Sermon of October 1, 2006

26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark 9:38-50
October 1, 2006

Have Salt in Yourselves

A few weeks ago I was having dinner in the home of a church member. Her two young sons regaled us with their dinnertime conversation and demonstrated their very best manners. One showed us his latest art projects and even (liberated young man that he is) his knitting. I had the impression, as I always do after seeing this family in action, that these very lively and intelligent boys are growing into strong, sensitive, and compassionate disciples of Jesus Christ.

Following dinner, as the boys were occupied in another part of the house, the adults in the dinner party began to lament the present state of the world.

The occupation of Iraq, which has disintegrated into civil war and has become a training ground for terror for all parties – American, Sunni, and Shiite.

The quickening pace of global warming and the slothful response of industry and government. (The very fact that our City Commission can even contemplate partnering in the building of a yet another coal-burning power plant is all the evidence we need of stupendous short-sightedness.)

The growing tension between the world’s great religions and the violence perpetuated in God’s name.

The list could be much longer. Most disconcerting of all was the remark one person made to this effect:

"I’m feeling more and more isolated in my own faith. The Christianity I try to practice – the kind that encourages tolerance and good will toward all people, the kind that fosters grace and generosity, the kind that calls me to take care of God’s creation because it doesn’t belong to me – that kind of Christianity seems to be declining. And another kind of Christianity – the kind that endorses war and turns a blind eye to torture, the kind that fosters homophobia and foments hatred, the kind that condemns people to hell just because they aren’t Christian – that kind of Christianity seems to be on the rise. I’m almost ashamed to be known as a Christian – not because I’m ashamed of Christ, but because I’m ashamed of my brothers and sisters in Christ."

On my way out the door my hostess issued me a challenge. "Preach a sermon sometime about hope," she said. "Give us parents a reason to keep trying. I for one need an encouraging word."

That’s what I hope this sermon does, but if all you hear in it are my words, it won’t be much help. I want you to hear Jesus’ words to you. I want you to put your trust, and your hope, where it belongs – in the Triune God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Let me set the scene for today’s Gospel reading. Ever since that watershed episode in Mark’s eighth chapter, when Jesus told his disciples he must go to Jerusalem, suffer rejection, die, and rise again, the disciples have been trying to figure out what that means. They’ve been trying to live into this brave new world of God’s reign on earth – dipping their toes into the sea of God’s kingdom, you might say. The disciples sense that they are the chosen ones, the special ones God has elected to begin this journey ahead everyone else. The problem is, their own sense of "specialness" is blinding them to the nature of God’s kingdom.

In today’s passage the disciples come across people who are using Jesus’ name without actually committing themselves to his lordship. They run back to Jesus like children off the playground, anxious to report.

"Teacher, Teacher! We saw someone casting out demons in your name. We tried to stop him, of course, because he doesn’t belong to us, but he just kept on doing it. We told him. We said ‘Umm! We’re gonna tell the Teacher.’ He’s in trouble, isn’t he, Teacher. Really bad trouble!"

"Leave him alone," Jesus says. "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Who ever is not against us is for us."

Jesus kindly declines to mention an earlier episode when the disciples failed in their own attempt at exorcism. But here they are trying to stop a successful exorcist because he doesn’t have a union card. He’s not part of the inner circle. The issue isn’t that this maverick is misusing the name of Jesus. The issue is, he’s helping to bring in the kingdom and the disciples aren’t getting any of the credit.

Tell him to stop it, Teacher. Tell him he’s got to belong to the club. Tell him he’s got to be a proper Christian to do that kind of thing.

So this is the first word I that young mother to hear: Even when the church behaves badly, even when we fail to be the kind of disciples Jesus would be proud of, God is at work. Our hope is in God, not in the church.

Following last October’s devastating earthquake in northern Pakistan, Church World Service and other Christian organizations sprang into action. Church World Service works with indigenous churches and is careful not to provoke delicate sensitivities in predominately Muslim regions. They feed the hungry and house the homeless in the name of Jesus Christ, but they don’t do it by sounding a trumpet ahead of them.

Not every Christian relief organization works that way. One organization offered huge rolls of plastic sheeting at a time when sheeting was rare and desperately needed. The director of Church World Service for the region asked to see the sheeting for himself. The group’s representative brought him a two-inch sample. "No," he said, "Roll out the whole roll for me to see."

The plastic was unrolled. It was covered with crosses, in violation of the international code of conduct that all non-government organizations working in that region had pledged to follow. That’s the kind of cheap trick that gets Christians killed in certain parts of the world these days. Would it have been so terrible to house people under plastic sheets that didn’t bear the trademark of the church?

Jesus didn’t go to Jerusalem, suffer, and die, and rise again to establish a franchise. He did it to show God’s love for the world. He did it to inaugurate the kingdom of God, which turns the old order upside down. Suppose that unnamed exorcist should enter the kingdom of God ahead of Jesus’ disciples? Didn’t Jesus say that the last will be first, and the first last?

Whoever is not against us if for us.

God is bringing in God’s kingdom by whatever means God chooses. Every cup of cool water offered to the thirsty, every hungry person fed, every vaccination administered, every law established to protect the poor from exploitation is progress toward the completion of that kingdom. God’s reign has already dawned, and will come to fruition in God’s good time. We disciples are to look for signs of that dawning kingdom, and where our vision fails, to trust God’s love, which never fails.

Until that kingdom fully arrives, we live in the meantime. At moments in the meantime it seems that the world is making no progress at all. It seems we’re slipping backwards. Even brothers and sisters in Christ seem stuck in the same patterns Jesus came to break.

"Sometimes I feel discouraged," says the old African spiritual. Sometimes the Promise Land seems a long way off.

But here’s the second word I want that young mother to hear: Keep working. We’re not called to success, but to faithfulness.

In the rest of this passage Jesus turns the spotlight on the disciples. With an almost savage frankness he tells them to attend to business. Don’t let anything distract you. If your eye offends, pluck it out. If your hand offends, cut it off. If your foot offends, cut that off too. The kingdom’s coming, and if you have to limp over the threshold, one-handed, one-footed, and one-eyed, that’s alright.

This is an excellent example of ancient middle eastern linguistic hyperbole, but surely we get the point. The kingdom doesn’t depend on us. It’s coming to fullness whether we take part in it or not. Our job is to be salt and light and leaven in the lump. We can’t control the ups and downs, but we can live faithfully in the meantime.

"Have salt in yourselves," Jesus says, and be at peace with one another."

Perhaps this generation will be like Moses, standing on the mountaintop, able to see the Promised Land, but unable to cross over. Perhaps we’re in a valley just now, and all we can see is the sun rising over the crest of the mountain. Isn’t that enough? Have salt in yourselves. Keep at it.

Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my works in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.

Presbyterians are wonderful folks, but sometimes we think too much. Maybe we should hold one less panel discussion and hold a revival instead.

Truth be told, that’s what we do every Sunday. We hold an old-fashioned, earth shaking, rafter-rattling revival, even if it is done decently and in order. We gather round this table, we break bread, we pour wine, and we pray for God’s kingdom to come. More than that, we say, "Lord until your kingdom comes – not if – until. "Until your kingdom comes, keep us faithful to your promise."

Fred Craddock, now retired as a teacher of preachers, tells this story about his own father.

My mother took us to church and Sunday school; my father didn't go. He complained about Sunday dinner being later when she came home. Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father would say, "I know what the church wants. Church doesn't care about me. Church wants another name, another pledge, another name, and another pledge. Right? Isn't that the name of the game? Another name, another pledge." That's what he always said.

Sometimes we'd have a revival. Pastor would bring the evangelist and say to the evangelist, "There's one now, sic him, get him, get him," and my father would say the same thing. Every time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of somebody being hurt. And always my father said, "The church doesn't care about me. The church wants another name and another pledge." I guess I heard it a thousand times.

One time he didn't say it. He was in the veteran's hospital, and he was down to 73 pounds. They'd taken out his throat, and he said, "It's too late." They put in a metal tube, and X-rays burned him to pieces. I flew in to see him. He couldn't speak, couldn't eat.

I looked around the room, potted plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards twenty inches deep beside his bed. And even that tray where they put food, if you can eat, on that was a flower. And all the flowers beside the bed, every card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.

He saw me read a card. He could not speak, so he took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare. If he had not written this line, I would not tell you this story. He wrote: "In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story."

I said, "What is your story, Daddy?"

And he wrote, "I was wrong."*

Have salt in yourselves, brothers and sisters. Don’t give up.

*Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, eds., Chalice Press, 2001, p. 14.

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