Cut It Out! - Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

 Cut It Out!

Pentecost 18B (Lectionary 26)

September 26, 2021

Good Shepherd, Wells, MN

Mark 9.38-50

Last week, we reminded ourselves that we are on a journey with Jesus, just like the disciples are. Just as they were on the way to Jerusalem where Jesus will be betrayed, tried, crucified and resurrected, and Jesus was teaching them the way of discipleship, so have we been learning the way of Jesus. Jesus’ words these last few weeks, this week, and the weeks to come will continue to push our limits of ability to hear, like the disciples, because we are reminded that the way of Jesus is hard, which should not be surprising to us.

Also last week, we discovered that Jesus wants us to pay attention to voices that we might ordinarily miss or ignore. He uses the example of a child, reminding us to look for guidance at the margins of life. In a similar vein, in today’s Gospel reading Jesus reminds his followers, and us, to not be so arrogant as to believe that God can only work through us. He reminds us that we don’t somehow have it all figured out, that we are not the only bearers of truth. God can and does use other Christians, people of other faiths, and even those of no faith

But it’s the passage about cutting off body parts and going into hell that I’ve been pondering this week. Before I get to that, I want to say a little bit about Jesus’ use of hell and the other disturbing images in today’s reading. Long story short, nowhere in the Old Testament does it talk about hell, especially as a place of eternal torment. The term sheol actually refers to the place of the dead; that’s it. Those images of hell as a place of eternal punishment came into existence in the intertestamental period, the time between the Old and New Testaments, and got picked up by those religious leaders that Jesus has such a problem with, the Pharisees. More importantly, it’s important to know that a vast majority of the early church fathers denied this new doctrine. Rather, they favored universal salvation. However, like the Pharisees, the doctrine of hell as eternal torment was used by church leaders who wanted to control parishioners and used the threat of hell to do so.

So, why is Jesus using this language? I believe it’s to get our attention and say, “This is serious stuff.” And, if I may be a bit crass, Jesus is saying in today’s lesson, “Cut it out!” But, I’d like to go deeper into the text and play with the image of being maimed, cutting off body parts. To cut to the chase, if we took this text literally and were to cut off a body part every time we caused someone to stumble, we wouldn’t be able to walk, feed ourselves or see where we were going, among other things.

What do we do? The reality is that we need to recognize we are all spiritually maimed because, in fact, we cause others to stumble, but what we do and what we fail to do. We are walking wounded, having damaged ourselves as much as we have damaged others, even though we may look whole on the outside. When I was a young store manager I fired one of my sales ladies, Nadine, because I found she’d lied on her application. I used it as an excuse to do what I didn’t have the guts to do otherwise because I hadn’t been satisfied with her work. Though I was well within my rights to let her go, it was not the right thing to do, and certainly not a good witness for Christ. I’ve carried that wound with me for over 40 years and wish I could go back and change it. Maybe you have similar regrets.

Where does that leave us? Is there any good news? It’s helpful to me to remember that even Jesus enters heaven maimed. After the resurrection, when Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room, he still has the scars of the crucifixion on his hands, feet, and side. So, through Jesus Christ and his grace, our scars are being redeemed and can be used for healing. I can’t go back and fix what I did to Nadine, but I can do better. Since then, whenever I’ve had to let someone go, I’ve made sure I’ve done everything in my power to help that person succeed and that letting them go is a last resort. But, I’m not the hero in this story; Jesus crucified and risen is.

The cup of water we can offer our thirsty world comes from a well of suffering, both ours and God’s. We who follow the way of Jesus know what it’s like to be thirsty, to find refreshment in God’s love and share that love with others. This is serious and important business, which is why Jesus tries to get our attention in these teachings. Jesus invites us to look around, perhaps find those who are already doing this work and join in with them. God be with you, fellow wounded healers on the road in this life as you bring refreshment to a thirsty, hurting world. Amen.

For the video version of the sermon click here.

Childlike Hospitality - Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Childlike Hospitality

Pentecost 17B (Lectionary 25)

September 19, 2021

Good Shepherd, Wells, MN

Mark 9.30-37

In the first five years of my life we lived in St. Louis Park, west suburban Minneapolis, and we became friends with the Fleming family. It was easy because our moms were stay-at-home, they lived two doors down from us, and we had children of similar ages. Although we would move to South Minneapolis. and eventually suburban Richfield, and they would move to suburban Hopkins, we stayed in touch with them, getting together once or twice a year, often at Thanksgiving time. When we ate together, since there were 13 of us, there was an “adult table” and “children’s table.” As you can imagine, those children at the children’s table longed for the day when they’d be promoted to the adult table.

The status of children is at the heart of Jesus’ lesson on discipleship in the Gospel reading today. We have been traveling with Jesus and his followers on the road to Jerusalem and as he goes to meet his betrayal, crucifixion, death and resurrection, he has been teaching them the way of Jesus. If you’ve been on that journey with us, you know that they have been baffled by Jesus’ words. As New Testament scholar C. Clifton Black says, “They are so dense that light bends around them.” Unable to fathom Jesus’ predictions about his mission, they prefer arguing among themselves to asking questions of Jesus.

What are they arguing about? Greatness. We don’t know precisely what they were arguing about. Perhaps who was Jesus’ favorite and right hand man or, perish the thought, who was going to take over when Jesus dies. Now, this is not unusual for 1st century Middle Eastern men, as status was everything for them. But, what we do know is that Jesus takes the opportunity to tell them what true greatness is about. And here Jesus does one of those topsy-turvy, stand expectations on their head kind of thing. He says that true greatness comes from serving others.

To make his point, he puts a child in their midst and says they need to welcome others like this child. Now, similar to relegating children to their own lower dinner table, but far more extreme, children had no status in Jesus’ time, not until they became adults at age 13. Children were little more than property and weren’t to be seen or heard. Jesus is inviting his followers to look around at those people who don’t have any status or standing, those at the margins of society that no one takes seriously, those who appear disposable. Who are they? Jesus frequently mentions tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, and lepers, among others, as worthy of attention.

In Canoeing the Mountain, Tod Bolsinger uses the Lewis & Clark Expedition to find a Northwest Passage as a framework for understanding the challenges facing the church today. Lewis & Clark believed they could canoe their way to the Pacific Ocean. That is, until they hit the mountains. They had no expertise for the way ahead and everything they thought they knew was useless. So, they did something unheard of: they listened to a voice at the margins, a young Native American mother named Sacagawea, who helped them find a new way forward into uncharted territory.

This week Good Shepherd has officially entered the interim period as you prepare for the calling of your next pastor and that work, along with pandemic recovery, may prompt some “Make Good Shepherd Great Again” feelings. But, as we walk this road together, Jesus invites us to remember the measure of true greatness is not in how many people are in attendance or how much people are giving, though those two things are important. Rather, true greatness is measured by how we share with others, how we care for others, how we love others and how we serve others, as well as how well we pay attention to those others that we may be missing from our table.

The lesson of the children’s table, the child in the midst of the disciples, and Sacagawea remind us that there are voices at the margin that are missing from the table and need to be included as we move forward. I am excited about the possibilities that face Good Shepherd and the work we will be sharing. We may not know the way forward, but we do know that the One who walked with those first bumbling, clueless followers also continues to walk with us, prodding us to service, strengthening us to do it, and forgiving us when we fall short. Thanks be to God! Amen.