probably dealing with those things we are struggling with. Chances are those are the things we need to work on removing from our lives in order to fully follow Christ.

If you find yourself cringing or squirming in your seat every time a scripture passage about forgiveness is read, then maybe you need to pray about any anger or resentment you might be harboring. If you find yourself uncomfortable with scripture passages talking about how to spend your money, then maybe you need to pray about how God would have you spend your money differently. If you find yourself uncomfortable with scripture passages dealing with being a servant, then maybe you need to pray about if you are prideful and trying to rely on yourself instead of God.

In his book, The Life We Claim, James Howell writes, “We live in a society that permits everything and forgives nothing; but we will never be whole until we realize there are things God does not permit, and therefore that God can forgive everything.”

God loves us enough that there are some things that God does not permit. Scripture helps us to know God’s heart and God’s desire for our lives. There are some things that God does not permit and scripture tells us that. God can forgive everything. But we shouldn’t use God’s abundant forgiveness as an excuse not to try. There are some things God doesn’t permit. So when you find yourself uncomfortable with scripture, chances are there is something in your life you need to change.

What part of Scripture do you avoid? What are the things you need to remove from your life so you can more fully follow Jesus?