Mark 9:30-37

Year B - Pentecost +17 or Energy to Witness ¹⁷

September 20, 2015

Mark 9:30-37

They went on from an experience connecting a compassionate exorcism with prayer beyond a “Do it, G*D” or other form of proof of self-importance. In going on there comes forth a variation on this kind of praying into wholeness.

Jesus teaches about consequences for a life lived in unity and future community. There is a resistance to wholeness so strong that it poisons any who would approach. A hero/heroine’s quest finds it deconstruction of all that has been presumed. It is this forest of thorns that needs passage.

From the outside this cannot be understood. We have a difficult enough time navigating our own journey, much less understand someone else’s. This does not mean, however, that attempts to do so are to be avoided. And here the disciples walk up to the thorny thicket and retreat, asking no questions that would lead them to even more difficult choices/quests.

Rather than ask the Rabbi, the Teacher, the one they claim as Wise, they fall back on an ancient tradition of spoken and unspoken ranking of power. Claims and resentments for claims break into patterns visible to anyone paying attention.

Thus a mysterious parallelism:

A healing prayer is the healing of a child.
The welcoming of a child is welcoming of healing.
A prayer is a child set loose to grow and laugh.