Thursday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 24, 2022

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.”

In Mark 10, 32, the Evangelist tells us that Jesus and the Apostles returned to Capernaum and went back to Peter’s house.  While there, the Lord addressed them concerning leadership in the Church.  Following this, St. Mark provides us with an assortment of short teachings and sayings that the Lord delivered.  It is uncertain from the context whether the Lord is still speaking to the Apostles in the house or if he is instructing a crowd in some town.  These teachings are only superficially connected so the Lord may have delivered them at various times and Mark felt that this was the best place to give them. “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.”  Here we have a rare instance in which Jesus refers to himself as the Christ — the Messiah.  The infrequency in which he does so reveals his reluctance to use title, charged as it was with the expectation of a military deliverer.  Jesus teaches here that even those who assist the Apostles will receive a reward, so how much greater the reward the Apostles who “belong to Christ” will receive.  

“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.”  By “little ones” the Lord evidently means the same people as when he says, “my least brethren” (Matthew 25, 40).  That is, those whose faith is newly acquired or fragile through the scandal of wicked Christians and heretics.  “Little” is in no sense derogatory but rather indicates the need for strengthening and growth. It would be better for a person to die and disappear completely than to cause one of these to sin or to lose their faith.  We can also understand the wicked as already wearing millstones of hatred, anger, jealousy, lust, and so on.  Eventually their vices will wear them down and they will drop into the depths of hell.  

“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 Lord uses hyperbole in calling for sinners to cut off their hands rather than to sin.  We know this is hyperbole because just as the Lord teaches that he who lists after a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart, so he who covets something belonging to another has already stolen it in his heart.  The cutting off of hands does not prevent this coveting.  The Lord means that we must do whatever is necessary in order to avoid sin, which begins in the intellect and will.  Thus, walking away from an occasion of sin, distracting ourselves with some interest or work, or joining in the safe company of others.  “Gehenna, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”  “Gehenna” is the Aramaic name for a valley beyond the walls of Jerusalem which God cursed through his Prophet Jeremiah for the false gods worshipped there and the child sacrifices offered to those gods: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring an affliction upon this place: so that whosoever shall hear it, his ears shall tingle for they have forsaken me, and have profaned this place and have sacrificed therein to strange gods, whom neither they nor their fathers knew, nor the kings of Judah, and they have filled this place with the blood of innocents. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall  . . . be called . . . the valley of slaughter” (Jeremiah 19, 3-5, 6).  From that point on, the name of the valley became the name of the place where the wicked dead were punished.

“Everyone will be salted with fire.”  The Greek means that everyone will be “seasoned” or “kept fresh” through “trials”.  This might strike us as strange, but threats to our faith make it more precious to us, just as threats to our lives make life more precious.  Jesus both promises and warns that we will experience trials as believers, but they are ultimately for our good, for our faith will be “alive”.

“Salt is good.”  This is a separate saying from the above.  Salt (the Christian) is “precious”, “useful”, “beautiful”.  “But if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor?” The Greek word translated here as “insipid” means “tasteless”, “flat”, “saltless”.  The “salt” is the life of grace.  If it becomes “flat” or “saltless” through its abuse, it becomes itself useless.  Nor can any human “restore its flavor”.  If the life of grace dies because of our sins, only God can restore it to us.  “Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another.”  The Greek verb translated here as “keep” can mean “be as”, so, “Be as salt and you will have peace with one another.”  That is, the Lord says to his followers, Live the life of grace and soul will be in peace with one another.  Virtuous behavior in Christ results in inner and outer peace.