“Have salt and be at peace”
Mark 9:38-50 (September 29, 2024)
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The beauty of a franchise operation, like Tim Hortons, is that you can walk into any of their shops, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, order a chocolate donut and a large double-double, and it will be, more or less, the same.
If you want to open a Tims, there are very strict requirements. You will have to prove your financial worth, pass a series of interviews, and be willing to undergo rigorous training.[1] It’s all tightly controlled.
After you’ve opened the store, you must continue to meet a certain standard. There are audits and inspections. They don’t want anything to sully that Tim Hortons brand.
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What’s happening in our scripture reading today is something like that. The disciples must think the church is meant to be a franchise operation. They want to exert control over “who can make the donuts” – who can minister in Jesus’ name.
Who’s allowed to do these healings? What authority do they have? When someone comes along from outside their own tight-knit circle, the disciples get defensive.
“Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”
The disciples tried to stop him. Even though this unnamed disciple was doing Jesus’ work. Jesus’ first miracle, as reported in the Gospel of Mark, was casting out a demon. (Mark 1:21-28) He brought health and healing.
Now, this outsider, a person unknown to the twelve, is doing the very same thing! Notice – he’s not doing it isolation. He’s doing it in the name of Jesus!
See how word gets around? The gospel spreads, the kingdom grows!
Like a seed that’s planted in the soil and, mysteriously, it sprouts and sends up shoots, and soon leaves begin to appear.
The plant grows, though the farmer “knows not how.” “The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.” And then, when the time is right, comes the harvest. (Mark 4:26-29)
According to Jesus, this is how the kingdom works. God’s power of new life is released into the world. And we see signs of it springing up all around us.
We don’t always understand where it came from. But we rejoice whenever we see it. We praise God for the mysterious working of God’s Spirit! The kingdom has power all its own. It does not depend on us.
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The disciples want to put the kibosh on all this kingdom randomness. They’re uncomfortable when things happen outside of their control.
Many of us have this tendency too. I love when things are done a certain “proper” way. You can ask my family about how I load the dishwasher, and my reluctance to allow others to do it differently!
“There’s a right way to do things,” I say. But Jesus calls me to loosen up a bit. Not be quite so restrictive in my outlook that I miss the surprising way God’s kingdom comes.
“Teacher, we tried to stop him. Because he was not following us,” they say. With an emphasis on that little word us. Doesn’t that say it all? He’s not part of our crew.
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Jesus encourages us to have a broad and generous spirit. To acknowledge a kingdom that’s bigger than our bureaucratic regulations. He opens us up to the wonder of a world where God is always at work, and often in surprising ways.
“Do not stop him!” Jesus says. “That’s the last thing I want you to do. Don’t discourage that poor fellow. For no one who does a deed of power in my name will speak evil of me for long. He’s a friend, not an enemy. He’s on our side!
We’re so quick to separate the world into us and them. We, of course, being Jesus’ closest friends. But those other people over there, we’re not so sure. We view them with suspicion. Even when they claim to be following the same Lord.
Does this strengthen the witness of the church? Does it encourage the growth of God’s kingdom? I’m not saying we shouldn’t be discerning about right and wrong. But sometimes we get it all mixed up.
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Do you remember, last week, how Jesus took a child and set it in the midst of the disciples, and told them that “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and not only me but the One who sent me.”
I don’t think they heard a word Jesus said! They’re still caught up in competition, arguing about who’s the greatest. Certainly not that fellow over there. Why he’s not even part of the franchise.
How wrong they are!
And now we come to the middle section of our passage for today where Jesus speaks some of the most difficult words you’ll ever hear. I warned Melita about these verses she’d have to read. Someone over heard that and called this scripture “sobering.” Which it certainly is.
Listen: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me,” Jesus begins. The tone is ominous.
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But who are these little ones? Are they children?
“Little ones who believe in me.” Followers of Jesus, who put their trust in him, but don’t necessarily have everything all worked out just yet. Unlike the disciples, who think they know it all.
Little ones who believe … “Like that other disciple who was trying to do my work. Until you stopped him!” Does Jesus sound annoyed?
Little ones … “Like the person who received the healing and was just beginning to find new life. Until you lot came along!” Can you hear Jesus’ growing anger. He’s not happy with the disciples.
“It would be better for you” … get ready for this … “If a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”
Yikes! He couldn’t be talking to us now, could he?
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What follows are several verses that have to do with cutting limbs off and plucking eyes out. And we don’t quite know what to do with all that. Are we meant to take these words literally?
I would suggest that Jesus does not want you mutilating your God-given gift of a body. I think this is an example of literary hyperbole. A way of speaking that uses exaggeration to get our attention. And it works!
When Jesus says “better to cut your hand off than go to hell,” we all sit up and take notice.
This is a thorny passage and I know I’m treading on dangerous ground. I don’t want you to take it literally. But I would love for you to pay serious attention.
Can I remind you that the kingdom of God is the greatest treasure that you will ever find? It’s the pearl of great price. It’s the field for which you’ll sell everything you have in order to buy. (Matthew 13: 44-46)
The kingdom should be the #1 priority of your life! It’s the one thing you never want to miss. And you don’t want anyone else to miss it either.
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“So listen, you disciples! Quit your petty power trips. Stop being so hard on others who are doing their level best to follow my way.
“Whatever is keeping you from living in the Reign of God, get rid of it!
“Stop trying to be in control. Show some kindness. Exercise humility. Care for little ones, all kinds of little ones. Welcome any who bear my name. Even if they’re not from your clan or tribe or religious denomination.”
Am I going too far? What sins might we need to let go of in order allow the kingdom to come in all its fulness. Who might Jesus ask us to welcome? Perhaps these are questions that each one of us needs to consider personally.
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Next Sunday, we’ll welcome some wayward Baptists to our fold. Just for one service, mind you.
But as we’re together, we’ll gather at the table of our Lord. We’ll remember what he did to draw us into his family. And we’ll celebrate the love of Jesus that transcends all the labels and barriers we like to erect between us.
Yes, we may live our Christian faith in different ways. We may have different customs and practices that we value. But these fade in significance when we recognize our common calling. We are followers of Jesus. We’re little ones, struggling to learn his way.
And so, in worshipping together, we bear witness that God’s kingdom is bigger than any one expression of church. And that our lives are open to the surprising and wondrous work of God.
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But now we come to the final couple of verses, before Mark has Jesus leave that place and continue his journey to the cross.
This section of teaching ends with two things: Salt and peace. “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
When I think of salt, I think of ways Christians are called to be different. Everything that makes us unique.
Be salty people. People who have the Spirit of Christ within them. People who live with joy, trusting God’s grace, seeking justice, practising humility, living with neighbour-love.
Be salty people. Live as Jesus lived.
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And be at peace with one another. Stop this hyper-competitiveness. Serve others as Jesus served. Seek the well being of all. Strive for right-relationship. And where tensions exist, don’t make them worse. But work for reconciliation.
Salt and peace. Aim for that. And let go of all the rest.
The good news is that God is at work in our world, in us and in others. Sometimes the reign of God appears in plain sight. And sometimes it sneaks up and surprises us. We catch glimpses of it in people and places we never expect.
But wherever we find it, and in whomever the life of Christ takes root, we rejoice and humbly give thanks. We are not alone. God is working in our midst! Amen.
[1] https://company.timhortons.com/ca/en/corporate/franchising-program.php, Accessed September 26, 2024.
“The way of the cross”
Mark 8:27-38 (September 15, 2024)
Thursday evening, Lindsay and I were getting ready for our walk. We do that every night. We walk through the neighbourhood. About a half hour or so, just to clear our heads, get some fresh air and a bit of exercise. Half an hour together, at the end of the day, is no bad thing! I don’t know if you remember, but Thursday was a drizzly day. Cloudy and wet. So before we left that evening, I checked the weather on my phone.
These little devices are amazing things! They’re not simple telephones. They give us access to all kinds of news and information. They have different ways of communicating. I can even remotely turn on one of the electrical outlets in my kitchen, so the coffee machine is ready when I get home. It’s incredible!
I opened the weather app. And it said: Light rain for 19 minutes, then stopping. Rain again in 40 minutes. And I said to myself, “That’s pretty detailed information.” I opened the back door and discovered it wasn’t raining at all! And I thought, “Can I trust this weather app?”
Weather is notoriously difficult to predict. “Rain for 19 minutes.” It seems to me like this app pretends to be smarter than it actually is.
It’s a “know-it-all” app. And know-it-alls can be annoying, claiming to know everything about this and that. Even when they don’t.
What we have in our gospel story today is an example of someone claiming to know things about Jesus.
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He’s on a journey with his disciples, travelling through the villages of Caesarea Philippi, a place of shrines and temples dedicated to pagan gods. It’s a teachable moment. And it sparks an important conversation.
Viewing his surroundings, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples respond with rumours they’ve heard. “Some say John the Baptist; and others Elijah; and still others one of the prophets.”
“But you,” says Jesus, specifically asking his closest friends, “who do you say that I am?” Now it gets personal. In matters of faith it always does.
It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks of Jesus. Or what your parents thought of Jesus. Or the church. Or your friends. Or someone who’s written a best-seller, a celebrity on TV. What matters is what you think. Jesus looks at each one of us, waiting to hear what we will say.
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Peter was the first to jump in. “You are the Messiah.” “Messiah” in Hebrew or “Christ” in Greek. Both mean “anointed one.” The one anointed by God.
But now things start to get tricky. Because the common understanding of Messiah was associated with power and strength, the vanquishing of enemies, the establishment of God’s reign by force. The guy with the bigger gun always wins.
Jesus “sternly ordered the disciples,” not to go preaching that! Instead, he offers a radically different vision of who he is and what his life, in service to God, and all humankind, will consist of. If Messiah is the correct answer, it’s not the kind of Messiah that Peter thinks.
How often do we say the right words and still not get it right?
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Peter seems like a pretty smart guy. He’s got an instant answer to the question Jesus asks. But he’s shocked when Jesus begins to push him further.
From that moment on, Jesus “began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Suffering, rejection, death ….
Now hold it right there! Peter can tell this is headed in absolutely the wrong direction. He grabs Jesus and pulls him aside. “Wait, you can’t be serious!”
It’s a cheeky move. Peter, the disciple, trying to correct his teacher. Attempting to re-direct Jesus at this crucial point in the gospel story.
We all have these pictures of who we desperately want Jesus to be. But he does not conform to our expectations. Jesus, the anointed one of God, does not answer to us. We’re not in charge. Jesus will be the Christ that God wants him to be.
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A disciple is supposed to be a learner. A disciple is a student. And these disciples, including Peter, have been following Jesus for some time. They’ve been part of a select group of friends, privileged with easy access and hours of instruction. They’ve listened to Jesus’ teaching and observed his ministry first-hand. But they still don’t get it. There’s still so much for these disciples to learn!
Well listen, isn’t there more for you to learn as well? Or do you have it all figured out? This enigmatic figure named Jesus. The great mysteries of a God who created the entire universe. The complexities of your own personal faith. If you think you’ve got all that sorted, well congratulations! But I think, like the weather app on my phone, you may be a little overconfident.
“Slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.” (John 13:16) We are not the boss of Jesus!
However long we’ve been followers of Jesus, there is always, always more to learn. The church, through the centuries, sometimes gets off track. But Jesus patiently calls us to return. To learn, and re-learn, and try again. To go deeper in our relationship with him. To go further in our journey toward his kingdom vision. We don’t become fully fledged disciples overnight.
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There’s a great story in the Gospel of Mark about the healing of a blind man. It’s only found in this one gospel. And it’s found immediately before the passage we read today. This is no accident.
In the story of healing, Jesus puts saliva on a blind man’s eyes and lays his hands upon him. Then asks, “Can you see anything?” And the blind man answers, “I can see people, but they look like trees walking.” And this is odd. Doesn’t Jesus usually get things right the first time?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_and_the_pauper.jpg" width="282" height="53" />Obviously, this is not going to be an easy miracle. So Jesus lays his hands on him a second time. And now, scripture says, “he saw everything clearly.”
Here’s what I think this story is telling us: The healing of the disciples will be a challenging project. You and me, we are not an easy fix! Jesus touches us once, and we can see – some things, sort of. But our sight is still fuzzy.
Here is Peter, the disciple. And he’s been granted a miraculous insight. “You are the Messiah!” he proudly proclaims. But he’s only half got it. Peter needs a second touch.
I guess we all do. A first touch, to open our long-blind eyes and show us the light. And a second touch to help us see more clearly. And then, I’m thinking, probably several more touches throughout our lifetimes, to illuminate and better focus our vision.
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It reminds me of a visit to the optometrist, where you look through a couple of peepholes and the doctor moves the dial switching various lenses and flipping them over. “Which is better, this or this?”
Our hope is always to see better.
I think also of that 12th century prayer made famous in the musical “Godspell”:
Day by day, Dear Lord, of thee three things I pray:
To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by day.[1]
It doesn’t happen overnight. Our vision, like Peter’s is clouded by cultural expectations. Mistaken assumptions. Peer pressure. Personal preference. What we want Jesus to be, instead of what he really is.
Let me pause there and ask, “What might be clouding your vision?” Can you pray that God will reveal the Christ to you and enable you to follow the light?
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I said “follow” … because we don’t get to know him truly until we step out of our comfort zone and begin to act. The walk of faith is meant to encompass our whole being. Including who we are and what we do.
Faith that’s only shallow talk means very little. Which is why the next thing Jesus says to Peter and the disciples is even more challenging. Do you remember?
“If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
It’s fascinating that the cross, of all things, has become the universal symbol for followers of Jesus. We put them on our churches. We hang them around our necks. Muslims have a crescent moon, Jewish people have the star of David. But Christians have a cross.
So what might a cross-shaped life look like for you and me? At the very least, I think it means that we let go of our own self-interest and embrace the kingdom way. A way of loving, serving, giving, God-honouring. A Christ-centred way of life.
The apostle Paul tells us that, in our baptism, we are buried with Christ. We die to sin so that we might rise with him and walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4ff.)
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We’ll hear more about this again next Sunday. We’re only half way through the gospel of Mark. And like those first disciples, we have much to learn.
Today we stand with Peter, feeling a little humbled. Did he speak too soon? Did he claim to know too much? Perhaps it was a necessary step on a much longer journey.
We say what we can. But we’re meant to say it in a spirit of humility. Because, Lord knows, we could be mistaken. We may be partly right. We haven’t plumbed the full depths of God’s will and purpose for our lives.
But we surely want to, don’t we? I know I do. I want to keep moving forward with Jesus, learning the full dimensions of the reign of God.
The church is not for know-it-alls. The church is for stuttering, stumbling disciples of Jesus who’ve caught a glimpse of something beautiful, and want to know more …
“To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by day.”
May it be so! Amen.
[1] St. Richard of Chichester, 1197-1253, "Day by Day", in The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, 1940, Hymn 429. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_by_Day_(Godspell_song) (Accessed September 13, 2024.)
“The secret of serving”
Mark 9:30-37 (September 22, 2024)
Have you ever had to keep a secret? It’s not easy!
News of a birthday party that happens to slip out at the wrong moment, in front of someone who shouldn’t hear? A bit of good news you’ve just found out? You’re dying to say something … when – oops – out it tumbles. A piece of salacious gossip that would set your neighbour’s ears a-tingling? My goodness, it's hard to hold it in! Why is it that as soon as someone asks us not to share, the pressure to do so increases exponentially?
In last Sunday’s reading, we heard Peter confess that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. You’d think that would be the kind of news to shout from the rooftops. Isn’t evangelism part of Jesus’ call to discipleship? Yet Jesus “sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone about him.” (Mark 8:30)
Again, in today’s reading, Jesus passes through the region of Galilee. But he doesn’t want anyone to know it. All through the Gospel of Mark we have repeated instances of Jesus telling folks to keep quiet – the demons he cast out, the people he healed, even the disciples themselves.
Scholars have referred to this as the “Messianic Secret.” Jesus does not want people to share. Perhaps because the disciples are not ready. They only have part of the story. They’ve had the miracles, the wonderful, spectacular miracles! But they haven’t had the cross. They have yet to see the full implications of Jesus’ life and ministry.
In our passage today he speaks of the cross again: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”
The disciples can barely take it in. A Messiah who suffers is not part of their calculation. It does not compute. “They did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask.”
I think, actually, the disciples are beginning to understand. When scripture says “they were afraid to ask,” it seems to me they had an inkling. And it scared them. There are times in all our lives when things are just too hard to speak of. We don’t want to face them. We push them aside. “Please, can we not talk about this?”
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So then, what are the disciples talking about? Well! Does it come as any surprise to hear they were arguing about who’s the greatest?
This is a human tendency. And it’s present, at some level, in every one of us. We want to get ahead. We want to be first in class, #1, the gold medal winner. We want a place of honour, privilege, maybe power. In its extreme form, this becomes a kind of narcissism, where all we can see is ourselves. “Look at me!” Do you know anyone like that?
Surely not any Mennonites, for we have learned to be a modest and humble people. But perhaps, if you look deep enough, you’ll be able to find, here and there, a hint of selfish ambition.
The disciples know better. Which is why they hang their heads in silence. They know what they’ve been discussing. And what’s worse … they know that Jesus does too. It’s an awkward moment.
Jesus, of course, can see into every heart. Don’t even bother trying to hide it! It’s not going to work. He’ll see right through that self-righteous mask you try to wear. You may be able to fool others – maybe even yourself sometimes – but you’ll never fool him!
“Tell me, what was it you were discussing?” he asks. Silence.
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So then Jesus takes a seat – which is the posture a rabbi used when he wanted to teach his students. He calls the twelve and gathers them around and sits down.
Then he repeats this shocking word of instruction, the same sort of thing we heard last Sunday, when he said you gain life by losing life. And that we should take up our cross. In today’s passage he says, “Whoever wants to be first must be servant of all.” Not chief disciple but last in line.
And then, just to give a bit of visual aid, he takes a little child and puts it among them. Watch now as he takes this child in his arms. Literally, he hugs him. Jesus wraps his big strong arms around this little one and pulls the child in toward himself. As though he’s known them all his life, and loves them with a love that will never, ever, let them go. And isn’t that the truth of it!
He holds this little one tight. Then looks around at his friends. And says that whoever welcomes “one such as this” welcomes Jesus himself. And not only that, but welcomes the very God who sent him! Think about it. Reject God’s little ones and you reject God’s own self. Welcome God’s little ones and the Holy One of heaven and earth arrives in your midst!
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Welcome is at the centre of what Jesus is speaking of. More than a few perfunctory lines given by the worship leader at the beginning of a service, I mean a real, heart-warming, never-turn-away welcome that embraces the least, the lowly, the pushed aside, the otherwise-ignored.
Have you ever felt unwelcome? Like you didn’t belong in a group of people? An outside? One whom they would never fully-embrace?
Now, consider the opposite. A time when someone went out of their way to extend hospitality, and make you feel included, to bring you in.
I remember hearing about the greeting someone received when they first came to a congregation. One person in that church, in particular, had reached out to them. “And who knows, I might not be here,” they said, “if it wasn’t for that.”
In our circles, who goes unnoticed? Who is looked over? Who is deemed unacceptable, and therefore excluded by definition?
There’s always an edge to Jesus, isn’t there? He pushes at our boundaries. He won’t let us rest easy with the status quo of our lives. Because he wants for us so much more! He’s calling us into a heavenly kingdom, a new way of being, God’s way, even here on earth.
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Jesus took the child in his arms and he hugged them.
Lindsay and I had a little song we sang with our children as they were growing up. We learned it from one of their kindergarten teachers:
“Four hugs a day, that’s the minimum,
Four hugs a day, not the maximum.”
And so we’d chase each other around the house, mostly laughing, though sometimes resisting, until we got our hugs.
Sometimes we have this romantic notion of children, like they’re all cuteness and innocence. But anyone who’s spent much time with them will realize that children can be just as self-centred as adults can.
You’ve heard me speak of my 2 ½ year old granddaughter, who I love dearly. But I also know she likes to test the limits of good behaviour. It’s all part of growing up. She likes to think she has some kind of power over me. Little ones don’t have a lot of opportunity for that (the world is so much bigger than they are), so I frequently play along with it. She directs me and I obey her orders.
But sometime she’ll need to learn (we all need to learn) that living well with neighbours means we try not to push others around. I’m not bigger than you, nor are you bigger than me.
In the Realm of God, says Jesus, the values of this old world we live in are being turned upside down. “Whoever wants to be first must become last of all and servant of all.”
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And now we come full-circle, because our passage began with a secret – remember? Mark’s Messianic Secret: “Don’t say anything. Don’t tell anyone about me.” Yet word about Jesus continued to spread. You can’t hold the Good News in.
So I want to finish by sharing another of Jesus’ so-called secrets. Maybe you’ve already heard it! But here it is again. It still surprises me.
The secret to life – and here I mean fullness of life – is found in serving. Serving God, serving others. Letting go of that deathly-tight grip we have on our own well-being, so that we can pay attention to the interests of our neighbours.
In doing this, we die to our own self-centredness. We lose our lives, at least that sinful part of us that wants to make ourselves bigger than everyone else around. Living in the kingdom of God shrinks our egos down to size.
We lose our lives to save our lives. When we focus not just on ourselves but on those around us, we find that, miraculously, our lives become enlarged, enriched. We grow, as persons, to become more than we were before. More loving, more caring. More aware of other’s needs. More compassionate. More Christ-like in character.
The community we are part of grows larger too, with more invited in. The bonds that tie humanity together are strengthened. And Lord knows, in our coming-apart society, we need that! We all do better together. Life for all of us becomes larger, fuller, richer, more lovely.
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When I think of Jesus and the child in our story, I think of a woman who lived in small-town Ontario, in the first church I served. Her name was Thelma. And you could find her every Sunday morning in the corner of the lower auditorium, where the nursery was located.
She gladly took responsibility for it. All the children of the church came through her door. It was their first contact with the family of faith – and I guess with Jesus himself – as their parents went about the important business of worship upstairs in the sanctuary.
Thelma worshipped too, sort of. There was a speaker wired into the nursery so she could listen to the sermon while she sat in her rocking chair, holding a little one in her arms. But her primary focus was always the children in her care. And she never claimed to be missing out.
Maybe you know a Thelma. Maybe you’ve been a Thelma. I hope today we will pray for people like her who offer care for little ones. And I don’t only mean children. I mean newcomers, people with disabilities, and all sorts of folk whose lives depend on the kindness of others. People on beds of illness, people on the street. The very young and the very old. People far away in need.
“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. … Whoever welcomes one such little one in my name … welcomes me.” Do you want to know fullness of life? Here’s the secret: Try serving others. Try living the Christ-life with your neighbour.
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And now for the really good news: We are all God’s children, drawn by the arms of Jesus, into the circle of God’s love. What a gift!
But don’t tell anyone! Unless, of course, it happens to slip out along the way …
https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56876 [retrieved September 23, 2024]. Original source: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/come-unto-me-little-children-11621." width="278" height="98" />
