Grace Presbyterian Church
September 27, 2015, Ordinary 26B
James 5:13-16; Mark 9:37-42
Not Our Kind
The Epistle of
James is an odd fit in the New Testament canon for many. Particularly when
contrasted with Paul’s works, with their constant emphasis on salvation by
grace through faith, James comes off for some as being awfully works-obsessed.
Probably the most well-known verses from the letter demonstrate this: 1:22, “But be doers of the word, and not merely
hearers who deceive themselves,” and 2:14, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but
do not have works? Can faith save you?”
What people often
miss about James, though, is that—despite how 2:14 sometimes sounds in the
ear—James is not trying to convince his readers that they “get saved” by doing
good works or by particular rituals of holiness. Rather, as 2:18 goes on to
say, it is by the works we do that we show our faith. All the platitudes and
flowery God-talk we can muster is not and will never be sufficient to
demonstrate that genuine faith is at work in our lives, when our deeds and
behavior do not match those words.
Another point
often missed, one demonstrated in today’s reading from this epistle, is that
his instruction is directed not at the individual, but the community, a trait
that he does share with Paul. Note how the pronouns in this brief passage are
so plural – “they,” not “he” or “she.” The community prays for one another,
confesses to one another, in the time of illness and need. To a great degree,
this falls into line with such famous passages as the Sermon on the Mount from
Matthew, or chapter 12 in Paul’s own epistle to the Romans, in which the way
the body of Christ lives in and with one another.
Sadly, the
disciples, at least as portrayed in Mark 9, don’t seem to have gotten this
particular memo.
We are picking up
from where we left off last week, when the disciples had been caught arguing
among themselves who was the greatest only to have Jesus challenge them to
welcome “the least of these,” in this case in the form of a child. Somehow
John, and probably some of the others, seemed to think that the best way to
respond to this challenge was to tattle on someone else. Really, that’s about
the best way to describe it.
Apparently some of
the disciples had seen someone else casting out demons, and doing so in the
name of Jesus—evidently successfully. Perhaps their reaction masked some
jealousy, since the disciples had been unable to cast a demon out of a small
child earlier in this same chapter. Perhaps there was a certain protectiveness
of their status as “the twelve.” Maybe there was even some fear involved. Maybe
this person was, as the phrase might go today, not our kind.
For whatever
reason, the disciples’ reaction to this unaffiliated exorcist was to try and
stop that person from casting out demons. Somehow the disciples could not see
the good being done, or if they did it was less important to them than the fact
that they didn’t know who the exorcist was.
So, once again,
Jesus has to talk his disciples down from the cliff. One almost imagines Jesus
letting out a fairly depressed sigh just before doing so. *SIGH*
First, Jesus has
to point out that a person who does a “deed
of power” in the name of Jesus is not going to be able to turn around and
curse Jesus in his or her next breath. A person who is casting out demons,
something that anyone in Jesus’s audience would have recognized as a deed of
power, is not the enemy here. It’s as if the disciples had forgotten about
Jesus’s reply to the religious leaders who had charged Jesus with being in
league with Beelzebub – “by the ruler of
the demons he casts out demons” back in 3:22. As Jesus replied then – “how can Satan cast out Satan?” so might
he have replied to his disciples in this case. The man (we assume it was a man;
we honestly can’t say for absolutely certain) was doing no evil; he was doing
good. Why, Jesus would like to ask his disciples, would you want to prevent
that?
Verse 40 is
familiar to us, probably – “Whoever is
not against us is for us” – but we’ve probably become accustomed to hearing
it in reverse – “whoever is not for us is
against us.” Whether in old movie westerns or modern diplomacy, we’re
accustomed to that “drawing the line” demanding allegiance to … what, exactly?
To us, and to “the boss” and to the way we’re going to do things? It’s an ugly
expression, and the person who utters it never means well towards those to whom
it is directed.
But that’s not
Jesus’s way. We never find out who this anonymous exorcist is, but Jesus is not
at all threatened by this unknown person, even though this person is invoking
Jesus’s name in performing these deeds of power. The power of Jesus, the
healing of Jesus, the good of Jesus
is not a thing to be hoarded, or kept hidden or locked away for a select few.
Jesus is not exclusive, folks. He really does love everybody, and want to heal
everybody and make everybody whole and bring good to everybody.
We Christians
don’t like this, when you get right down to it. You know the hymn “Standing on
the Promises,” that we’ll sing at the end of this service? Well, we stand on
them, all right, nice and firm so that no one else can get to them. The
behavior of the disciples makes it clear to us that this kind of closed-ness
has been the case since well before anybody was using the word “Christian” as a
way of drawing some in and others out.
I am always amused
by those contemporary types who bemoan the existence of denominations or the
splitting of churches or any other modern evidence of the division and disunity
of the church, while pining for some time in the church’s history when the
church was one, whole, unified. Folks, if the disciples themselves were trying
to draw some in and some out before Jesus had even made it to Calvary, who are
we kidding? The early church disagreed, and sometimes fought, and sometimes
even divided over whether new converts should have to go through circumcision
to be Christians (Paul tells us a lot about that). The church in later years
disagreed and fought and divided over what day of the week they should gather
for worship – the Sabbath day or the Lord’s Day. The church disagreed over the
nature of the Trinity, over what it meant for Christ to be “fully human and
fully divine” at the same time, over when Easter should be observed, over the
nature and number of the sacraments, and ultimately over more subjects – some
very serious, some quite mundane – than I have time to describe right now. That mythical time when all were in
harmony? Well, “mythical” is a good word for it.
What Jesus says
next, though, is a warning against making an excuse out of that frequent
division. Seriously, verse 42 ought to send a chill down the spine of any
Christian:
If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who
believe in me, it would be better for you if a giant millstone were hung around
your neck and you were thrown into the sea.
Read that again.
Hear those words. Remember that a millstone is huge, the kind of thing that
required several beasts of burden to rotate in order to grind the grain. The
millstone would weigh more than you, much more. To have your head jammed
through the center of that huge millstone, and to be tossed into the sea…that
is a point of no hope.
You. Would. Die.
And yet, in Jesus’s
words, you’d be better off to have that done to you than to be a stumbling
block for, or to cause to stumble, any
of these “little ones who believe in me.”
It does not matter
if they are white or black.
It does not matter
if they are gay or straight.
It does not matter
if they are liberal or conservative.
It does not matter
if they are female or male.
It does not matter
what way they differ from you or disagree with you.
This does not mean
we do not speak out against injustice or abuse or hatred done in the name of
God. Don’t be confused here; that is not serving God; that is not following
Jesus.
But those who do
seek to follow, no matter how imperfectly, Jesus claims as his own. And the one
– no matter how Christian you think of yourself as being – who causes such a
one to stumble … you’d be better off pinned to the bottom of the sea.
Many of you know I’m
not a cradle Presbyterian. I was raised in another denomination, and went so
far as to get a Master’s of Church Music degree at a seminary in that
denomination. But that happened at about the time that denomination was
undergoing its own division, and my best professors, pastors, role models were
the ones getting punished. So I couldn’t stay. This was one of those sermons, like
many are, that the pastor need as much as anybody else in the congregation, if
not more. Even when we’re the ones getting punished or vilified or being called
“not Christian” by other parts of the church, we don’t get to be stumbling
blocks for anybody else out there who is doing good in the name of Jesus.
Never.
And yes, even for
that, Thanks be to God. Amen.
Hymns:
“Sing Praise to God, Who Reigns Above” (PH
483), “Help Us Accept Each Other” (PH
358), “There’s a Wideness in God’s
Mercy” (PH 298), “Standing on the
Promises” (GtG 838)
No comments:
Post a Comment