Pentecost 19 10/15/06 Text Mark 9:38-50 Title: Circles and Salt
Pentecost 19
Date: 10/15/06
Text: Mark 9:38-50
Title: Circles and Salt
“Teacher, said John, we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." With that statement John exposed his soul to Jesus.
Jesus responded to him by telling John, “Do not stop him. No one who does miracles in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.” Now that is not exactly the answer that we would have expected from Jesus is it?
Jesus’ words might just sound a little weird to us, for we all have praised God’s name and then later misused it. So how can that be? What we are thinking is not what Jesus is talking about. He is telling us that as long as good is done in his name, it is giving him glory and we are not to judge the right or wrong of it.
We thus should not worry so much about whether or not someone’s faith is true and their motives are pure when they are doing good in God’s name. That is what we should do, but we don’t do we? We look upon those outside of our faith, and unfortunately even some within our faith with a skeptical eye, especially if we know about their past. You know how it is, we hear that someone has changed from a life of crime, or alcoholism, or drug abuse, or whatever it was that they were doing, to dedicating themselves to the Lord’s work, and we go, “Yeah, right, let’s just wait and see.”
Instead of being glad that Jesus is active in their lives, we wait for them to fall, to show that they we were right, that it was all sham. That is the way we are, and the question that needs to be answered is, “Why are we that way?” Why is it that deep down we want someone who has done sinful things in the past but who now professes faith in Christ, we want to fail?
I believe there are a least two reasons. One is that we are not living our faith as we know we should, and so we do not like it when someone is living their life to the glory of God. Second, we do not like it because we think just like the disciples that day that they are really not part of the inner group of God. You know, we are the only people, maybe the only denomination that really understands the Word of God. And just like the disciples we are so proud of ourselves.
This trying to stop somebody that we consider not part of the chosen ones was nothing new even in Jesus time. There is an incident recorded for us in Numbers 11: 26, where the young Joshua called out, “Moses, my Lord stop them.”, after he found out that two of the people that were supposed to have been at the tent of the Meeting, but chose not to go, for whatever reason, had also been given the Spirit of God. It just was not right. They were not at the tent. They had not taken the trouble to go. They were outside the group, so they should not be prophesying. No sir, it is just not right.
Jesus knew what was happening with his disciples that day. He knew that they did not yet truly understand his message of love and forgiveness in their quest for greatness. And he knew that in their doing so they did not realize that they were separating themselves from Jesus.
The same thing goes on today, not only between Christian denominations, but in Christian congregations as jealousies and self-righteousness start to pop-up. It can happen all kinds of ways. A person might be selected to do a solo rather than another, and all of a sudden a circle is drawn, with some inside and some outside. One person gets recognized for doing something outstanding for the Lord, and circles are drawn with some inside and some outside. Preferences for worship and hymns are made known, and circles are drawn with some inside the circle and others put outside the circle.
Everyone has preferences, I do, it is just the way we are as people. The problem is that in our preferences we forget that we are a communion of people. When that is forgotten, circles are formed whether it is in the congregation or synod.
When that takes place in a congregation or synod, it shows that the people making those circles are labeling people either worthy or unworthy of being in the circle, just like Joshua, and the disciples did. Who had also forgotten that God does the choosing, and there is only to be one circle in his kingdom, the circle of salvation.
That is why Jesus, lays down the law when he tells us in his Holy Word that if a body part causes one to sin, they need to cut it off. Now God does not mean that we are to literally cut off our hand, foot, or gouge out an eye, for those are controlled by our sinful minds, the minds that naturally want to sin against God.
What he is telling us that we cannot be of the world and him. We must be slaves to his will, otherwise we will more than likely go straight to hell when we die. He is dead serious. You must rid yourself of what is causing you to sin.
You will have to excuse me, but I just remembered a story that I heard a long time ago. It is suppose to be a true story, but I don’t know if it is or not. It seem that there was a man who was arrested and brought before a judge for stealing. The evidence against him was pretty conclusive so he attempted a rather unusual defense. He said to the judge. I didn't steal it, my hand did. To which the judge thinking he had him said, “All right, your hand is sentenced to 30 days in jail.” The man did not even protest, but reached down and took off his artificial right hand, asked for a receipt and walked out of the court room.
Now that is pretty funny, but God doesn't treat sin as being funny. No God is serious when he said that it is better to lose a hand, foot, or eye rather than your soul. For as I said earlier, Jesus does not want us to literally cut off our hand, or a foot, are gouge out an eye. He does not want us to maim ourselves, but there are things in each one of our lives that we need to cut out. You know, those purposeful sins, the sins that put our soul in danger, for when we do them we are purposely breaking God’s law and are not repentant. Not a good thing.
If someone is having an affair or living with someone they are not married to they have to cut it off.
If someone is drinking too much they must cut it out.
If someone is sneaking around looking at pornographic magazines or looking at porn on the internet they must cut if off.
If someone is gossiping, they must cut it out.
If someone is holding a grudge, they must cut it out.
If someone is not honoring their parents, or those in authority, they must cut it out.
If someone is labeling themselves as either being a religious conservative, or a religious liberal. This behavior needs to be cut off.
Now that might surprise you that I have included that in the list of sins that need to be cut off. It made the top ten, because the labeling of self and others in this manner is harmful to the body of Christ. It is exactly what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel reading for this morning. Just as he told his disciples, he is telling us, “You are wrong when you think that way, for anyone who is doing good in his name cannot be against us, (notice the us) for they are giving glory to my name.”
I realize that what I have just said might have been painful for some to hear, but when the righteous words of God’ Law are spoken to us, they split us wide open, exposing our soft underbelly of pride and self-righteousness.
Now that hurts. It hurts so bad that we scream out for relief from our pain. That is when Jesus comes along and does the strangest thing. He pours salt into our wounds, the salt of his word, death, and resurrection.
We all know that salt burns when it is poured on an open wound, but that is regular salt, not God’s salt, for God’s salt purifies, heals, and preserves. Jesus used the metaphor of salt because the Jewish priests would pour salt on the sacrificial fires to purify it. Salt was also used, and is still used to draw the blood out of meat, because the Jewish people were not allowed to drink blood or eat anything with blood in it.
So you can see that salt meant a lot to the people of Jesus day, much more than to us today. But Jesus still tells us today, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
When a congregation has been truly salted by the Word of God there cannot be any excluding circles within a congregation and when there are no circles there is peace.
There is peace, because of the realization that it is not our job to draw circles. It is God’s job and the problem is we cannot see the boundaries of his circle, for his circle includes all that confess him to be their Savior.
Our job is to rest at peace in the knowledge of God’s forgiveness, and the promise of the bodily resurrection. That is our job, it does not include drawing our own circles.
. In closing let me say this, “Pass the Salt” for this is one salt, unlike regular salt, that you cannot get too much of. God’s salt gives peace, and when you have peace God’s circle greatly increases, because that is when others see what it truly means to be a Christian. Amen
Date: 10/15/06
Text: Mark 9:38-50
Title: Circles and Salt
“Teacher, said John, we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." With that statement John exposed his soul to Jesus.
Jesus responded to him by telling John, “Do not stop him. No one who does miracles in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.” Now that is not exactly the answer that we would have expected from Jesus is it?
Jesus’ words might just sound a little weird to us, for we all have praised God’s name and then later misused it. So how can that be? What we are thinking is not what Jesus is talking about. He is telling us that as long as good is done in his name, it is giving him glory and we are not to judge the right or wrong of it.
We thus should not worry so much about whether or not someone’s faith is true and their motives are pure when they are doing good in God’s name. That is what we should do, but we don’t do we? We look upon those outside of our faith, and unfortunately even some within our faith with a skeptical eye, especially if we know about their past. You know how it is, we hear that someone has changed from a life of crime, or alcoholism, or drug abuse, or whatever it was that they were doing, to dedicating themselves to the Lord’s work, and we go, “Yeah, right, let’s just wait and see.”
Instead of being glad that Jesus is active in their lives, we wait for them to fall, to show that they we were right, that it was all sham. That is the way we are, and the question that needs to be answered is, “Why are we that way?” Why is it that deep down we want someone who has done sinful things in the past but who now professes faith in Christ, we want to fail?
I believe there are a least two reasons. One is that we are not living our faith as we know we should, and so we do not like it when someone is living their life to the glory of God. Second, we do not like it because we think just like the disciples that day that they are really not part of the inner group of God. You know, we are the only people, maybe the only denomination that really understands the Word of God. And just like the disciples we are so proud of ourselves.
This trying to stop somebody that we consider not part of the chosen ones was nothing new even in Jesus time. There is an incident recorded for us in Numbers 11: 26, where the young Joshua called out, “Moses, my Lord stop them.”, after he found out that two of the people that were supposed to have been at the tent of the Meeting, but chose not to go, for whatever reason, had also been given the Spirit of God. It just was not right. They were not at the tent. They had not taken the trouble to go. They were outside the group, so they should not be prophesying. No sir, it is just not right.
Jesus knew what was happening with his disciples that day. He knew that they did not yet truly understand his message of love and forgiveness in their quest for greatness. And he knew that in their doing so they did not realize that they were separating themselves from Jesus.
The same thing goes on today, not only between Christian denominations, but in Christian congregations as jealousies and self-righteousness start to pop-up. It can happen all kinds of ways. A person might be selected to do a solo rather than another, and all of a sudden a circle is drawn, with some inside and some outside. One person gets recognized for doing something outstanding for the Lord, and circles are drawn with some inside and some outside. Preferences for worship and hymns are made known, and circles are drawn with some inside the circle and others put outside the circle.
Everyone has preferences, I do, it is just the way we are as people. The problem is that in our preferences we forget that we are a communion of people. When that is forgotten, circles are formed whether it is in the congregation or synod.
When that takes place in a congregation or synod, it shows that the people making those circles are labeling people either worthy or unworthy of being in the circle, just like Joshua, and the disciples did. Who had also forgotten that God does the choosing, and there is only to be one circle in his kingdom, the circle of salvation.
That is why Jesus, lays down the law when he tells us in his Holy Word that if a body part causes one to sin, they need to cut it off. Now God does not mean that we are to literally cut off our hand, foot, or gouge out an eye, for those are controlled by our sinful minds, the minds that naturally want to sin against God.
What he is telling us that we cannot be of the world and him. We must be slaves to his will, otherwise we will more than likely go straight to hell when we die. He is dead serious. You must rid yourself of what is causing you to sin.
You will have to excuse me, but I just remembered a story that I heard a long time ago. It is suppose to be a true story, but I don’t know if it is or not. It seem that there was a man who was arrested and brought before a judge for stealing. The evidence against him was pretty conclusive so he attempted a rather unusual defense. He said to the judge. I didn't steal it, my hand did. To which the judge thinking he had him said, “All right, your hand is sentenced to 30 days in jail.” The man did not even protest, but reached down and took off his artificial right hand, asked for a receipt and walked out of the court room.
Now that is pretty funny, but God doesn't treat sin as being funny. No God is serious when he said that it is better to lose a hand, foot, or eye rather than your soul. For as I said earlier, Jesus does not want us to literally cut off our hand, or a foot, are gouge out an eye. He does not want us to maim ourselves, but there are things in each one of our lives that we need to cut out. You know, those purposeful sins, the sins that put our soul in danger, for when we do them we are purposely breaking God’s law and are not repentant. Not a good thing.
If someone is having an affair or living with someone they are not married to they have to cut it off.
If someone is drinking too much they must cut it out.
If someone is sneaking around looking at pornographic magazines or looking at porn on the internet they must cut if off.
If someone is gossiping, they must cut it out.
If someone is holding a grudge, they must cut it out.
If someone is not honoring their parents, or those in authority, they must cut it out.
If someone is labeling themselves as either being a religious conservative, or a religious liberal. This behavior needs to be cut off.
Now that might surprise you that I have included that in the list of sins that need to be cut off. It made the top ten, because the labeling of self and others in this manner is harmful to the body of Christ. It is exactly what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel reading for this morning. Just as he told his disciples, he is telling us, “You are wrong when you think that way, for anyone who is doing good in his name cannot be against us, (notice the us) for they are giving glory to my name.”
I realize that what I have just said might have been painful for some to hear, but when the righteous words of God’ Law are spoken to us, they split us wide open, exposing our soft underbelly of pride and self-righteousness.
Now that hurts. It hurts so bad that we scream out for relief from our pain. That is when Jesus comes along and does the strangest thing. He pours salt into our wounds, the salt of his word, death, and resurrection.
We all know that salt burns when it is poured on an open wound, but that is regular salt, not God’s salt, for God’s salt purifies, heals, and preserves. Jesus used the metaphor of salt because the Jewish priests would pour salt on the sacrificial fires to purify it. Salt was also used, and is still used to draw the blood out of meat, because the Jewish people were not allowed to drink blood or eat anything with blood in it.
So you can see that salt meant a lot to the people of Jesus day, much more than to us today. But Jesus still tells us today, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
When a congregation has been truly salted by the Word of God there cannot be any excluding circles within a congregation and when there are no circles there is peace.
There is peace, because of the realization that it is not our job to draw circles. It is God’s job and the problem is we cannot see the boundaries of his circle, for his circle includes all that confess him to be their Savior.
Our job is to rest at peace in the knowledge of God’s forgiveness, and the promise of the bodily resurrection. That is our job, it does not include drawing our own circles.
. In closing let me say this, “Pass the Salt” for this is one salt, unlike regular salt, that you cannot get too much of. God’s salt gives peace, and when you have peace God’s circle greatly increases, because that is when others see what it truly means to be a Christian. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 11:54 AM
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