Sermon on Lectionary, Mark 9:38-50, 26th Ordinary, Year B for Sept. 27, 2009

Mark 9:38-50

Spare Body Parts

neck-sized millstone in Capernaum

There are many things that are odd and jarring about this morning’s gospel text. Of course the images of little ones stumbling, millstones around the necks of sinking people, and body parts being cut off and poked out are disturbing But so too is the combination of these sayings that begin with a an unauthorized exorcist and end with reflections on salt. What do these odd teachings mean? what do they mean together? and what do they mean to us here today? are our questions. I believe that they are indeed meaningful, even powerful, and we need the message here, so let us look at the text together.

First let us notice this: these teachings begin with the problem of the unauthorized exorcist, a problem person, and end with the words “be at peace with one another.” The theme that links these odd sayings is our common life together; how to live in such a way that we will be a community of shalom – or peace and wholeness between each other.

Picture the setting

What do you think about when you think of the word “church”? I’m assuming that you well might imagine a local church, like this one, viewed from the outside – a pretty, tidy building set on a well-kept suburban lawn, sporting a pointy steeple – right? – Well, stop thinking about it that way.

Now think abut this: picture a room in a small house in the evening; it’s dim, lit by a small oil lamp on a table around which a dozen people are crowded. These are the the disciples at Peter’s house in Capernaum. This is the beginning of the Jesus movement that eventually will become the church. But right now, it is a group of people who have attached themselves as followers of a preacher-teacher-healer-exorcist-wonder-worker named Joshua – or in our language, Jesus.

They are there with him in that room trying to understand what this whole thing is about; it is crucial to them to comprehend. They have left their homes, their sources of income like the fishing business, and have risked being seen with someone who could get them all killed by the Romans, on the one hand, or get them all excommunicated from their own faith. Nobody wants to end up on the wrong end of a Roman sword – or cross – nor suffering in hell. The risk these people were taking was enormous on both counts.

Why risk body and soul?

Why would they take it? Because they saw and heard in Jesus, a radically new understanding of God – what God is like, what God expects, and what it means to be a part of the people of God.

The central need we have today is the same: we all want to know God, what God wants and expects of us, how to be in a right relationship with God, how to experience life as God intends for us to live it – and also what it means to be a part of his family – the community of faith.

This is so much deeper than thinking abut what it means to be a part of a local church today – in worship or in a committee meeting; let’s keep our minds on what those people in that dim room in Capernaum were focused on: it’s the root question – what does God want from me?

The Coming Fire

Jesus was a deeply spiritual person who spent long hours alone with God the Father, and as the unique Son of God, had a connection with God that we can barely grasp. That being said, however, it did not take a prophet to see what was coming in Jesus’ day: the fires of revolution had already been started, and more was certainly on its way. The whole area was ready to burst into flames of rebellion and war, and Jesus knew it. He even predicted it, and of course we all know that it happened with ruthless Roman finality.

So, when that core group of followers gathered around that table, Jesus was not teaching them rules of etiquette – how to be polite to each other, or even Roberts Rules of order for their coming meetings. Jesus was preparing his people to be a radically transformed community. They were going to be in danger – they were going to need each other; they were going to be “salted with fire.” They had to learn how to be the family of God for each other. It was a matter of survival.

How about us? We live in quite different times. Most of our needs are met by sophisticated social institutions: pension funds, health care systems, well-run , safe communities. We are a long way from that dangerous, dimly-lit table gathering in Capernaum.
And yet the truth is that we cannot survive living in our nice suburban homes alone, can we? We were created to live in community. We do need each other at a level that is so deep that it goes to our very core. We were created for life together. Loneliness is a huge problem in our culture, and the TV remote and the computer mouse in our hands sometimes just makes the problem worse. We need to know that we are loved and cared for by real people, who know us as we really are, accept us as we are, and who are there for us in our good and our bad moments.

Jesus’ teaching is about how to be the community of shalom – of wholeness, of healing and of peace – the kind of community that will be nurturing and health-giving. The opposite is so frequently found: many communities of people become toxic. Relationships become poisoned; the group only makes each other more diseased the more they meet. Some families are toxic – certainly some churches are – and that is nothing short of tragic. There is another way to be.

How to be a community of shalom

So how do we become a community of shalom, instead of a toxic group? First, in the way we refuse to divide up the world into “us vs. them.” This is the point of the unauthorized exorcist teaching. Was there someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name who was not part of the inner circle? Apparently so. But Jesus did not see the world as “the authentic ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ the bad guys.” Was that other exorcist trying to help people overcome evil? Well then, leave him be. Don’t be so quick to castigate people who do not join your club. God is bigger than that: we need to be as well.

So, if that’s how we respond to outsiders, the question is, how should we respond to insiders; to each other in this radically new community of shalom?

First, the millstone saying: the measure of our authenticity is our willingness to go out of our way for our weaker members. The little ones cannot be overlooked – in fact, they have to be specially cared for. The weaker members of our community, those who cannot protect themselves are the objects of our special concern. We wold no more overlook their needs than we would tie a millstone around our necks and jump overboard. No way; this community is known not by how well our leaders are pampered but by how well we watch out for the little guys among us.

Hand-chopping & etc.

No community is perfect, of course, because humans are not perfect. In other words, to be perfectly frank, we sin. We do things we know we should not do – we sin with our intentional acts – pictured as our hands. We would often rather have the TV remote in our hands than a serving spoon or a hammer, or even a telephone when a call is needed, to go out of our way to help someone in need. What should we do about hands that cause us to sin?

We are often found walking our well-worn paths of comfort and safety, of low-risk and of entertainment instead of walking to places of uncertainty and need where we could bring hope and help – and so we sin with our feet. What should we do with feet that cause us to sin?

And we are quite prone to sinning with our eyes: seeing things that shine and thinking, “I need it.” Seeing things that would increase our pleasure, our comfort, our entertainment, and overlooking the suffering and pain that is obvious in our world. What should we do with eyes that cause us to sin?

Lots of sin goes on among us. What are we to do with all these sinners in this shalom community? The toxic community uses its standards of behavior as justifications for judging and condemning each other. Fingers are pointed, accusations are made, rumors circulate, criticism abounds, bitterness follows, parties and factions take up positions, form alliances, and disease and rottenness are the result.

The Jesus-community of shalom is radically different. The sword of judgment in our hands is wielded by ourselves, only against ourselves, never against each other. In this community, I am not worried about your hands, your feet, or your eyes – I am worried about mine; my sin is what I am to be ruthless about. My responsibility in this radically new shalom community is to be hard on myself; to admit my own hypocrisy – because no, I do not live up to the standards that I publicly affirm. I am to look at the man in the mirror, to not believe my own excuses, to stop the denial and the drop the pretense. The sword of judgment in my hands is aimed only at my sinfulness; it is not for anyone else. We are not a community of execution, but of examination.

Salt and Shalom

There are communities that survive, but do not thrive – like meals that may keep you alive with nutrition but which taste like prison food – like unsalted burgers. We are meant to be a community that blesses each other when we come together – like a well seasoned plate of steamed veggies. Our gatherings should bring us in contact with the God who loves us and with real humans who can be his instruments of healing and love – his hands, his feet, and his eyes. We are hard on ourselves so that we can be sources of shalom for each other, and for our community.

Self-evaluation

So, this odd teaching does lead us to a moment of reflection. How are we doing?
Are there changes we need to make in how we spend our time? In what we give our hands to do? Do they hold the remote more than they fold in prayer or hold the hand of a hurting person?

Are there changes we need to make in where we go? Are we stuck in habits of taking the path of least resistance? Are we going to where we can hear God speak, hear him instruct us, and where we can minister a cup of cold water in his name?

Are there changes we need to make in our eyes – what we allow to seduce us into acquiring? Are we looking squarely at the pain that exists right around us and that presents itself on our TV screens as we see the daily news?

And if we have high standards of behavior for the use of hands, feet, and eyes, are we using those standards to be critical of ourselves, or are we judging others?

This text is critical and serious – and designed to create a community that we desperately need the church to be; a community of the experience of God’s presence; a community of shalom – wholeness – healing – peace.

Sermon for Sept. 7, 2008, Ordinary 23, Matthew 18:15-20

The Hatfield Clan

The Hatfields, the McCoys, and the Christians

The feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys is part of American folk-lore now.  It was just after the Civil War in the back country of West Virginia and Kentucky.  It started – well there are several versions of how it started – perhaps over a pig.

Whose pig is it if it’s on my property?  The issue was really whose property is it?: a land dispute.

The fight over the pig and the property went from the woods to the court house and then back into the woods where the first dead body fell.

Between 1880 and 1891, the feud claimed more than a dozen members of the two families.

How are we supposed to respond when someone sins against us?  Of course the Hatfield and McCoy method is bizarrely extreme, but what are the alternatives?

One summer when I was in college, I had a little house painting  business.  I was giving an estimate to a lady who had a son about 10 years old.

As we walked around the house she complained about the previous painter’s work.  Her son kept saying, “Just sue him mom, sue him for all he’s worth.”

I have read that every law suit is a triumph: it is a victory of civil society over vigilanteism and vengeance.  I agree, but does that mean every suit is justified?

How are we supposed to respond when someone sins against us?  What is at stake in our choice of responses?

And one more question: what is the spiritual relevance of this discussion.  If we are not murdering like the Hatfields and McCoys in our quest to get our needs met, aren’t we on safe grounds with God?

There are several important issues here – and we need this text.  But let me start here.

Christianity puts a lot of emphasis on forgiveness.  Next week we are going to hear Jesus speak strongly on that subject.  But we start the discussion here for an important reason.

This thing that we are a part of together – the church – is not what it appears on the surface at all.  Look at us: we look like we could be having a Rotary meeting or a Town Hall forum.

But something is going on here that is far more significant.  We are a community of people whom God has called into being.  We are not just friends, we are now a family, brothers and sisters of the same Father.

God has brought us together into this family for an enormous reason: we are the point of his spearhead into a world of evil.  We are meant to be demonstrating by our life together what God is able to accomplish.

We are not just people who heard the Good News of the gospel and responded; nor are we simply people who have the Good News to share with others.

Rather, we are the church: the family of God: the people whose relationships with each other are a demonstration of the power of the Spirit of God.

We are not just a community: we are an alternative community, standing out as light does against the darkness, showing what it means that redemption is real.  This is what this text is about.

Let’s look at this text closely:

1.  Bad things happen

First, a reality check:

We start with the fact that in every community, friction happens:

15“If another member of the church sins against you

The “if” can also be translated “whenever” – it happens.

2.  Response can be pro-active

The next word is crucial: “go“.  Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche accused Christianity of being a slave religion because it taught people to forgive and turn the other cheek instead of defending themselves.

Is that what Jesus taught?  Should battered wives just keep silent?  Should victims suffer while perpetrators go free? Forgiveness is a huge topic and Jesus has a lot to say about it, but the conversation starts here:  When someone sins against us, we do not have to remain passive.  We can work to bring justice to the situation.

3.  The goal is restoration, not revenge

So, bad things happen, we do not have to be passive, we can act, so now notice something huge: the goal of our responsive action is always restoration, never revenge.  Listen again:

15“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.

The goal of our responsive action to being wronged is never to punish for the sake of personal satisfaction – that is called vengeance – and it is just as true whether the method is the Hatfield and McCoy strategy or the legal law suit.

Are we against all lawsuits? No; as we said, they are civil society’s alternative to the vigilantes and the Hatfields.

But the primary function of a lawsuit is to hold people responsible: when they become merely a tool for seeking  vengeance the motivation has become evil.

And this easy evil of revenge in the courts hurts us all.  One of the huge contributing factors to the astronomical rise in health care costs is the price of legal vengeance in the courts – and we all pay for it dearly.

But let’s get back to the point.  The goal is to “regain” the one who wronged us.  The goal is restoration.  Why?

This community called the church  puts a high value on  relationships.  It is not a light thing that there is a conflict in the family.

• Neither side to the conflict is dispensable.
• Both are made in the image of God.
• Both have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.
• Both have come to know his loving mercy: it is of highest importance that we find a way through our conflicts – for to do otherwise denies far too much of what we believe.

Implication:

• If God loves you, can I not?
• If God has forgiven you, can I not?
• If God has adopted you into his family, you and I are in the same family – neither of us wins if one of us does at the expense of the other.

Can you imagine how a father would feel if two sons fought and the winner came to him and proudly announced his victory? The father would have cause to grieve, not to celebrate.

So, to this point, this text has taught us that yes, conflict happens, and that when it does, we do not have to stay the victim; we can respond, but that our response is always for restoration of family relationships, never for revenge.

4.  The Community is affected

Sometimes it is impossible to accomplish restoration alone.  So the next thing that this text says is that there are times when the community has to get involved.

16But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church;

The mechanism for this step is not spelled out in detail, but I want us to see the underlying assumption here: conflict in the family is a concern of the whole family, not just the parties to the conflict.

Conflict happens, and when it does, the community, the family has a stake in the outcome.  There are no disinterested parties.  If the conflict is not resolved, we all loose.

Why?  Because, again, we are the Church.  We are that alternative community in which every one of us has personally been touched by grace and experienced mercy.

Of all people on the earth, we are the ones who have the capacity NOT to be a toxic family of poisoned relationships.

And if we ever fail, the failure is not just of a pair of people to reconcile, it is a failure of our family to be who we are in Christ; and that failure is huge.

5.  There is a limit

So, when conflict happens, it affects the entire community.  But what do we do when the conflict seems to be interminable?  What if one of the parties simply refuses reconciliation?

Pause: life is complex and this small text cannot consider every possible situation.
Is an abused wife supposed to go for more if the church is satisfied that the abuser has repented?  We all know that it is far more complicated than that.

But most human conflicts are about pigs in the woods.  Most of them are about:

• getting our feelings hurt;
• feeling snubbed,
• being insulted,
• feeling put down.

These are the vast majority of our family fights.

In these cases, the only reason reason a person would have to refuse reconciliation is simply pride.

And here is the problem:

• if a person has no intention of living as a member of this alternative community;
• if a person’s pride is so strong that they will not show mercy,
• if a person is content to live with a permanently poisoned relationship and will not apply the antidote,

then, there is a limit to what the community can take.

Too much is at stake to allow a poisoned person to make the whole family toxic.

17… if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

In other words, an outsider.

There is a deep irony here – and I’m sure Matthew intended it.

Those two terms, tax collector and gentile, are formulaic; they are slang that everyone recognizes for the “bad guys who are not in our group and not like us.”

And yet Matthew has already narrated for us the stories of Jesus accepting tax collectors and gentiles into his new alternative community.  (8:5-13; 9:10-11; 15:21-28)

The irony is that the door is open to this family of radical relationships, but there is a door.

The tax collectors and gentiles are able to receive grace and mercy; they are not excluded; but when they do, when they come in the door, then they must be people of mercy in return.

Jesus prayed a prayer that is as alarming as it gets, that sums up all that we have said today.  In what we call the Lord’s prayer, he says, “Forgive us our debts, AS we forgive our debtors“.

That “as we forgive” scares me.  Forgiveness and reconciliation are never the default position.  But to this we have been called.

And look at the affect of that call.  We have the opportunity to live into a family of radical mercy and reconciliation.  What an alternative to the small, dark, miserable family of Hatfields or McCoys.

Conflicts happen: and because they do, and because resolving them is so crucial, it is in the context of resolving conflicts that we get this promise:

20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Do you think resolving conflicts is important to our Lord?

He reserved his promise of being present among us to the moment in which he was instructing us about conflicts – those times when he feels the most absent.

Conflicts happen; but God is present in them to teach us how to be god-like: to be a radically alternative family of reconciled relationships: the church!   Praise be to God!