Today's Sermon for 9-23-18

Welcoming

 (based on Mark 9:30-37, I Corinthians 12:12-27)

          They weren’t walking with him as they made their way through Galilee toward Capernaum.  They must have either been ahead of him or behind him.  They were walking apart from him because they had a sensitive subject to discuss: their relationship to Jesus, and their importance in Jesus’ coming kingdom.  We have no record in the gospels of what they actually said to one another, but we can reconstruct the scene in our imaginations based on details taken from all the gospels about what each of them had contributed so far to Jesus’ ministry.

          Peter said to the others, “I am the most important.  Didn’t I come up with the correct answer when he asked us who he is?  Didn’t he tell me that I am the rock upon which he will build his new community?  Obviously, he’ll choose me for second in command.”

          John stepped in, “That might be true, but you just made a lucky guess, Peter.  You didn’t really know for sure.  You didn’t know the answer any more than the rest of us did.  What he said about the place you might have in his new community only means that he thinks you would make a good building block to begin his new church.  I think importance is love, hasn’t he shown that to us, and he obviously loves me best.  I am the most important.”

          Judas could barely contain his impatience.  “The most important person is the one with the money.  The world is ruled by money; everybody knows that.  And Jesus entrusted the money to me.  I am the most important.”

          Philip, not to be outdone, pointed out, “When we were out in the middle of nowhere that day by the sea and it was time to eat, Jesus turned to me for advice.  If he didn’t know what to do with all those thousands and had to ask me, then I must be the most important!”

          Jesus had been preoccupied during that journey as they passed through Galilee.  He hadn’t been paying much attention to them, but he told them for a second time that, “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.”  But the disciples missed the point.

          Jesus talked about others, about carrying their burdens, but the disciples spoke about themselves, preoccupied with their own inner circle.  Who would be the most important in the coming kingdom?  Who would Jesus pick?  Pick me, pick me.  Like some kind of playground competition for the selection of teammates.

          Jesus told them to deny themselves, to take up the cross, to be servants of all.  Instead they argued about who would be the masters in Jesus’ new kingdom, who would be the kingpins, the right-hand man to Jesus.  As the disciples wrangled with one another, each was talking about his own interests.  Not one of them had understood Jesus’ vision.

          This portrait of the disciples is hardly flattering, but thanks to Mark’s gospel he portrayed them as real human beings, not some kind of perfect pupils who always had the right answers, who were always the teacher’s pets.  Instead Mark portrays them with warts, greed, bad tempers, thick-headedness and all.

          Jesus cornered the disciples when they arrived in Capernaum.  When he asked them what had been going on during their journey, they had no answer for him; they realized that he already knew, anyway.  In the oppressive, embarrassed silence that followed, Jesus went out and found a child.  He held the child among the disciples and said: “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

          The disciples didn’t get Jesus’ teaching about suffering, dying, and rising again, but would they get this?  Would they understand this teaching about welcoming children?

          This latter lesson in the gospel account is enshrined in collective Sunday school classes around the nation.  Jesus seated in the midst of children or taking a child in his arms or being surrounded by a bunch of children.  We look upon that picture today and think how sweet, how gentle, how kind.  What an example Jesus set for us.  We want to emulate his behavior.  We welcome the child.  But I don’t think we truly grasp the lesson that Jesus was teaching his disciples.  In Jesus’ day, children were not welcomed, at all.  They were treated as little more than the property of their fathers.  It wasn’t until boys were apprenticed to an adult for training in a particular line of work did a child move closer to the adult world and begin to be recognized.  And girls faired far worse in Jesus’ day.  It wasn’t until they came into child-bearing years that girls were recognized at all and then only for the prospects of what they might bring to a family in the way of a dowry. 

          Today we think it was adorable and sweet how Jesus recognized the children.  But Jesus meant it as a slap in the face to bring them into reality of what he was trying to teach them.  Discipleship is counted in welcoming those unwelcome elsewhere.  In Jesus’ day, it was a good lesson.  Perhaps for us to truly grasp Jesus’ intent you might want to consider who are the unwelcome among us.

          What group of people are the unwelcome in today’s society?  And then substitute Jesus’ teaching here, “Whoever welcomes this one who had been denied, this God-created, God-loved being, that most of society rejects, whoever welcomes such a one in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

          There is no greatest or best.  There is no front of the line. 

The author of I Corinthians likens the parts of a body to the different members of a congregation.  (Read I Corinthians 12:12-27.)

          The body is a unit, though it is made up on many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.  So it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

          Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.  If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?  If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, everyone one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

          The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”  And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!”  On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.  And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.  But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it.

The picture of a foot withdrawing from the body because it can’t be a hand, or an ear resigning from the body if it can’t be an eye, is really so ridiculous that it’s rather funny.  The picture of a body made up of nothing but eyes or nothing but ears is ludicrous.  The author is trying to point out that just like in the physical body all the parts work together, so too in the congregation.  No one is most or more important.  And no one is unimportant.  Every part, every piece, every person is needed and welcomed.  And sometimes the parts that seem to be the weakest are actually the strongest. 

          The more mature we become in Christ, the more we realize that throughout our entire life we will continue to need each other.  We complement each other, challenge each other, comfort each other, and communicate with each other.  And within this context we find our Christian identity, our ministry to one another and the world, we find our growth, and our support.  The church is the place where each of us is welcomed and each of us welcomes others.  And finally, what affects one member is felt by all of us.  “If one member suffers, all the members suffer and if one member is honored, all the members rejoice…”

          We welcome and the child, the teenager, the adult and the mature senior and we welcome those who act like us and we welcome the outcast, we welcome the widow and the widower, the worker and the student.  We welcome those with deep, dark skin, and those whose skin is pale.  We welcome those with mobility problems and those who are light of feet.  We welcome those whose past is riddled with pain and a difficult story and we welcome those who seem to be blessed with everything they touch.  We welcome those who question and those who seem to have all the answers.  In other words, we welcome you – because you are part of our body together.

AMEN.

Today's Sermon 9/2/18 - Arguing with Christ

Arguing with Christ

(based on Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23)

In Jesus' day, Jews observed special rituals at mealtime.  One of those rituals had to do with ritual hand washing.  Ritual hand washing had nothing to do with hygiene.  It involved sprinkling just a small amount of water over your hands, not enough to get your hands clean, but getting your hands clean wasn't its purpose.  The intent was for spiritual cleansing, washing away spiritual contamination.  In many ways it was a lot like saying grace before a meal, an acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty over our lives and that we need spiritual cleansing.  It was a way of getting right with God, at least three times a day.

But the ritual of hand washing wasn't something that was required.  At least, God didn't require it of ordinary people.  However, God had required priests to cleanse their hands before performing any sacred duties.  It was extremely necessary for them to get right with God before they performed any sacred duty.

Then, a long time ago the Pharisees decided that, if it was good for priests, it must be good for everyone.  So, they made a new rule.  Everyone should go through ritual hand washing before eating.  There was really nothing wrong with doing this, in fact, it was probably a good idea, but they forgot one crucial element down through the years, that this was a human idea, not God’s idea.  Over time, they had assigned this task to something that God had required of them.

            At one of the first church’s I served, we had a Ham dinner for the congregational members.  I was in the kitchen helping and I observed one of the women of the church, cut the Ham into two pieces, place one of the halves on a tray and put it into the oven.  The other half she set aside.  Figuring that we needed the entire ham to feed our members, I was curious as to why she was only cooking half the ham.  I started asking questions in my head…like when was she going to cook the other half?   Maybe it’s faster to cook two halves rather than one whole.  But also wondering, if this was true, why not put both halves in the oven at the same time, there was plenty of room on the tray she had just put in the oven.

I’ve always been interested in cooking and watching how different people do different things, so out of curiosity I asked why she cut the ham in half and only put one of them in the oven.  I expected to hear something like, “it cuts the heating time down” or “at such and such a temperature it doesn’t heat all the way through if left whole.”  Expecting such an answer, I was already formulating a second round of questions about putting both halves in the oven at the same time, and also trying to calculate in my head at what poundage you needed to cut the ham in half. 

While I was doing the mental math, she looked at me curiously and simply said, “I have no idea.  I’ve just always cut the ham in half.  Actually, Mom always cut the ham in half, so I cut the ham in half.”  Then she turned to her eighty year old mother and asked, “Mom, why did you cut the ham in half?”  And her mother said, “Because our oven at home was a lot smaller and a whole ham never fit in our oven.”     

That's a rather simplistic example of how rituals get started, while the underlying reason is completely forgotten, but often it's nothing more profound than that.  Traditions get started, and people endure traditions for a long time.  Sometimes making the ritual more important than the original doctrine it stood for.

When the Pharisees saw Jesus' disciples eating without going through their hand washing ritual, they decided to use that to discredit Jesus.  So, they confronted Jesus with this question:  "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"  It was a clever question.  They weren't challenging Jesus directly.  They were asking why Jesus, an up-and-coming religious leader, couldn't even get his disciples to do the right thing.

And Jesus didn't even bother to answer them, at least not directly, either.  Instead, he quoted a scripture verse from Isaiah.  He said:

"This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines."

Jesus went on to say, "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."  Then Jesus turned to the crowd and said:

"Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.  It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, wastefulness, envy, slander, pride, folly.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Jesus was telling us that what really counts is what we do, that our actions defile us because these things reveal what is truly in our hearts. 

And it is here, that I have an argument with Christ.  I’ve looked at this passage a hundred times, I’ve read commentaries on it, and have tried to see it from Christ’s perspective – that it is only what comes out of a person that defiles them.  But I have to disagree. 

Jesus’ intention for telling this story is for us to realize that our rituals mean nothing if it is only a show.  Our rituals don’t matter, if the heart is poisoned.  But, I think he misses the mark here.  It’s not just our rituals, the show, the end-result that matter and reveal what is truly in the heart.  I think the entire process of what defiles us, what makes the heart poisoned, begins at a much earlier stage.

I believe that what defiles us or its opposite, what lifts us up, is strongly influenced by what goes in.  For example, if you’re making a birthday cake for someone, you can’t substitute salt for the sugar and expect to get anything edible out of the oven.  It wasn’t just what came out that was bad, it began with the ingredients of what went in to it, in the first place.

We need to be a people who are more spiritually “heart-healthy”, people who take seriously what goes into our lives and into our hearts, with whom and what we surround ourselves.  We need to be careful what we plant in our hearts or what we feed our hearts.  That’s why we need to avoid things designed to fill our hearts with lust, hatred or greed.  And instead fill them with those things that are designed to promote joy, peace, patience, love, and hope.

If I watch television shows and movies that are filled with violence or hatred, surround myself with people who treat one another poorly, use foul language, are influenced by drugs and alcohol, commit deeds that are against the law, what kind of person do you think I’m going to be?

It’s what went in and shaped me that defiled.

If I watch inspirational shows that are filled with people who love one another and care for each, shows that lift each other up, surround myself with people who treat one another well, use encouraging language, are influenced by giving and serving others, commit themselves to making the world a safer and better place to live, what kind of person do you think I’m going to be?

It’s what goes in and shapes us that makes us who we are.

Therefore, we also have a responsibility to do what we can to make our community a spiritually heart-healthy place.  We need to care about what society teaches our children.  We need to insure that kids and young people have access to good clean fun.  We need to feed our children good values.  But not just our kids, we need to do the same thing for ourselves.  We need to surround ourselves with people that lift us up, not put us down.  People who care for one another, not people who destroy each other and speak harmfully about others.  And most importantly, we need to hold our public role models to higher standards.  We are influenced by what goes in, not just what comes out.

Jesus did say, "It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come."  Evil comes from a heart that has been filled with poison, violence, hatred, and greed.  But, it began with what went in.

Good things come from a heart that has been fed on a spiritually heart healthy diet; because what goes in, shapes the heart as to what comes out.

Thanks be to God.  AMEN.