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September 28, 2003; Proper 21, Year B
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

At the clergy Bible study with Bishop Gepert on Monday we read and then discussed the lessons for today.  The method of Bible study the bishop uses is first someone reads each of the lessons assigned for the coming Sunday and then we discuss words or phrases that stand out for us from the readings.  When the Gospel of Mark was read, the phrase that stood out for me was “where their worm never dies.”[1]  That phrase seemed especially appropriate to me on Monday, because we had a “Welchia Worm” crawling around in our computer and my Norton AntiVirus™ program was unable to get rid of it.  Now if you have ever had a “worm” in your computer you know that they can wreak havoc with some of the software programs.  If you are interested in the “Welchia Worm” I have an eight page print out about it (hold up printout).  Well, I am glad to say that after digging deeper I found a savior.  Symantec Security Response has a “Welchia.Worm Removal Tool” and after two attempts of running the tool the “Welchia Worm” is dead and my computer has resurrected from worm hell.  And who says that the Bible is not relevant for today.

The rather dramatic and graphic sayings of Jesus recorded in the second half of our reading from Mark seems to be out of character with the loving and forgiving Jesus of the rest of the Gospel.  What a gruesome sentence for causing someone else to sin: hang a millstone; and by the way the millstone Jesus is referring to is rather large, about four feet tall and three feet in diameter, and was turned by donkeys; (hang a millstone) around the instigator’s neck and throw him into the sea to drown.  And then the prescription of chopping off hands and feet, and the plucking out of eyeballs that are the cause of sin.  Whoa!  Not a very effective recruitment strategy for those who are thinking about becoming a Christian.

What is behind these radical statements of Jesus?  Quite simply, sin was taking yourself out of relationship with God.  For Jesus this was the most important thing in life, maintaining a strong and health relationship with God his Father.  His entire ministry; his whole purpose in being born, living, and dying was to draw people into this relationship.  It was so important, that if you caused another believer to commit a sin, that was a capital offense and the punishment for a capital offense according to Roman law, you would be put to death by hanging a giant millstone around your neck and thrown into the sea.  No hope of a last minute pardon, no chance of escape, thrown into the sea to perish forever.

If sin separates us from God, then get rid of that which caused you to sin in the first place – even to go as far as cutting off a hand or foot, or plucking out an eye.  How is that for stressing the importance of separating yourself from the evil and destructive nature of sin?  There was actually a religion at one time that practiced this type of self-mutilation in its quest to attain purity.

I’m sure that Jesus got the attention of the disciples and everyone else that was listening when he gave this teaching about sin.  While we today may dismiss these remedies for getting rid of that which causes us to sin, we need to realize why Jesus used such extreme examples in the first place.  We are willing to make great sacrifices for that which is importance to us.  Jesus is hoping that our relationship with God is at the top of our “importance list,” so that we are willing to sacrifice sinning in order to maintain a strong and healthy relationship with God.   Figuratively, just as cutting of an arm or leg, separates it from the rest of the body, so sin, cuts us off from our relationship with God.

And what about this place called hell, “where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.”  Not a very inviting place, I must admit.  Did you know that a place like that actually existed in Jesus’ day?  Just outside of Jerusalem is the Hinnom Valley.  It is in this valley that King Ahaz instituted fire worship and performed child sacrifice[2] during the eighth century B.C.  The valley was later declared an “unclean” place by Josiah and it became the garbage dump of Jerusalem where literally worms thrived on the garbage and the trash fires burned constantly sending up plumes of the foulest smelling smoke.  It was this place that Jesus was describing when he referred to hell or in Greek, gehenna.  As Biblical scholar William Barclay states, “Gehenna stands as the place of punishment, and the word roused in the mind of every Israelite the grimmest and most terrible pictures.”[3]   Needless to say, the thought of being sent or condemned to hell drew a most vivid picture in the mind of the listener of the most desolate and hopeless place on earth.   It is the last place on earth, or anywhere else for that matter that anyone wanted to end up in.

Hell, does it exist.  Yes and no.  I learned in Sunday School that hell was down there (point down).  In a way this does have Scriptural support.  Many of you have seen the drawing of “The World of the Hebrews” that depicts the understanding of the world in Old Testament times.  Under the earth is a place in black called Sheol which was believed to be the place of the dead.  In Greek Sheol is called Hades.  Above the world is heaven, the place of God.  What I, and many of us, learned about heaven and hell, as far as being up their and down their, is not really accurate.  To put it in terms that we can all understand, heaven is being in the presence of God and hell is the absence of God.   Not really a place, although we often believe that it must be someplace other than this planet because of all the hell raising or evil that occurs.  Heaven is the place (there I go talking as if we could point to it, heaven is the place) of joy and eternal life, while hell is understood as the place of punishment and the end of life, the place where the worms never die and the fire is never quenched.

The question we are faced with is, if we had a choice where would we rather be.   For us it is obvious or we wouldn’t be here this morning.  We would rather be in heaven.  How do we avoid the place of worms and fire?  Well, it’s like me trying to fix our computer.  I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with it until the Norton Antivirus™ alerted me that the “Welchia Worm” was slithering its way through the circuits of our computer.  So it is with our lives, we don’t always know exactly what is wrong until the Good News is given to us.  It is then that we can begin to realize how slithering we have been living our lives, or in other words, how sinful we have been.  I was helpless to rid our computer of the worm.  I needed, if you will, a savior like Symantec Security Response, to help me do what I could not do on my own.  For us, our savior is Jesus Christ, who when teamed up with the Holy Spirit, provide the necessary power for us to conquer our sins and restore our relationship with God.  It is in that relationship that we can catch glimpses of the kingdom of heaven that awaits us.  A kingdom where, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, “sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.”[4]   It is to this place, this presence of God, that we are drawn.  For this is the place of alleluias, of joy, and eternal life. 

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