Evil Runs Through Us

Transcript

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[0:00] So our sermon text this morning is from Mark chapter 9, and we're looking at verses 38 through 50. Just a word of introduction now for our passage. We're continuing in Mark, and the reason is, I kind of called it a series on Mark. We're actually just preaching the lectionary, and it's heavy on Mark right now, but it's a good thing because Mark is really a great book. Mark describes Jesus as a man of action. He's always on the move, always doing something, always ready for a fight, as you will see. And in this part of Mark, he's on his way to Jerusalem. He has set himself towards Jerusalem. He's on the path. He knows where he's going. He knows what he needs to do. He's told his disciples twice already, the Son of Man will go to Jerusalem. He'll be killed. He'll be raised again. He's going to tell them one more time in chapter 10. And so he's there's no surprises or secrets about what he's going to do. He's going to Jerusalem to have a confrontation, and it's a place of conflict. Once he gets to Jerusalem, and you read in Mark and other gospels, it's conflict after conflict after conflict, particularly with religious leaders. They ask him questions like, what authority do you have to do this? They try to trick him with

[1:16] theological questions. They try to get him to say things that will make him unpopular, and in that they succeed. But not because they asked him. He was always going to say things that made him unpopular. That's how he is. They were hoping that the crowd would turn on him, and that he would be put to death, and they got their wish. But that was all part of the plan. So there's several intense confrontations coming up, chapter 10, 11, 12, and on, leading up to the crucifixion. But this passage sets the stage for the conflict that's to come, because it draws up the lines of who is an ally and who is an adversary. It's important for Jesus. And there's this conflict line within ourselves, and Jesus really wants his disciples to be right with themselves and their own conscience before they go the next step too. And so over and over again, we see that Jesus is in a conflict, not just with religious leaders or other people or demons or illness, but he's in a conflict with the people that he loves. And so he's in a conflict with the people that he loves. And so he's in a conflict with the people that he loves. And so he's in a conflict with the people that he loves. And so he's in a conflict with the people that he loves.

[2:23] with evil itself, and the stakes are incredibly high. So Jesus is in this cosmic battle with evil. And it's being described here in our passage, and it's setting the stage for what's going to come in Jerusalem and the cross. So let's go to our reading. It's Mark chapter 9, verse 38 through 50. Do you want to try again, Krista? Did you press the silent button?

[2:48] The one at the top is the silence button. We're getting that fixed, by the way, just so you all know. For those of you at home, you can't hear it, but the fire alarm makes a beeping sound at 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. every day when it tries to call home and fails.

[3:03] But it does call home, because the other morning it went off, because the children's corner had put an aerosol in the air and the system mistook it for smoke. So it works. It works both to detect it and to report it. But we're going to fix it. We're going to fix it. Because it happens to come on every morning at 11, right in the middle of our worship service. So that's great. So, we're going to read now. Mark chapter 9, verse 38.

[3:53] Mark chapter 9, verse 38. Mark chapter 9, verse 38. Mark chapter 9, verse 38. Mark chapter 9, verse 38. say that even in these conflicts that he has with religious leaders, at least some of them, that evil demonic force is still at work. It's maybe not possessing the people who are challenging him, but evil is in their hearts because they don't want to hear what he has to say. They don't want any of the changes to come that he wants to bring. So Jesus is basically saying, if we're in a battle, we can use all the help we can get. Whoever is not against us is for us. Now some of you who have read other parts of the Bible, like Matthew 12 for example, you might say to yourself, this sounds like the opposite of something else he said before, which is, or somewhere else, which is whoever is not with me is against me. Isn't that interesting? He says that somewhere else. Here he says, whoever is not against us is for us. Here he says, somewhere else he says, whoever is not not with me or us, is against me. And those are, theoretically, those are diametrically opposed. It's not a contradiction necessarily. It could be a bit of a paradox. It's a bit of apparent contradiction. But there is a way to resolve it. And this is just sort of this thing that we kind

[10:32] of are trying to do a little bit more here is kind of explain how do we work through difficult passages or apparent contradictions in our text. And one would just look at the context. Matthew 12 is about Jesus and his reputation. The religious leaders say, speaking of demonic possessions, he says, it's by the power of the devil himself that he casts out demons. And so they're calling Jesus's source of power demonic. And Jesus is saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, when it comes to my reputation, those who do not see him and do not recognize that he is here to bring righteousness and justice are opposed to him. If they're not for him, if they're not recognizing the goodness of Jesus, they're not for him. And so they're calling Jesus's source of power demonic. And so the source of his power, then they really are against him, right? Even if they don't see it, even if they're not actively doing it. So his work, especially when he talks in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, his work is always polarizing people into two groups. And it's almost impossible to be neutral or on the fence with Jesus. He's a natural, I would call him a natural divider. You know how some people are like natural uniters? I'm not sure they really are, but

[11:41] we can think of them that way. There's people who just naturally unite people. Jesus is not like that. He's a natural divider. He's really good at dividing people apart from each other. And that sounds bad. But the reality is that whenever he speaks, whenever he acts, he kind of creates a choice. Either you are with me or you are not with me. You can't really sit on the fence with Jesus. It's very difficult. And the truth he, proclaims and the call to repentance that he asks for either breaks our hearts and sends us to our knees or it puts us into a really self-righteous place where we say, we don't need that at all. I don't want to hear it. But rare is the person who would hear that and go, ah, take it or leave it. You know, it really does divide. That's how Jesus is. Now, of course, he is a uniter as well. He unites all people who believe in him, no doubt. And he seems to also unite all people who despise him. He does a good job at that too. So you could say he's a uniter in a way. So that's where he would say, whoever's not with me is against me, is that when it comes to his reputation, he's saying, you have to, and my work, you have to accept this. And if you don't, you really are against me

[13:00] because there's really, there's no daylight between the two. But in our case, in the Mark text, the context is a spiritual battle against demonic forces. And if somebody is able to fight in the battle, even though they're not, they're not going to be able to fight in the battle. And so, part of this commission group of 12 apostles or 70 elders, like we have in the Old Testament in our reading from Numbers, even so that person is still on my side. He's not explicitly for me, but he's not against me because he's doing the work that we're doing. So now let's go on to, let's go to the next slide there, Caleb. The text slide. Okay. There it is. So we get into some dire, warnings. And I hope you were a little shocked by some of what I read about cutting off your hand and having a millstone thrown around. I hope that shocked you a little bit. I think that's part of the goal, but it's, this is a tough passage. This is a tough passage of scripture. Who wants to hear this stuff? Who wants to do this stuff? Okay. So there's, there's dire warnings about spiritual conflict that's coming up and it can leave us feeling uneasy. And it should make us ask some hard questions about Jesus Christ. And it should make us ask some hard questions about Jesus

[14:11] because this doesn't sound like Jesus really, but it does sound like Jesus. Verse 42 says, do not put a stumbling block. Victoria talked about this a little bit. You know, I'm really glad the children's sermon wasn't about cutting people's hands off. I just, I was trying to think, how is she going to pull this one off? And she didn't. And that's probably, that's okay.

[14:30] Do not put a stumbling block. And the meaning here for this word, actually the Greek word for this is skandalon. Interesting, which is used elsewhere, especially by the apostle Paul. But that is translated as stumbling block. It could also be the root word is really that it's a snare or a trap or something that will impede or harm or take captive somebody, hunt, or just, and in this case to destroy the faith of. And so Jesus is saying, do not hurt the faith of the spiritually young and the vulnerable. These are people he cares a great deal about. It's not just children, but it certainly does include children. It could be anyone who's new in their, their spiritual journey. And this is that special care that Jesus has for the physically and the spiritually vulnerable. His heart will always go out there to them. He will always try to protect them. And he sets a stern sort of boundary and warning around these people and says, if you are the one responsible for leading them astray into evil, then I'm going to say a very un-Jesus-like thing now, Jesus says, which is we should take a millstone, which is really heavy. It has to be heavy. So we're going to take a millstone and we're going to take a millstone and we're going to

[15:41] take a stone and we're going to take a stone and we're going to take a stone and we're going to kind of crush grain into flour. We should take this heavy stone and tie it around your neck and throw you in a lake. And of course you'll plummet straight to the bottom, right? And that will be the end of you. And so I want to stop here because where else really, I haven't been able to think of it. Where else does Jesus advocate violence in the scriptures?

[16:11] He's often advocating against violence, but this is a violent thing. Should we take a millstone, tie it around somebody's neck, throw them in the sea so that they drown to death? So what's going on? I mean, really, is this really Jesus talking? This is the Jesus who is kind and gentle, and yet he's saying this thing, right? So I want you to hold on to that question because why is Jesus talking that way? This is really kind of the core of where we're going to be in the future. So I want you to hold on to that question because why is Jesus talking today? Hold on to that question and we'll find an answer as we work through this next section. So we look at verses 43 through 47, and there are even, like, we're not off the hook yet. This is not over by any stretch. More difficult words. If your hand causes you to stumble, and it's the same word, stumble there, a trap, impediment, a device to harm, remain, to catch, or take you captive. So if your hand leads you into a place where you're stuck or trapped or stumble in your faith, if your hand makes you stumble, it's the same word. If your hand makes you stumble, it's the same word. If your hand makes you do that, it's better to cut off your hand. And the same with your foot and with

[17:15] your eye, right? And why the repetition, right? Your hand, your foot, your eye, there's three parts of your body. And one possible explanation is it covers the range of human experience. Our hands are for doing, and idle hands are the devil's tools, right? Our hands are for doing, our feet are for going places, our eyes are for seeing, but also in ancient cultures and in Jesus's culture, the eyes were a manifestation of our own morality. And we see this where Jesus talks about the eye being evil or good in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, 22. He says, the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? So the eye is more than just seeing, but the eye is your connection to the world. And it's actually your moral sort of imprint on the world. And so if your eye, if your moral compass is bad, better to gouge out your eye and to enter into life than to be thrown into hell. And the word there for hell is not Hades, but it's Gehenna, which is named after a valley just south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Hinnom Valley. And that was a place where the trash was burned

[18:37] and the smoke would come up. In ancient times, pagan tribes would sacrifice children in that place. So it was just one of that, you know, if you're reading the Harry Potter books, it would be like that part of Hogwarts that was particularly evil and you didn't go near, you know, you just, you didn't go down there. So, you know, and that's, that was sort of a, it was sort of a catch, sort of a catchphrase or symbol for, for eternal damnation. And at the very end of Isaiah, it talks about this place of burning, where the word of God is the fire of the fire. And it's a place where the fire of the fire keeps eating. And it's, it's difficult, right? We're talking about the, this, this sort of bodily and soul destruction that is part of God's justice. And so Jesus is, Jesus is bringing a lot of tough things right now. Now, one approach to all these difficult sayings is that they're a form of speech meant to get the attention of his listeners, right? There there's, does he really, does he really want us to cut our hands off? Literally, right? Does he really want us to gouge out our eyes?

[19:46] So this form of speech, and we've mentioned it before, is called hyperbole. It's this purposeful exaggeration of things to make a point, you know, and we do that too. That's still a form of speech, the way we do. We'll exaggerate something to make a point, even though it stretches possibility or logic. And so even Jesus does this at the very end of our reading, where he says, if salt has lost its saltiness, but if, are there any chemists in the house? Is that possible? It's impossible. Salt is salt. It's just sodium and chloride. You can't lose its saltiness. But what he's saying is like, if, if you're so worn out that even salt isn't salty anymore, you know, you've got a problem, right? You need to, you need to be salty. You need to be salt and light in this world. So it's a form of, of, of speech that's called hyperbole. It's, it's a strong, purposeful exaggeration. Throw somebody in a lake with a stone tied around their neck. Wow. Okay. I'm listening now. Cut off my own hand or eye or foot. Okay. I'm listening now, Jesus. This must be serious. What are you getting at? You're really getting my attention right now. And here's what I think.

[21:03] That we make of all of this, all of this together, uh, is that Jesus is on the road to the cross. He is increasingly blunt about what waits for him there. I'm going to the cross. I'm going to die. He has little time for people who are undecided or uncommitted. He is on his way. He is in a spiritual battle that will only get more intense as he goes. He is in a pitched battle and he's talking like it.

[21:32] He's, he's asking his, uh, he'll take any ally that he can get. He'll take any help he can get. He's asking his followers to do battle with their own sinful nature because the battle is not just with demons and disease and with religious leaders. It goes through the heart of every individual. And I'm going to ask Caleb to put up this next slide from Alexander Solzhenitsyn. If, if you get a chance to read the Gulag Archipelago, which is heartbreaking, but it's an amazing book by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It was a Russian dissident and spent time in the, in the Gulag. This is what he wrote in that book. He said, if only it were all so simple, if only there were, if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. So if evil was only just located in a few people and we could take those people and put them over there and, and then we could just drop a bomb on all of them and then evil would be gone from all our society and all our lives. If only it were that simple. But Solzhenitsyn says, the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart. And that's a rhetorical question,

[23:02] obviously. And this is what Jesus is saying. In your heart, in your eye, in your hand, in your foot, there's this dividing line between good and evil. And are we willing to cut away whatever that looks like? Those parts of us that are evil, those parts of us that are bent towards evil and join Jesus in this battle against evil. So all well and good. Jesus is in the pitch battle. He's, has external. adversaries and his disciples have to contend with their own inclination to evil. But where does that leave us? We have to figure out what this means for us today. We could look back at that and say, well, that was an interesting speech back then, but what does it have to do with us now? And I think we have forgotten that we are also in a pitched battle against evil and we need to be fighting for our very souls. I think we've lost track of that. I think our church, and I'm not just talking about Foothill, I'm talking about the American church, I'm talking about the church in the developed world, it is pretty complacent. It is pretty comfortable. It's sitting on comfortable chairs. I mean, there's people in churches in developing countries that are sitting on a concrete floor right now. You know it. You know, I'm glad that we have air conditioning. I'm glad

[24:21] that we have this breathtaking building. You know, I'm glad that we have acres of land in Los Altos. It's insane. But have we lost sight of that? The fact that we're in a battle with evil in this world and we've joined with Jesus on his side, I think we've lost sight of that. We can make church about fellowship and potlucks and belonging and all of that is really, really good. It's very good stuff. But if we are true to the gospel and we are led by the Spirit, we will eventually have to confront evil in the world and evil even in the church and evil even within us. I'm sorry if you came here today expecting something comfortable being said. It's just not going to happen today. Some other day. Okay? Some other day. Come back. Don't give up on us. All right? There are no peace treaties in this battle. There's only unconditional surrender to one side or to the other. So how do we confront evil? You may be asking. One of the ways we do it is we tell the truth about evil. The devil's most powerful tool is a lie. And lies are not a lie. Lies are abounding right now. Like I can't think of a time in my life when public lying on everything and by everyone. I'm not going to single out anyone necessarily, but by everyone

[25:45] and almost everybody and on almost any topic. Lies are being told for the advantage of the person telling the lie. And I think part of the fight against evil is to tell truth. It's just to tell the truth. I want to give you an example of this. There was a, we had a woman named Sarah Devini come and speak to the Genesis group this summer. And we put the video up on our YouTube page and I sent an email about it, linking it. I'm going to send another email this afternoon linking to it so you can find it at the top of your inbox. But the topic, one of the, and she talked about the experience of Native American peoples in North America and what a challenge it has been because of certain things like what we have called the doctrine of discovery, which is this idea that settlers came to the new world and God was on their side. And since they were Christian and the people that they saw and met were not, that they could just legally in their minds take everything that they had and it was theirs. And this led to incredible progress and economy and wonderful things. And luckily, and not luckily, it took, it wasn't luck that made it come about. Our denomination just recently repudiated this doctrine, which I think is a good move.

[27:01] One of the topics that came up with Sarah is that some churches and institutions make a proclamation before they begin their meetings, that they are actually on the land that was once used and owned and occupied by a Native American tribe. And so if we were to do it, we would say right now we are meeting on the land that was once used, occupied, and owned by the Ohlone people. We know this. It's historical fact. We can figure it out.

[27:34] And why are they doing that? Now, her answer was so illuminating. I had never thought of it. And I was so glad that we got a chance to talk to her. For one thing, it's an acknowledgement that land was taken in an unfair and coercive way. And that's its own truth, right? But the other is that it begins to break up this lie that our country has told itself over and over again, that the land was empty, that settlers had the right to take it. And that everything they saw because of the doctrine of discovery or because of greed or all of those things, and that it was all blessed somehow, that it was all okay because now we're in it and they don't want it anyways. All sorts of lies that we could make up. But if you were to ask them, the reality is they would say, no, we're not super pleased about this. You know, we're not happy that this happened. We're not better off because of it. In fact, we're far worse off in all sorts of ways. And if you wanted to make a list of all the trouble, troubles, and tribulations that the Native American communities had in our country, it would, if you have two hours, we could talk about it. It's long. But what she said was, when we tell the truth about something, it breaks not only

[28:47] the lie, but the evil, demonic, spiritual power of that lie. And I was like, yes, that's so good. That's so good. To free ourselves from the lies that we're in. And I was like, yes, that's so good. That's so good. To free ourselves from the lies that we've been believing frees us up to be different people. And it sends evil back a few steps. Not all the way, clearly, but a few steps. So that's one aspect of the spiritual battle that Jesus has called us to be in, a battle against evil. And there's more. We have to speak for justice. We help rescue vulnerable people trapped in human trafficking. We support ministries that do that. Our denomination does that. We help trap people who are trapped in oppressive poverty. Want to buy some coffee? You know, it's good. We want to do these things. And we are arrayed, and we've spoken here from the pulpit, both Victoria and I and others, against white supremacy and Christian nationalism. And those are idolatries and perversions of what it means to be created in God's image. Those are false teachings and false gods. But we start with ourselves. And we can definitely fight all those external adversaries. And Jesus does. But he also asks us to start with ourselves, with that line that crosses the human heart

[30:09] that Solzhenitsyn talks about. On the way to the cross where we give up our whole lives, we also cut away all that would be a stumbling block and a trap for us. And it might mean we listen in community to others who can see in us what we cannot see in ourselves. Do you have an accountability partner? Somebody who can see you goofing up when you don't see yourself goofing up because you probably know yourself too well. Or not well enough. We might ask ourselves difficult questions. Does this thing that I am doing, or the place with my hands, or the place I'm going with my feet, or the things I'm seeing with my eye, do those things bring me closer to God or closer to the cross? Or does it compromise my part in this battle against evil? And am I willing to cut it away?

[30:56] Those are the questions we ask. That's how we begin to unwind the power of evil. And its hold over us. And begin to open the trap that it has set for us. And to free ourselves. It's powerful stuff. I said I wish this could be more of a good news sermon. And so I am, I'm going to relent a little bit. Because it is, there is some good news here. Not quite like we think. But here is the good news. I mean, part of this is about people getting drowned and cut off hands and feet, and that's dark. But there's some good news in here. And here's the good news. The good news is that Jesus is serious about the fight against evil. He's serious about it. He's in it. He fights for us when we can't fight for ourselves. He charges into the final battle, humbly on a donkey. I love how he charges in there. He wins the most stunning victory and reversal the world has ever seen or will ever see. The biggest upset. The good news is we have a champion, a Messiah, in the truest sense. And he's calling us into action alongside of him. Into battle against evil. And the question then is, will we go with him? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that your son, our Savior, is our champion in this battle against evil.

[32:19] We pray he fights for us when we're too weak to fight. We pray the Spirit gives us power to fight when we're called on. Father, help us to examine our faith. And our own lives. And cut away that which does not belong. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.