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BREAKTHROUGH
(Open-ended, Life-centred Explorations of the Weekly Gospels for Home Groups)
MK 9: 38-50...Sunday, October 1st, 2006

NOTES: 1] vv.44 & 46, perhaps repetitions of 48, may be missing from your version. 2] One suggestion about the contradiction between v.40 & LK11:23 where Jesus says the opposite is that the first applies when Jesus (or the church) is under attack, & the second when he / it is on the attack! 3] Jesus probably intends his listeners to understand 'little ones' as widely as the 'poor in spirit' of MT 5:3 4] Gehenna, hell, etc. refers to a valley outside Jerusalem  where human sacrifice once took place, & where garbage burned! See  2CHR 28:1-3, 33:1-6, & JER 7:30-33, 19:4-6, & 32:33-35.

WARMING UP: Would the threat of being drowned scare us more than being burned, or vice versa?

TREASURES OLD & NEW:  Identify God at work in anything this week?

ENTERING INTO THE STORY:

38-41   How do we feel when we see someone claiming to 'do things' in Jesus' name, when to the best of our knowledge they're not a church member? What about people who do something we know we ought to have done without claiming any connection with Jesus? Which is worse - they doing the something, or us not doing it? Or is Jesus so out of fashion these days that no-one's likely to 'do things' in his name? Not even us? Does, "anyone who's not against us is for us" work, do you think? Or is it just a nice idea? What about when Jesus is reported in LK11:23 as saying exactly the opposite? How do  we make sense of, or live with such contradictions? (See N.2 above.) Has anyone ever done anything really nice for us because they knew we're a Christian? Have we ever done something nice for someone else specifically because we knew they were a Christian? Might they / we have done whatever it was if that were not the case? 

42-48   Who do we recognise as today's 'little ones'? What 'stumbling blocks' are we putting in their paths? How do we respond to the kind of language Jesus uses here? Not quite the kind we'd use in a nice church like ours? Is it allowable for us to see things in such colourful terms as Jesus does as a 1st C. Middle Eastern human being? Is that a non-negotiable part of the 'being a Christian' deal? If so, who says so? What if  seeing / expressing some things differently alters the thrust of the Gospel? What kinds of things can we legitimately re-interpret in terms of our own times and world-views? Or is it all set in concrete? In which case, would that be a stumbling block, or would that be a stumbling block!?
 
49-50  Might some suggestions made by Eduard Schweizer [The Good News According to Mark, SPCK, 6th Impression, 1981, p.200] about the possible mean- ings for 'salt' here: '...common sense, love for neighbour, wisdom in the end-time, fellowship at table, or simply a symbol of peace' help us to 'enter into' what Jesus says here? What about 'self-sacrifice'? Can we think of other possibilities? Whatever we opt for, how can we keep our 'saltiness' acceptable in Jesus' eyes?