Do your actions help or harm the work of the Spirit?

Many early Christians believed God was already at work preparing each nation for the Gospel in its own unique way, a reality they called praeparatio evangelica. Everywhere Christians went, they found realities conducive to the Gospel, things as varied as Greek philosophy, native Roman piety, Germanic ideas of honor or Egyptian interest in life after death. One essential task of an evangelizer was to find those parts of a culture in which the Spirit had already taken hold.

The very beginnings of this idea appear in this Sunday’s Gospel reading. Belief in the good news had outpaced the actual efforts of Jesus and his disciples. Many who had never heard the Gospel preached had still learned enough about Jesus secondhand to be ready to act with great kindness when they finally met. Likewise, an exorcist none of them had ever met was successfully delivering people through Jesus’ name. Some force beyond human effort was drawing people to believe in and testify to Jesus’ power.

Mark was writing to a community in distress, and examples like this reminded them that Christ’s victory was inexorable. Success was not dependent on the disciples; the Spirit was the primary motive force. The disciples had only to provide the words that helped new believers understand their transformation. Though the Christian community might experience persecution, the divine mission would not end.

Disciples could forget this role in pursuit of their own agendas, and these hindered the Spirit’s work, as the second part of this Sunday’s Gospel reading attests. Some of those who believed in Jesus through secondhand information actually met a stumbling block (the literal meaning of the Greek term skandalon) when they met “real” evangelists. The Spirit’s subtle work needed only the words of the Gospel for it to take full effect, but the words and behaviors of “actual” Christians could be so out of sync with Christ that they could hinder the Spirit’s work.

Mark thunders against such disciples. Better for them to go through life blind or lame than to continue to squelch the faith of simple, kind people impressed with news of Jesus. It is important to remember that this Gospel passage continues Jesus’ response to the disciples’ quarrel over who was the greatest, which the church read last week. It is against such pride that Jesus here counsels eye-gouging and hand-chopping. When Matthew relates the same tradition, he applies it to sexual sins (Mt 5:27-30), but Mark’s Jesus applies it to pride and scandal. The thirst to be the greatest, and the actions that flowed from such pride, must have been at the root of scandals in his own community.

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God is constantly at work in the Spirit, preparing a people for the Son to lead. Our job as disciples is relatively minor; we teach the words of the Gospel to affirm and build up the work God has already initiated. When we live our discipleship for any other reason—status, security, power over others, wealth, a need for affection—we run the risk of hindering God’s work just as surely as did the quarreling disciples.