Before I received news of my father’s death and had to fly off to Pennsylvania, I had just organized my thoughts for the upcoming Sunday sermon. I also had this problem of how to do a writing for next week while not being here. Knowing neither the world, the church, nor our congregation would wither without such a piece, I settled on writing out my sermon for the weekly writing.
This sermon will not be as good as the those gathered in worship or gathering around the live feed heard on Sunday, 9/26, from Pastor Terry . I say this not out of humility, but from theological understanding and pastoral experience. Sermons are not meant to be read, but to be heard. Heard, they are more relational. They have a better way of touching our mind and our heart. Watching people listen to sermons, I am aware that though they may be silent, even fidgety at times, there is a certain dialog in play. Listeners of sermons are not mere passive vessels being filled. They are active participants in what is God’s proclaimed Word.
Mark 9:38-50
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Christianity is not a low sodium enterprise. At least it is not according to Jesus. “Have salt in yourselves, “ Jesus tells his followers. “ Be at peace with one another”.
This seems hard to do as right before Jesus says, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off” The same goes for your foot.. It sounds like the Sharia Law we accuse all Muslims of wanting. Were this true, none of us would be walking, reaching, or seeing.
This seems to be just shock treatment talk by Jesus to gain attention from a group of disciples who seem to insist they and only they are very special….elite in fact….in terms of their relationship with Jesus, and therefore with God. It sounds a lot like those scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees to me. You know, the ones whose attitudes more than their laws, Jesus seemed to want to change.
We Christians may be special to God in terms of God thinking all God’s creatures are special. However, we have no special status, no elite club membership with God. We need to remember; God is not a Christian. God is a creator, redeemer, sustainer, revealer, actively breaking into human lives and the world as God…as working through but also above Christianity and the Christian faith. God neither ignores nor despises others. God can even, in God’s own good way, work through and use those outside the church, outside the faith.
If they are not against us, they are for us. Have you seen this in your life? Have you seen people outside the church yet having some respect if not for the church and its mission, at least having respect for Jesus?
When our son was born, we took him to a pediatrician. The doctor was Hindu, from India. Interestingly both in India and Chicago he was taught in Lutheran schools. He could quote the Bible better and more accurately than most Christians. He continued to study it and often had questions for me in addition to parenting tips on raising an infant and, later, toddler son. He was not at all “against” us.
Likewise, a Jewish psychiatrist in the state hospital in which I received my certification. Constantly he would quote the New Testament as well as the Old. We had a discussion on the text about getting a camel through the eye of a needle, and so on. He would ask us, his mental health disciples, if you will, what we thought was going on with a patient. As clergy in waiting, he would ask how we might engage our faith or the tools of faith in reaching out to a particular patient.
I have experienced the same with many rabbis. At our monthly campus ministry meetings at Arizona State, I frequently find myself agreeing with the rabbi more often than some of my Christian colleagues. Neither the psychiatrist nor the rabbi seemed at all against us.
Have salt in yourselves. Don’t be easily threatened by that or those that may be different. A willingness to talks and question might surprise us in how much we may have in common despite many times, obvious differences.
Gandhi also comes to mind…influenced by many including Tolstoy and his writing about the Kingdom of God, he was also influenced by Thoreau, not an atheist, but not exactly an orthodox Christian, either. There was also Martin Luther King, Jr., in turn, greatly influenced by Gandhi. Many have recognized those not against us, are, in many ways, for us.
Have salt in yourselves. St. Thomas Aquinas, whom we Lutherans seem to think of as “their saint”; that is a saint for Romans, while we identify with St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa as, “Our saint” that is for Lutherans and Protestants….after all Luther was an Augustinian friar in the tradition and learning of St. Augustine.
Aquinas talked about salt. Aquinas said, “Salt seasons and preserves beef, not because it is like beef, but because it is very unlike it.” Christ did not tell his followers that they were only the excellent people or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people. That is, we are called to do exceptional things….we are called to do deeds that are the exception and go against much of the grain of the world and of what is often considered successful and will make one stand out and be elite.
Christians are not to be elite. To be elite is to have no peers. As such they work to convert all to be exactly like them. Those not with them are against them and in need of being pushed down and shoved out.
Nazis and communist groups are excellent examples of so-called superiority. Those who are superior do not serve; they are served. That is not the call of Jesus; that is not the call to have salt in ourselves.
Until recently we Americans understood our system of government as being intentionally adversarial; that is a type of loyal opposition of give and take, insuring no one group dominating would be dangerous. All groups have something to bring. They may be against somethings, but not against people having such different positions.
Now such opposition is seen as being disloyal, un-American, even traitorous. All not with us are against us. We see how that has gotten us.
We Christians are not the only ones who can identify demons and work to cast them out. Isn’t the world a better place with more exorcists working for the kind of healing
God desires?
Have salt in yourselves. Be at peace with one another. God doesn’t want us to lose limbs, God wants us to use them. Amen.