You're Doing It Wrong!

Pr. Michelle Sevig

You’re Doing it Wrong

You’re doing it wrong! We may not always be so blunt or direct, but we express this sentiment in varied ways all the time. Whether we’re cursing the driver next to us or thinking about a colleague's work habits, or when a teen is providing helpful technology advice to an adult; often the underlying tone is, ‘you’re doing it all wrong.’ 

One parenting tip I’ve heard several times is that it’s much better to “catch children or teens doing something ''right” and praise them for it, than to scold them for doing something “wrong.”” As in, Way to go son! I love it when you put your breakfast dishes in the dishwasher right away!

I’m sorry to say, I have a lot of #parentalfail(s) in this area, more likely to point out that they’re doing it the “wrong way”. I remember one particular melt down, screaming at my child because they were slicing the cheese WRONG! But it wasn’t really wrong, it just wasn’t the way I expected, or MY way. 

In both the first reading and the gospel reading today there are people who are complaining that things are being done the wrong way. In Numbers 11 the Israelites are in the wilderness complaining to Moses that they were better off in Egypt—where they were slaves under the pharaoh! Moses, frustrated with the people, complains to God. God responds by sending “the spirit” on seventy elders. But when two men who did not attend the gathering that God called them to, but still prophesied for God like the others, Joshua complains that they didn’t do what God asked, so they shouldn’t get to speak for God like the others. They’re not doing what’s expected. They’re doing it wrong. Moses, however, breaks the boundaries and welcomes their work. 

In the gospel text the disciples see someone else—someone who is “not following us”—healing people in Jesus’ name and one of them reports this to Jesus, thinking this healer should be stopped. This healer is not doing what is expected. He’s doing it all wrong according to the people who follow Jesus. Jesus, however, breaks the boundaries and welcomes the work of the healer. 

Jesus focuses on what the healer was doing right, giving him an “atta boy!” for the faithful, healing restorative work he did even though some considered it the wrong way. They saw an outsider, someone who was not “not following us”, someone who was not doing what they expected, and it became a stumbling block for them and drew them away from what was most important to Jesus--healing and restoration in his name.

Now it could be that you missed that part because of what comes next in the gospel reading, because this week’s gospel offers some of the harshest and most graphic language in the New Testament; words that are spoken by Jesus himself. “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off,” he says. If you cause a “little one” who trusts in God to stumble, you’re better off having a heavy stone wrapped around your neck and drowning in the ocean, he says. If you aren’t willing to cut off your offending eyes, hands, or feet, you’ll be thrown into hell, a place where “the worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched,” he says.

Yikes! I’ll be honest. This isn't my favorite scripture passage. I’ve never asked confirmation students to memorize it or even read it for that matter. But one theologian put it into context for me that was helpful. By this point in Mark’s gospel Jesus is speaking openly and freely about his impending death. There’s a growing sense of urgency because he’s just days away from Jerusalem. So, he ramps things up. He seems to be shouting through these gruesome images of hacked off limbs and unquenchable fire, PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT'S IMPORTANT. What you say and do, what you focus on, what you prioritize as my followers--these things matter and have life and death consequences. 

Debi Thomas, one of my favorite writers put it this way, “It’s not easy to read Jesus’ words about millstones, missing limbs, and unquenchable fire without flinching. But I believe we do ourselves and each other a great disservice if we read Jesus’s stark words in this passage and hear condemnation. Jesus isn’t condemning us; he’s reminding us of truths we intuitively know. The way of the cross is hard. It’s costly. It hurts. There is a place called hell that we create for ourselves and for others when we cling to our sins and stumbling blocks, instead of allowing Jesus, in his mercy, to remove them. 

Because, let’s be honest, sometimes the process of removing a stumbling block from the path of faith can feel like surgery without anesthesia. Saying goodbye to a harmful relationship, surrendering a cherished point of view, breaking an addiction, forgiving a family member, making a significant lifestyle change, welcoming the oddball Other — all of these things can feel like deaths. Like drownings. Like losing our arms and legs. Jesus knows what he’s talking about; it hurts to change.   It hurts to cut off the precious, familiar things we cling to for dear life — even as those things slowly kill us. The bottle. The affair.  The obsession with money. The decades-old shame. The resentment, the victimhood, the self-hatred, the rigidity.” (Can you see why she’s my favorite writer?)

So let’s listen to Jesus and stop getting in the way of other’s faithfulness. Let us imagine what it would be like to remove the stumbling blocks that get in the way of a full, restorative and healing life that God imagines for each of us. Let us open ourselves up to notice the unexpected people, situations, and ways of doing things that may not be “wrong” after all but are a whole new way to receive the spirit of God. Let us work to be path clearers for justice and remove stumbling blocks that keep people of color, refugees, people who identify as queer or anyone else who might be outside of our circle, so that everyone has a clear path to wholeness and belonging. 

Jesus opens our tight, close-knit circles wide open, and just when we think the circle is wide enough and everybody is in, he says “Nope! You’re wrong. Make it wider.” When we say here at Holy Trinity, “Because of Christ’s welcome to us, we welcome everyone,” well that means EVERYONE. And sometimes that’s hard. Like the disciples we may roll our eyes, and ask ourselves or one another, “even this one?” Yes, Jesus says, even if they bring a different point of view, or ask uncomfortable questions, or pray in unexpected ways. This one, and you too, belong to me.