Thursday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, May 23, 2024

Mark 9, 41-50

Jesus said to his disciples: “Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”

“Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.”  This verse as well as the short account of the man who tried to exorcise demons in the name of Jesus, and the several verses following those in today’s Gospel Reading, seem to belong to a loose collection of the Lord’s sayings, as written down by St. Mark, recollecting them from St. Peter’s preaching.  In this first verse of the reading, the Lord praises those who assist his Apostles for his sake.  And not only those who afford to so, but even the poor who can only fill their vessel with well water and then give it to those who follow him: the Lord does not say, Anyone who gives you a cup of wine, but, “a cup of water”.  Any support, however little, offered through faith in Jesus, will be “rewarded” in heaven.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  Jesus uses the term “little ones” to refer to his disciples: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you” (John 13, 33).  According to the custom of the time, just as the landowner called his slaves his “children”, so did the teacher, referring even to adults as his “children” and “little ones”.  An ordinary millstone, used in the grinding of grain, could weigh as much as three thousand pounds.  The Lord’s use of a millstone here teaches how terrible is the sin of giving a bad example or bad counsel that results in another’s sin.

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.”  The Venerable Bede tells us that by “hand” we are to understand “friends” who assist us through life.  If our friends, then, cause us to sin we would be much better off without them.  “Gehenna” was a valley to the southwest of Jerusalem where the wicked conducted human sacrifices (cf. 2 Chronicles 28, 3).   The ancient Jews did not have a specific word for hell and so used names like “Gehenna” to talk about it.

St. Mark takes the Hebrew place name directly into the Greek text of his Gospel rather than translate it into “Hades”, as St. Luke does.  “And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.”  We can think of our “feet” as our property, because of its belonging to the earth on which our feet tread.  The desire for property — for riches and power, often draws people into sin and then into eternal hell.  “And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna.”  Our “eyes” are the lusting for pleasure, no matter what the cost to ourselves later.  “Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”  Worms were thought to arise out of rotting flesh.  The image is that of human flesh rotting for all eternity and of worms continually emerging from it.  We can understand it as the unending and fruitless remorse of those who fully know that they have lost heaven forever. The “fire”, on the other hand, is searing external punishment.

“Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”  Salt is rubbed into meat in order to preserve it.  This is known as “salting”.  Understanding the “fire” here as the Holy Spirit, we can see the Holy Spirit being poured into us in order to preserve our souls from the sufferings of hell.  “Everyone”, that is, all believers in Jesus Christ.  The salt — the Holy Spirit — becomes “insipid” in us through our failure to pray for the gift of perseverance and for the virtues we need in order to love holy lives.  It also becomes “insipid” through our failure to exercise those virtues in good works.  Through prayer and good works we “keep salt in ourselves” and “have peace with one another”, as members of the Body of Christ ought to have.