Pastor Tom Johnson, September 19, 2021
Jesus is still holding the child and embracing her or him in his arms. He just said that to be greatest to be a servant of all. And to love the little ones around us are to love the Son of God. And to love him is to love the Father. Jesus’ words are striking. Jesus is zealous about the little ones. Jesus’ words are also unsettling. He talks about death by drowning and by fire. He says dismemberment is a better outcome than to hurt God’s little ones and face those consequences. So what the heck is Jesus’ point? What the Gehenna is Jesus saying here? For starters, let’s talk about what Jesus is not saying. This is not a text about hell. In fact, the word hell does not even appear in the Bible at all. The word hell is not English, Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. It is Old Norse and is the name of the goddess of the underworld, Hel, the daughter of Loki. Hel or helheim is the place in Norse mythology where some of the dead go after death. This is why I have done a six week Bible study on hell twice now at our church because it takes that long to undo the kind of fear and confusion we have accumulated in the last two thousand years.
Jesus uses the word Gehenna. I asked our office administrator to use that word instead because taking the shortcut with the word hell actually puts us further behind in our understanding of what Jesus is saying. Gehenna is a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic from the Hebrew Gehinnom which means “Valley of Hinnom.” The Valley of Hinnom is south and west of Jerusalem. And it has quite the dark history. Before the Hebrews settled in Jerusalem, it was where people sacrificed their children to the god Molech. In Jeremiah chapter 7 (vv. 30-31), God speaks of the abomination of the Judeans who made their own pass through fire there in a horrific imitation of their predecessors. Because of this, the Valley of Hinnom (or later Gehenna), became Jerusalem’s city garbage dump. It is where refuse was taken, discarded, and burned. It is where moth, rust, worm, and fire consumed all the rubbish that came out of the city.
Jesus loves the little ones. They are of supreme value and importance to God. So he says dismemberment is a better outcome than to hurt God’s little ones. It’s striking that Jesus would use the same imagery of how ancient people would discard their own children as a deterrent to bring further harm to young children. In today’s language, we might say it this way: God so loves the little children that to cause them even to lose their footing so that they might trip and fall is a crime so grievous to God that only the severest punishment would fit the crime.
My advisor in seminary told us that sometimes when we are dealing with Scripture that’s difficult to understand we should ask another question besides “What does this mean?” We should ask, “What effect does Jesus want in our lives?” That is crystal clear. He wants us to elevate to greatness those considered to be the least—the little children—those the ancient peoples so readily discarded. They are precious in God’s eyes. They are so treasured and cherished by God that only the severest justice is deserved by those who cause one of them to stub their toe. What effect should that have in our lives? It would be better for us to enter life dismembered than for our whole bodies to be offered up to evil and idolatry. So Jesus tells us that when we enter his reign of life and love, we should discard everything that prevents us from becoming the people he calls us to be.
This radical repentance calls us to surrender ourselves to his Kingdom rule of love. If we are to take anything to the city dump and discard it, it should be those things that cause us to stumble and cause others to stumble into evil and sin. If it is the lust of the eye, the violence of the hand, or the foot that runs toward evil. Jesus calls us to go to the root of the problem. It would be better for us to toss into the fiery dump those things that cause us to perpetuate evil than to lose our whole selves to sin, evil, and death. That is the vivid and unsettling call of repentance. But what further effect does Jesus want? Jesus calls us to see the lives of all of those around us as not only precious but also sacred. To receive one of these little ones, Jesus says, is to receive him. And to receive him is to receive God the Father.
Jesus ends our passage encouraging us to season our lives with the salt of God’s peace. God wants our relationships to not only be free of the destructive and deadly power of sin and evil. He wants us to be palatable, agreeable, and filled with the peace that the world cannot give—the kind of peace only Jesus gives. Jesus alone passed through the deep waters for us. With the millstone of our sin hung around his neck, he was buried in baptism. He passed through the fire of evil and death for us through his scourging and crucifixion. He drowns our old self in Baptism by the water, the Word, the Holy Spirit, and with holy fire. His refining fire purifies and removes the dross of sin, selfishness, and pride. And so we enter life and the Kingdom by the scars and wounds of the Cross of Christ. We now get to return our love back to Jesus and God the Father. That love fills our cups to overflowing. God’s love overflows to those around us—even the littlest of ones. For that is who we all are—the little ones who are deeply and passionately loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment