The piece in this week’s passage about the millstone and chopping off of hands is often snipped out of its context and used as a general response to sin. It becomes a kind of purity talking point that says if you sin or allow others to sin then you should be punished. However, I think this week’s Gospel text really wants to be read together with last week’s so let’s just remind ourselves of the situation here.

Jesus and his disciples are travelling, avoiding the big crowds, just his dedicated people. When they arrive at their destination, Jesus asks what they were arguing about on the way. No one wants to say because they know he’s not going to be happy, so Jesus calls the twelve and brings a child into the middle of the group. Then he delivers a lecture on welcoming children.

That was last week.

This week continues on immediately with John attempting to deflect the lecture with this complaint about a stranger driving out demons in Jesus name, but Jesus brushes that aside to continue talking about welcoming and not harming kids.

So I’m thinking the incident on the road may have been quite a bit more serious and targeted than a group of dudes squabbling amongst themselves about who was the greatest.

Let’s do some wild speculation. How did Jesus know about the argument on the road? Divine omniscience, maybe, or perhaps he overheard. Here’s another possibility: Maybe Jesus knew, because he got the story from a crying child. Maybe the child is not just an illustration, but was there on the road with them. Maybe this wasn’t so much an argument among the twelve about who was the greatest as it was a targetted exercise in putting this kid in her place. Perhaps the stumbling in verse 42 wasn’t metaphorical but was the product of actual pushing and shoving.

In last week’s passage, Jesus phrased the imperative to welcome children in positive terms. To welcome children is to welcome him. This week, we see that he is really very angry. If you prevent the children from being welcomed, you should walk into the sea with a millstone. If your hand causes you to harm them you should cut it off.

Given last week’s piece on the first and the last, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expand this past literal children. All of those who are vulnerable or powerless are to be welcomed and protected. Extreme measures are warranted to avoid harm or inhospitality to anyone, but this isn’t a generic warning to avoid sin. The disciples aren’t recieving this lecture because they lead a child to sin, but because they failed to welcome her and placed themselves above her.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.

Mark 9:42 Full Text Mark 9:38-50

We’ve jumped ahead here to follow the same theme. Last week we saw Jesus responding to ideas about a messiah with a reminder that he’s come to die and that following him will require self sacrifice. This week, he’s again trying to tell them that the path they’re on isn’t one of status, glory, or personal gain. This time it’s in response to their squabbling among themselves about who is the best.

The way the lectionary juxtaposes these two passages feels repetitive and it’s easy to judge the disciples for not getting it, but a lot has happened in the chapter since our reading last week. Jesus climbed a mountain and met with Moses and Elijah and was transfigured to dazzling brightness and was claimed as the Son of God by a voice from the clouds and performed a dramatic miraculous healing.

It’s hard to blame the disciples for thinking this changes things. Their teacher talks with Moses and Elijah, he glows, he is claimed by God directly. Surely this means power and glory will be available for all of them. And so Jesus needs to remind them again that his path leads through death.

Success as a follower of Jesus does not mean power or fame.

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When we think of Jesus’ core followers, the disciples mentioned here, we think of the twelve. Usually, we imagine a bunch of bearded men. But look, when Jesus wants to illustrate that following him doesn’t mean fame or heroism, he picks up a kid. There’s a kid there. Small enough to be picked up and carried, so I bet the kid’s mother is there too.

This is supposed to be a private moment, just Jesus and his closest followers. He’s avoiding the crowds to teach his most dedicated disciples. They’re all hanging out inside a house in Capernaum. And there’s a small child there, unmentioned by the text until needed for this illustration.

I’m not sure that image of serious bearded men was ever true of Jesus inner circle. Not with how he talks here about welcoming children as being a fundamental requirement for his followers. I bet Jesus’ entourage was mostly women and children. But here, the twelve are specifically singled out to learn that the last shall be first and welcoming children is equivalent to welcoming Christ himself.

The twelve looked around at everyone who was traveling with them and decided that of course they were the natural leaders, the most important people here. So they argued about which of them was the best, the most important, the natural leader.

And Jesus goes out of his way to correct their misunderstanding. It’s none of you. It’s the last and the least the children and the women that you’ve overlooked.

Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus begins to teach his disciples something of what he’s about. The way this passage is structured it feels like that’s in response to Peter’s declaration as a correction or an expansion on that idea. Jesus doesn’t confirm or deny Peter’s declaration. He just starts in on this lesson.

The word “Messiah” comes with baggage. Back when this interaction may have occurred, yes, and when the Gospel was being written down, of course, but especially now.

These days, in Christian circles anyway, that baggage often includes ideas about Jesus’ divinity. We hear the word Messiah and bring up all kinds of images of the Son of God, especially the powerful, majestic, triumphant bits of those ideas. Peter’s view of a messiah is probably a little different, perhaps more along the lines of political or military leadership.

In either case, Jesus says that it’s not what we think. Instead he’s about suffering, rejection by powerful people, and death. Is that what it means to be the Messiah? Peter definitely doesn’t think so. I don’t think it’s generally what most modern Christians think about with the idea of the Messiah either. Most of the time we skip right over the nasty bits and go directly to resurrection, victory over sin and death, all that fun stuff.

I wonder if there’s almost a play on words here. The Hebrew word we read as “messiah” means “anointed” referring to anointing rituals involved in crowning a king or inducting a priest. But those aren’t the only rituals involving anointing in this time period. Funeral rites would have included anointing of the body.

Jesus here seems to say that being Messiah isn’t about glory or victory or divinity or anything at all like that. Being Messiah is about suffering and rejection. It’s about self sacrifice and death. After explaining this to his closest disciples, Jesus calls the whole crowd and calls them all to pick up crosses and follow him into death and shame.

We all get to be messiahs

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.

Mark 8:29-31 Full Text Mark 8:27-38

The general agreement is that the Gospel of Mark was written for a gentile audience far from Galilee or Jerusalem. So why all the insults in this week’s encounter with this women seeking wholeness for her daughter?

Jesus is in the road, visiting Tyre. He’s apparently trying to go incognito for a quiet escape from all the crowds that have featured in the previous couple of chapters. Then this woman shows up and begs him to drive a demon out of her daughter.

The story spends a lot of time emphasising that this woman is a foreigner. Not all the language used is nice and it’s Jesus who verbalizes the argument that says “No! Not for you. Gross.”

So why is this here? What good is this anecdote with these insults, especially if, as the scholarly consensus says, this was written for a gentile audience?

Of course, the story is ultimately complementary of the woman. Despite her foreignness she gets what’s she’s come for as a reward for her response.

I’m guessing that the Gentiles for whom this Gospel was written had heard the argument that comes from Jesus here. Possibly even from religious authorities. The question about whether the Gospel was for them, whether this faith is something that they could fully participate in was definitely an active one in this time and place. In this story, Jesus takes the role of those saying “No. This is not for you.” but the woman convinces him anyway.

The conclusions of the story itself seem to be contrary to the words of Jesus within the story.

Maybe we can read it this way: this story says yes, the Gospel is for you. No matter how much an outsider you are, no matter who tells you otherwise. The message of Christ is for you. Even if Jesus himself seems to tell you that it’s not.

The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

Mark 7:26 Full Text Mark 7:24-36