Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

Well, that was some Gospel reading we just heard. Little wonder that these verses never make anyone's list of favorite Bible passages. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want" and "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son" are much more comforting and gentle on our ears. These words of Jesus in Mark 9 are harsh. In fact, if we had to rate this passage like a movie, we could not give it any more than a PG-13 because of the violence - all that self-mutilation and people burning in the fires of hell. I'm glad that this reading didn't come up last week for Friendship Sunday, all those friends you invited might have gotten the wrong impression about us Lutherans. As the new movie about Martin Luther graphically and powerfully reminds us, Lutherans are about grace, not about hell fire and brimstone. Then we come to this passage from Mark 9 and there it is - no brimstone, but enough hell fire to make an old staunch Baptist feel right at home.

These are disturbing words, and what makes them even more disturbing is that they come from the lips of Jesus. Because they are the words of our Lord, we cannot dismiss them. We dare not ignore them. We have to try and figure out what Jesus is saying to us today with these disturbing words and images. Of course, we know better than to take these words of Jesus literally. If we did, there would be a lot of one-eyed, one-handed, or single-footed people sitting here this morning. So what exactly is Jesus trying to say here?

Actually, Jesus' message is pretty clear. Sin is serious business. Sin can send you to a hell where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched. It just doesn't get more serious than that! Don't misunderstand this, however. Jesus is not saying that anything you do wrong is going to send you immediately to hell. What is translated, "If you hand causes you to sin" actually says, "If your hand causes you to stumble." It literally means to trip or to fall. In a spiritual sense, then, this means that if there is something that causes you to fall away from God, or to loose your faith, it is better to get rid of it than to end up cut off from God. There are things which do not just cause us to do wrong, but actually draw us away from God. Those things need to be cut off.

When I was in college, a friend of mine complained of pain in his abdomen one Saturday. Some of us suggested that he go see the school nurse, but since it was the weekend, he decided to wait until Monday. The pain got worse, until finally late Saturday night we had to take him to the emergency room. He had an infected appendix, and it had ruptured. If we had not gotten him to the hospital, he would have died. They did surgery right away to remove the appendix, and he quickly recovered completely.

Now the appendix is not a very important part of our bodies, but an infected appendix can kill you. Given the choice it only makes sense to have it cut out. This is what Jesus says about those things that cause us to fall away from God. It is far better to have them removed than to allow them to destroy us.

Our sin is not only a danger to us, but it is also a danger to others as well. Jesus says that if anyone causes someone else to stumble or to fall away from God, then it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea wearing a milestone necklace. The things that we do and the things that we say often influence other people. Being a grandfather to a sixteen month old boy, I am regularly reminded how much children imitate those around them.

You don't have to be a parent or a grandparent to have this kind of influence on young people. They watch teachers and neighbors, peers and older youth, people they see in the marketplaces and at the intersections of life. And they especially watch those who are members of the church. They watch to see if our actions are consistent with our words. They watch to see if we really love God and if we really love one another. They watch to see how important prayer and Bible study and worship is in our lives. Here Jesus cautions us to watch what we say and what we do because little ones are watching us, and we will be held responsible if we cause one of them to stumble and fall away from God.

While there is a sense of relief in knowing that Jesus does not mean for us to take his words here literally, that sense of relief is short lived. Because sin is so serious, something needs to be done about it. If we are not suppose to cut off our hand or pluck out our eye, then what are we supposed to do?

Our second lesson, from the book of James, tells us where to start. James reminds us that Jesus did not come just to preach hell fire and brimstone; he came to preach good news.. Jesus did not come just to threaten and to condemn; he came to save and to forgive. "Therefore," James says, "confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." He also says that the Lord will raise us up and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.

According to James, it all begins with confession. Confessing your sins is the first step toward healing and wholeness. It is the first step, however, not the last. James goes on to say that we must also turn from the error of our ways. True repentance involves change as well as confession. True repentance means more than just saying, "I'm sorry." It also means that we stop doing the things that are causing us to stumble.

While Jesus does not expect us to take a chain saw to our offending foot, he does expect us to cut the sin out of our lives. Our sins not only hurt other people, but they threaten our relationship with God. it If you are sexually involved with someone outside of marriage, you need to cut it out. That may be painful, but it is better to loose this relationship than to loose your relationship with God or to cause someone else to.

If you are abusing alcohol or drugs, cut it out. For those who are addicted, alcohol and drugs becomes a real idol - a serious threat to their spiritual life. To stop using could be as hard as cutting off a hand, but it is better to suffer the pain of abstinence than to loose your faith and spend eternity cut off from God.

If you find yourself hanging around with the wrong crowd, a crowd that is leading you down the wrong path, then you need to cut off those relationships. If you are looking at pornography on the internet or spending too much time at the casino, you need to cut it off. If you are so involved in work, or sports, or recreation that you don't have time to worship on Sundays or read the Bible during the week, then cut it out. It is better to give up any of these things than to sacrifice your soul.

One Saturday last April, Aron Ralston was hiking a remote canyon in Utah when a 1,000-pound bolder dislodged and pinned his right arm against the canyon wall. Trapped by the bolder, Ralston had nothing to do but wait for rescuers to find him. By Tuesday he had run out of water, and on Thursday he realized he was running out of time. His only hope of survival, he thought, was to cut his arm off and try to make it out of the canyon. Using a makeshift tourniquet and a small pocket, Ralston amputated his arm just below the elbow and then rappelled 75 feet down to the bottom of the canyon. Two other hikers helped get him to the rescue unit, which then took him to the hospital.

Aron Ralston was willing to sacrifice his arm in order to save his life. That was not an easy choice to make, but it was the smart thing to do. Jesus says that we need to sacrifice whatever it is that threatens our relationship with God. That is seldom easy to do, but it can be done. It must be done. And God is there to help us do it. Amen.