Jesus and The 'Cutting Edge'

Jesus said, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off" (Mark 9:43).

What if your hand is causing you to die? Cut it off!

On April 26, 2003 Aron Ralston, a young man and expert Aspen climber, got trapped as he was hiking in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah. An 800-pound boulder shifted onto his arm as he climbed through a narrow ravine. Five days later, after running out of water and wondering if rescuers would ever find him, Aron cut off his arm with a pocket knife. He repelled down the mountain and hiked 5 miles before he was found by a Dutch vacationing family.

Terry Mercer, a helicopter pilot with the Utah Highway Patrol, said after seeing Aron, "I've never seen anybody that had this much desire and this much tenacity to stay with it and stay alive."

Radical decision. Painful action. Continuing life. These are part of Aron Ralston's story. Jesus teaches us that these issues must be part of our story as well. Sin can be the 800-pound boulder pinning us down and causing life to seep away. "Cut off your hand!" Jesus counsels. Just as we do not condemn Aron Ralston for "mutilating" his body, as a matter fact we admire him, so we do not accept the perjorative claim that Jesus is fanatically calling his followers to self-mutilation. Yes, the terms are strong and, yes, Jesus uses hyperbole, but only to emphasize the seriousness of life in the kingdom of God (versus the alternative).

Sin will kill us. And in this part of Mark's Gospel, the sin Jesus has in mind is that of forsaking him and his gospel way. The sin is obedience to the impulse to lay the cross down and find an easier way to be a Christian. Jesus is strongly warning us to not let anything dilute our loyalty to him and divert us from living the Jesus Way, the way of the cross. It is better to be crippled and be alive than to be whole and be dead. In hell dead.

Radical decision. Painful act. Continuing life. I would want the helicopter pilot, Terry Mercer, to say of my loyalty to Jesus and the gospel of the kingdom, "I've never seen anybody that had this much desire and this much tenacity to stay with it and stay alive." Wouldn't you want that said of your life of following Jesus?

In the USAmerican church we've created powder-puff Christianity and Lazy-Boy discipleship and Sleep-Comfort worship. We're into Super-size me...Me! The last thing we will ever imagine is taking a pocket knife to our soul and experiencing the pain that leads to life. "Oh no, let's not get too fanatical about this Jesus stuff. 'Radical' is not in my vocabulary." It's alright to imagine Jesus bleeding to death on the cross (or to see it portrayed in The Passion of the Christ), but not one drop of our blood, not one bead of our sweat, not one tear from our eyes in the cosmic challenge of following Jesus.

God, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Jesus and His Rank Amateurs

It's about this time that I'd start slapping the disciples up side the head yelling, "Don't you get it, you dufi (plural for dufus)?!" The disciples' dufuscosity was in a league of its own. (I am indebted to David Duncan for the term 'dufuscosity' in his book The Brothers K.)

This Galilean rag tag bunch were in a dither about who was 'the greatest' among them. Like a fight among homeless people about who's going to the CEOs breakfast. In a culture obsessed with rank and recognition, the disciples were clamoring for seats close to Jesus. All of them wanted to be first and none of them wanted to be twelth. A little later on James and John will urge their Mommy to lobby for some chief seats for them.

Jewish culture in Jesus' day was paranoid about recognizing the greater and the lesser in the social order. As a host you never dared to seat a greater in a lesser seat. Pharisees, as you may recall, had a penchant for chief seats. Jesus once said that when you're invited to a banquet, don't take one of the "big" chairs, that is, don't flaunt your social rank. Sit in the back and let the host recognize you.

Notice Matthew rubbing his red, swelling eye? Peter punched him as the argument heated up along the road to Capernaum. I'm pretty sure that Peter thought he was the greatest. When they settled in the house, Jesus asked why they got into fisticuffs on the road. The disciples went mute, embarrassed or ashamed or stubborn, who knows?

I don't think USAmerican discipleship training ever elicits fist fights and the reason is we have trivialized and cheapened discipleship. The best we have is a fill in the blank workbook. For example,

"In Mark 9: 36 what did Jesus use as an illustration of his teaching?"

_____________________ [the answer: a child] Ooooooo. Isn't discipleship fun?

Jesus had something deep and wide in mind; he was out to re-train our whole way of life when he said, "Sit down. I'm going to train you now."

The child was chosen not because he or she was cute, or innocent, or 'precious', or trusting. The child was chosen because the child had no rank in the culture. No influence, no vote, no power, no say-so about who's in charge. Jesus was saying, "If you're going to fight, fight for the lowest place in the social order. Become the slave of all." That's just not in our DNA.

We start out early training children just the opposite. "How many stars did you get for your memory verse work?" "Seven, and Billy only got five! I'm better. I get a chiefer seat!"

But the plot doth thickeneth! "Taking [the child] in his arms, [Jesus] said to them, 'Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.' "

What?!

Jesus takes the cultural rank of the little child as well as trains his Twelve to do the same. This can't be. This goes against the whole kit and kaboodle grain! But like the late night cable TV commercial, "Wait! There's more!!" Ponder these words: "...and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

The one who sent me. "Jesus, you've got to be kidding!" Are you saying, "God takes the powerless, vulnerable, weak rank of the child?"

Welcome to the new definition of "messiah." Welcome to a re-imaging of God.

No wonder we would just as soon fill out our neat workbooks and call that 'discipleship.' Because our discipleship is just the thinnest veneer over our American way of life.

Jesus' Impaired Miracle

Imagine that the 5000 "men" and the 4000 "men" that Jesus fed with bread and fish each had a wife and, let's say, two children. That would mean that Jesus fed to complete satisfaction some 36,000 people. The disciples picked up a total of 19 basketfuls of leftovers (I know there are two different words for "baskets" in Mark 6 and Mark 8).

Soon after these two startling miracles the disciples fuss about not having any bread in the boat. In an exasperated, classic understatement Jesus asks the Twelve, "Why are you talking about having no bread?"

Jesus goes on, "Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear" (Mark 8:18)?

These questions are bracketed between two miracles: Jesus heals a deaf (and speech-impaired) man and Jesus heals a blind man (see Mark 7:31-35 and 8:22-26).

Ben Witherington III quoting Hooker points out that the healing of the blind man (in stages) is "an acted parable." The blindness (and the deafness) of the disciples is in view. The unconventional process in the "once I was blind, but now I see" miracle has three peculiarities: 1) Jesus asks about the effectiveness of his touch (Mk 8:23), 2) the man reports only a partial healing (Mk 8:24) and 3) Jesus touches the man again and restores full, excellent sight (Mk 8:25). No other miracles in the Gospels contain these peculiarities. It's Jesus' impaired miracle.

Discipleship is more about seeing than about knowing. Contemplate Jesus' (shortest?) parable in Luke 6:39. The theme is blindness. Then note Luke 6:40. A student when he or she is fully trained (not taught) will be like his or her master/teacher. Our ailment isn't not knowing, but not seeing. Do you remember Jesus' question to Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7? Jesus asked, "Do you *see* this woman?"

Will we admit our own impairment? Do we see beyond the obvious and ordinary to the eternal and extraordinary when we see Jesus...and others?

"Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus..."

Un-Sweetened Jesus

Sweet Jesus.

Sweet little Jesus boy.

"My Sweet Lord."

There's an indie film titled "Sweet Jesus." You can get a "my sweet Jesus doll." It's so cuddly.

A sculptor caused a religious uproar by crafting a naked, 6-foot crucified Jesus out of chocolate! Talk about sweet!

The last adjective that comes to my mind to describe Jesus is "sweet." Having rummaged around in the four Gospels for some years now, I can think of a lot of good adjectives for Jesus, but sweet leaves a sour taste in my soul.

I prefer Salty Jesus. And I don't mean salty as in "salty language" (profanity). Jesus was high potency salt. He even describes his followers as "the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13). Why do we try to be "sweet" people?

You don't call someone who terrifies the daylights out of you "sweet." Jesus terrified his disciples numerous times---"It's a ghost!" they screamed. He terrified people in Decapolis by casting out a "Legion" of demons. Jesus created fear in the lives of lots of people.

You don't call someone who irritates the daylights out of religious people "sweet." The religious leaders of Jesus' day had a lot of adjectives for Jesus---demon-possessed, mad (crazy), deceiver, bastard, fraud. I don't think "sweet" ever entered their minds. "Let's kill him" did enter their minds. Do you want to murder "sweet" people?

Let's leave the word sweet out of our Jesus vocabulary. Let's keep it for Grandma, grandkids, tea, nice guys and the hip epithet "Suuuue-eeeat!"

For Jesus, I like "holy," "agitator," "rebel-rouser," "courageous," and "gutsy."

I know. "Salty little Jesus boy" just doesn't have...what?...that sweetness.

Jesus the Trouble-Maker

Galilee and Judea were a fireworks warehouse and Jesus was a flame-thrower.

From one perspective, Jesus was a trouble-maker. For the "don't rock the boat" crowd, Jesus danced in the canoe. What is a trouble-maker?

Anyone who instigates change will be viewed as a trouble-maker. Anyone who questions the way things are because of a vision of the way things can be will be called a trouble-maker. Anyone who knows "the pecking order," but does not peck or allow his followers to peck in their proper places will be called a trouble-maker. Anyone who knows where the boundaries are and then lives like he doesn't care where the boundaries are will be called a trouble-maker. Anyone who is not threatened by the powers that be will be viewed as a trouble-maker.

Gandhi was a trouble-maker. So were Rosa Parks, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Ignaz Semmelweiss, and Erin Brockovich.

Jesus was a destabilizing reality. He, in the shadow of Jeremiah, came "to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow" (Jeremiah 1:10). Some even thought Jesus was Jeremiah (see Matthew 16:14).

One of my favorite teachers, "Prof" Howard Hendricks, use to say, "All true learning takes place only after you are thoroughly confused." Trouble-makers confuse us and, in that sense, serve us. We so easily petrify in our views, in what appears to us "to be right."

Have we so sanitized Jesus that it seems sacriligious to us to see him as a trouble-maker? The Roman Empire did not crucify "nice guys." They crucified trouble-makers.

Jesus Blew Their Minds

Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!
Mark 4:41.


These words were uttered (perhaps screamed) in panic. The disciples were terrified. As Jewish boys, they feared a great fear.


For a while they were afraid of the sea as it was whipped into a deadly frenzy by the fierce winds off the eastern heights of Decapolis. Now they were terrified of the alien in the boat with them.


"What kind of a man is this...?!" What category do we put him in?


They had categories for all kinds of men: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, lepers, tax-collectors, soldiers, emperors, Gentiles, Samaritans. But what kind of man is this? They had no category for a man who commands winds and waves and those winds and waves instantly obey.


Jesus blew the disciples' panicky minds.


Yet, as good Jewish boys, I think they had an inkling of who it was in the boat. Read the section of Psalm 107 below. Who does in Psalm 107 what Jesus did in the boat?


Psalm 107
23 Some went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters.

24 They saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.

25 For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves.

26 They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away.

27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards; they were at their wits' end.

28 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.

29 He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.

30 They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.


Who is in this boat with us?! Could it be the Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel?!

For our own spiritual health Jesus must become alien to us or we will not know him as he truly and fully is.