19th Sunday After Pentecost
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 Psalm 19:7-14 James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50 Lectionary 26 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who shares responsibility for the kingdom of God with us. Amen The disciples in Mark are notoriously dense Jesus spends all this time with them doing deeds of power and teaching them the ways of the kingdom of God and yet when a new situation comes along they almost always react with the way of the world. This time it’s John who tries to be teachers’ favorite by tattling on another kid. “Teacher we saw someone cast out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” I can almost see his chest puffing out in self-righteous pride while Jesus makes a gesture of consternation. Face-palm they still don’t get it… The disciples have given in to the all too human propensity to create insiders and outsiders despite the fact that Jesus’ ministry has been concerned with breaking down those barriers. In fact Jesus’ ministry has been to those considered outsiders by the world, just last week Jesus taught the disciples who to welcome by bringing a small child into their midst. So, with the patience of God Jesus tries again to get his message across to the disciples, Don’t stop people like this guy, he tells them because no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. What concerns Jesus the most is the spread of his message to as many people as possible and he will do anything to spread the message, eating with tax collectors, touching lepers, crossing the sea to the gentiles. Even sharing the responsibility with others. Jesus has commissioned the disciples to go spread the word, the silly dense disciples who are frequently disappointing yes they have been entrusted with the message- so it’s little wonder that Jesus doesn’t seem too concerned about this stranger doing deeds of power in his name, it means the message is spreading beyond even the disciples Jesus wants as many people as possible to hear the good news that the kingdom of God has come near and that means a variety of ways are needed to get the message across because different people respond to different approaches. For example, the emphasis on the blood and suffering of Jesus in the African American gospel songs doesn’t really resonate with me but it is a source of good news for the African American tradition because the songs originate in the days of slavery when it was a great comfort for the slaves to know that despite what their masters told them about God wanting them to obey, they had a savoir who had suffered just as much as they were suffering. Or, again, the question have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, this question makes me extremely uncomfortable. Yet it has led many people to live a life of faith. What works for me is the message that we are saved by grace through faith as a pure gift from God and that is the message that informs all my preaching and teaching All these approaches have a place in the spread of the gospel what Jesus reacts strongly against are actions that lead to the loss of faith or interfere in the faith of another person, for example the disciples trying to stop the man they saw because he wasn’t a part of their group. And that’s when Jesus starts to sound like an old timey mafia boss, s peaking of hanging millstones around necks before a swim or cutting parts of the body off that cause stumbling. While it seems a little extreme what Jesus is trying to get across to the disciples is the seriousness of the responsibility of discipleship, yes Jesus shares the responsibility with the disciples, with us and that is not a responsibility we should take lightly because while we have the power to help bring people to faith, we also have the power to cause them to stumble, to lose faith and we should take that as seriously as amputation. Jesus really isn’t advocating self-mutilation but his point is that if something starts to get in the way of the good news of Jesus Christ we need to cut it out, if being right is more important than sharing the love of God and news of salvation with the outsiders of society then we might as well go jump in a lake, Jesus shares the responsibility for the spread of the reign of God with us it is a serious task, one that we do not do alone, it is a task shared by the community of disciples Toward the end of this section of teaching Jesus turns his attention back to the community, the one the disciples were so eager to defend, in referring to fire and salt he is drawing on food preparation metaphors, often for something to become palatable it must be cooked, exposed to heat. The community will undergo struggles but that will serve to make them into the best version of themselves, and salt, seasoning is essential to life, we need salt to live and it adds flavor to our food, a community is seasoned by the wide variety of people it encompasses, it needs the seasoning of many different people to sustain the life of the community and add flavor but when many people gather there is the possibility for conflict be at peace with one another Jesus says and welcome others, they add to the flavor of the community even if it’s not an individual flavor we prefer it adds to the taste of the whole dish. Discipleship, is a serious business, like the disciples, we often get it wrong, we get sidetracked by who is in or who is out, we give preference to our own tastes, and yet Jesus still shares the responsibility for the spread of the kingdom of God with us, calling us to be at peace with one another. Offering us grace. Amen
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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