Too much of a good thing - August 14

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 89:1-18; PM Psalm 89:19-52; 2 Samuel 13:23-39; Acts 20:17-38; Mark 9:42-50

Last week, several people gathered at my home to harvest the honey made by Saint Stephen’s bees.  Our resident beekeeper had retrieved eleven supers (boxes filled with honey) and brought them to my house, about a mile from the hives.  There was an interesting and gloomy cloud cover that evening and it probably kept all of the honeybees from finding us.  This was the first year of harvesting where the bees actually left us alone. 

However, the next day, word had gotten out.  There was free honey on the carport of the Burruss household and thousands of bees had returned to clean up the mess.  Bees make honey so that they have a source of food in the winter.  Often, when there is residual honey from a harvest, it is found in the bottom of a big bucket or found pooled on the low point of the driveway.  We did a much better job this year up this year, but there still was small number of bees that drowned in honey.  In a honeycomb, there is never more than a little drop without being separated by some wax, but when we have free honey, the bees can’t resist, and they often meet their own demise.

The bees remind us of a profound truth.  The bees come rushing toward something good and necessary for their lives, without self-control, and it costs them their life.  We, humans, aren’t much different. 

I’m wondering what the stumbling block that Jesus talks about in this passage of Mark really is.  When I think of my children, in many of the household battles that ensue, I often give in to trying to make everyone happy.  The kids get what they want, and peace falls upon the house.  An extra dessert, more time on the Xbox, to stay up a little later than normal.  Maybe it's okay within reason.  Most things are.  But there have to be limits. 

It is hard to do what’s right.  Maybe that’s why today’s Gospel is so difficult, but I’m wondering if the stumbling block might be our own resistance to put boundaries and limits on all of the good things that desperately need a limit.  Too much of a good thing will kill you, or at least a honeybee.

 John+

Questions for Self-Reflection:  What are things that you enjoy that you should do less of?  What are the stumbling blocks in your own relationship with God?