Salted with Fire - A reflection on Mark 9:38-50

Salted with Fire & The Worm that does not Die - A reflection on Mark 9:38-50 

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark presents us with a series of teachings from Jesus that are challenging, and at first glance, even unsettling. On first reading the passage gives the impression of supporting the doctrine of eternal hell, but on closer inspection one might actually question whether this is really the case. 

The passage begins firstly with the disciples encountering someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but this person was not part of their group. The disciples are deeply concerned by this, but Jesus responds, “Do not stop him… whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:39-40).  This is in fact quite a wide embracing statement.  

It is a reminder that rather than constantly looking at what may divide us from others, we should instead look for those things that unite us and bring us together. Instead of looking for enemies like the disciples, we should be looking for friends in the eyes of those who we perceive as outsiders.  That is certainly what Jesus seems to be suggesting in this passage. 

The words of Jesus in this passage also seem to point out that God’s work is not confined to a single group or tradition; it transcends our little narrow, closed boundaries, our denominations, and our human-made divisions. Jesus suggests that in God’s vast and inclusive love, all who act in love, even those we might consider outsiders, are part of the divine plan.

For us, this is a reminder that the love of God is at work in places and people we may not expect. It’s a call to recognize and to celebrate the diverse ways in which God’s grace is manifest in the world. ‘Whoever is not against us is for us’. 

These are important values to us as Non-Subscribing Presbyterians – Divine truth can ultimately not be bound up in doctrines and creedal statements that end up dividing and excluding… What is more important than trying to fit ourselves and others into neat little doctrinal boxes, or in trying to decide who is in and who is out, is rather to live out the Way of Christ’s love in the world and being willing to see truth shining through in traditions that are even different from our own.  If a Catholic, a Muslim, a Jew, or a Buddhist had to tell us that the sky is blue, are we to disagree with them simply because they are different from us, not one of us?  Of course not.  The sky is blue… no matter who the one is who points it out. 

In the second half of the passage, the writer of Mark’s Gospel has Jesus make a shift to some strong warnings about sin—stumbling blocks, cutting off hands, plucking out eyes, and being cast seemingly into the fires of hell (Mark 9:42-48). These images are jarring, and they remind us of the seriousness of sin, in other words, of those ways which cause harm to others through our falling short from the way of love. But what are we to make of these hyperbolic statements, these exaggerated statements in light of God’s love? Surely Jesus is not asking us literally to cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes?

Those who believe in Eternal Hell would see in this passage the warning that if we are not careful, we will end up suffering in the fire’s of hell for all eternity.  A superficial reading of this passage would give that impression.  “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell where ‘there worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’.  That seems pretty straightforward doesn’t it?  If you sin, you will be thrown into the fire’s of hell for all eternity? Isn’t that what is is saying? 

But the original Greek does not actually use the word hell. The word that is used is the word gehenna, which referred to the rubbish dump outside of Jerusalem where rubbish was burned. 

What also do we make of the very next verse, verse 49… “Everyone will be salted with fire.”

Aren’t the fires of hell meant to be reserved for the rebellious sinners of this world? But this verse says very clearly that ‘Everyone will be salted with fire’.  That’s the interesting thing about this verse. It is not just the sinful and the rebellious that are said to be salted with fire, in verse 49 we read that ‘everyone will be salted with fire’. 

Another clue comes in the word salt.  Everyone will be salted with fire. 

Salt in the ancient world was both a purifying and a preserving substance.  It suggests that the fire which Jesus is referring to is not the fire of eternal hell and damnation, but rather a purifying fire that all of us will need to pass through as we journey ever deeper into God’s kingdom of love.  

Is it perhaps that the unquenchable fire referred to in this passage is the purifying fire of God’s love that nothing can quench, that nothing can put out, that burns and burns and burns until all the rubbish and the impurities in our lives are burned away? 

Is it possible that the warnings of this passage are also the warnings of the suffering we bring upon ourselves when we live in ways that are inconsistent with the ways of Divine Love. When we wonder off the path of Divine Love, it is not without painful consequences like a hiker or climber who strays off the mountain path and finds him of herself in treacherous difficulty.  

But even the sufferings we bring upon ourselves through our failures in love are all part of the unquenchable fire of Divine Love that will ultimately purify us and burn away the rubbish from our lives and draw us back to God in the end. 

From this perspective, the fire that is not quenched, represent the ongoing, relentless process of divine correction and transformation—a process that ultimately leads us all back to God. 

But what do we make of that reference to the worm that does not die?  It all sounds a bit gruesome?  Is this supposed to be a picture of hell where peoples decaying bodies are eaten by worms while they are suffering in the fires of hell for all eternity? 

What if the worm that does not die is in fact a metaphor referring to the gnawing away of our conscience that will not let us rest until we have finally come clean with ourselves and with God, and indeed sometimes with others as well.  Is it perhaps a reminder that it is not possible to sin in peace?  Like a worm that gnaws away at a peace of wood, no-one will ultimately be able to escape the gnawing away of the conscience that God has placed in every human being.  

We may ignore it. We may rebel against it. We may pretend that it can be silenced. We may try to cover it over.  But in the end, it continues to gnaw away within us, until we come clean. Until we are absolutely honest with ourselves, with God and with others.  The worm that does not die is therefore in fact a good thing, for it is that within us that will finally draw us back to God. For when we have come clean, we will find true and lasting peace as the fires of God’s love burns away the muck and rubbish in our lives. 

And so as we reflect on this passage today, it does not have to be read as a terrifying warning of the dangers of eternal hell but rather a warning and a reminder of the hells we create for ourselves and others by our failures in love. Ultimately it might also in fact be a reminder of the unquenchable, purifying love of the Divine—a love so powerful that it seeks out every lost sheep, every prodigal, and will not rest until all are drawn back into the embrace of God’s Pure and Infinite Love. 

Just some food for thought on a difficult passage… a passage that does carry stern warnings in it, but a passage that does not necessarily have to be read as referring to eternal hell. Maybe there is something more subtle and profound being communicated here. 

And so in closing… May we live as people of this unquenchable love—embracing the world with the love of God, being ready to see the light and love of God in unexpected places, even in people who are not the same as us or part of our group. And in doing so may we become agents of God’s  transformative grace in the world, being the salt that purifies and preserves all that is good, holy and sacred in the world. Amen.