BENEDICTINE REFLECTION (26TH SUNDAY OF YEAR, 9/29/24)
“There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.” (Mk 9:40)
The word scandal, given its widespread appearance in our public life, may have lost some of its original meaning that it carried in passages of Scripture. We know it derived its meaning from the Greek word skandalon, meaning to cause to stumble. Whether that connotes a purposeful tripping up of someone close to us or generates images of more subtle tripwires that are meant to erode our sense of what is right and wrong, the consequences are serious ones. It is precisely this seriousness that Jesus displays, in the form of Semitic hyperbole, in the Gospel. If people are a source of scandal, he declares, better that they have their limbs cut off than to be consigned to a place of eternal damnation.
For many of us today, the warning in the Gospel about causing “little ones” to sin brings to mind the horrific effects of sexual trafficking and child abuse. However, I suggest we connect this Gospel with our other readings for this Sunday and see that they have a common theme of exclusion. In the first reading Moses upbraids his adjutant, Joshua, for insisting upon silencing the voice of two of the elders. Moses knew the spirit of jealousy that had sparked Joshua’s resentment and chastised him for squelching the Spirit. So too in the Letter of James we hear of the harsh judgment rendered to the rich and wealthy who have excluded and oppressed the workers in the fields and the powerless. The wealthy’s corrupt lifestyle of conspicuous consumption has become a scandal, a stumbling stone, for the early Christian community. In another instance of exclusion, we find in our Gospel Jesus admonishing the apostle John for preventing someone from driving out demons because he was in the circle of the followers of Jesus. If he speaks in my name, Jesus insists, he is to be commended, regardless of how different his mode of operation might be from the apostles.
We take away from this the fact that we too often create our own stumbling blocks for those whom we feel the need to exclude. We have seen that done in the turning aside of refugees and migrants. They are taken to be threats and menaces rather than as potential instruments of grace. We also see how the exploitation of children by the pornography industry and the sexual abuse of minors has left a trail, not only of scandal, but of destructive social and spiritual consequences for those who are the victims and perpetrators. The image of the cup of cold water that Jesus in the Gospel passage wants us to carry beyond the boundaries we have imposed, boundaries intended to exclude others, looms as a test of our ability to see people in a filter that takes us beyond our silos and echo chambers.
May we earnestly pray that we will never be the cause of moral stumbling of the little ones—or anyone else. At the same time, may we recommit ourselves to take to heart the example and words of Jesus and think twice the next time we instinctively want to restrict or exclude the diverse range of God’s people who come into our life.