we are one body - 26th sunday B

Scandal comes from the Greek word skandalon.  It means an obstacle along the way which may cause one to trip over or fall.  A skandalon causes the little ones to fall.  The little ones are the mikros in Greek, and generally, they refer to believers whose faith are still weak.  It can include the children, those who are not so learned in matters of the faith, the new Christians for example, those who are not mature enough in the faith. So skandalon is putting an obstacle causing the mikros, the weak to trip over and fall away from the faith.

Why is scandal so serious a sin Christ was so vehement about, that he violently sentenced to drowning those who cause them by tying a millstone around their necks to be thrown into the sea?  Why?  Because something very important for the faith has to be upheld.  And there are two.  What are these?

First, we are one body.  We affect each other.  Our action has consequences not just to ourselves but also to others.  We do not walk alone – that’s what our spiritual director told us in when I was still a young seminarian.  You can say:  Well, this my life. I can do with it whatever I wish.  Yes, you can do with it what whatever you wish, but remember, just remember, your decision affects others.  People you love, people you inspire, people who look up to you as the source of their strength, people who care for you, will be affected.  You do not walk alone.  We are walking with you.  Life is never just about personal happiness. We are one body – the joy of one member is the joy of all the parts, the pain of one member is the pain of all.  Skandalon – we allow the little ones to be discouraged, we allow them to fail, we allow them to look at the faith with disdain.  

The second is the primacy of love over all things.  In the first letter to the Corinthians Paul writes, Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up (8:1).  The background of this passage is the question whether to eat or not to eat meat offered to idols.  Pagan Corinth offer meat to their gods, then some of this are brought home or are sold to market.  The question is can they eat this or not?  

Paul said our reason, our knowledge tells us, yes, we can.  Meat offered to idols is meat offered to thin air.  There are no idols.  You can eat.

But (a big but) there are some among you who are weak in faith and when they see you eating meat offered to idols they will stumble, they will turn away from the faith.  So though knowledge allows, love prohibits, and love is superior to knowledge.

When done on occasion and within limits, smoking is not a sin, the game of chance or gambling is not a sin, drinking is not a sin.  But if I do these things and the young who sees me are encouraged to indulge in these vices exposing them to addictions which they may not control, or in doing these things I make other people suffer, then love must prohibit me.  Love must prohibit us.  Love takes primacy.

So why is skandalon vehemently attacked by Jesus?  First, because we are one body – we affect each other.  Second, because in everything that we do love takes primacy.

We end with the word Gehenna.  Gehenna is a place outside Jerusalem, in a ravine called the Valley of Hinnom.  The place had an evil past.  Child sacrifices were offered there to pagan gods and so it was declared by the prophets and rabbis as unclean. Going there, passing that valley, a person becomes impure.  So nobody goes there, no one stays in that place and it was turned into one big garbage dump.  

To be in Gehenna therefore means to be separated.  To be in Gehenna one chooses to be alone, cutting one’s ties to the community, turning one’s back to one’s family.  To be in Gehenna means the refusal to face my responsibilities to others. Gehenna means to be alone, to be an island, to live in isolation … and as Jesus would put it, to be in hell.