Hard Passage

Hard Passage

"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."

"Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where " 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' Everyone will be salted with fire.

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other."

A new pastor spent his first four days in town making personal visits to each member of his new congregation inviting them to come to his inaugural services.

The following Sunday the church was all but empty. Accordingly, the pastor placed a notice in the local newspapers, stating that, because the church was dead, it was everyone's duty to give it a decent Christian burial. The funeral would be held the following Sunday afternoon.

Morbidly curious, a large crowd turned out for the 'funeral.'

In front of the pulpit they saw a closed coffin which was covered in flowers. After the priest had delivered the eulogy, he opened the coffin and invited his congregation to come forward and pay their final respects to their dead church.

Dying to know what would represent the corpse of a 'dead church', all the people eagerly lined up to look in the coffin. Each 'mourner' peeped into the coffin then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look.

In the coffin, tilted at the correct angle, was a large mirror

There are many “hard passages” in the Bible. Mark 9:49 is a pretty famous one.

There are also many “hard to follow” passages in the Bible. Mark 9:42-48 is perhaps the most famous of all.

Let’s follow it first, then we’ll get to the meaning of salt and fire.

This is one of the passages where Jesus quotes from the Torah and the Prophets (that’s the Old Testament to us). In Mark 9:42-48 he quotes from Isaiah 66:24.

Some versions have the quote after each verse:

“their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”

Here Jesus is talking about hell – or more accurately about Gehenna, the everburning trash heap in the valley of Hinnon where trash and dead criminals were taken to be burned. Dante and Milton aside, the literal Hell of the bible – Gehenna – seems to be a pretty boring place, where one is simply consumed in fire forever.

He’s also talking about rebels against God, however – the full Isaiah quote is “And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” That is, those who allow their bodies – that is the physical world – to get in the way of God are rebelling against God and “will be loathsome to all mankind.” That’s while they’re rotting and being eaten by worms and burning eternally.

So Jesus gives us this vision of a rather unpleasant existence and says it is better to be maimed than damned.

It is better to give up a part of our life – a part of our body – than to lose all of it to rot and fire.

Indeed, Paul has this in mind when in Romans 12:1 he tells us “to offer [our] bodies as living sacrifices” as our worship of God. This sentiment is behind Jesus’ constant exhortation that we “take up our cross and follow [him].”

So, in reality, Jesus is not telling us anything new in this “hard to follow” passage.

It’s just that we – like the apostles – always have a hard time following Jesus’ difficult advice and so every time he repeats it, it’s like we’re hearing it for the first time.

But then we get to that second part:

“and everyone will be salted with fire.”

Hm.

Is this the same fire of Gehenna? Not quite. In Leviticus, God instructs the Israelites to “season all [their] grain offerings with salt.”

That is, the sacrifices to God were not acceptable unless they had been salted – had been seasoned.

So we – God’s sacrifices – will be salted with fire.

We will be seasoned with fire – with trials. “Refiner’s fire” is one of the songs the praise band sang this morning. Malachi, Zechariah, and 1 Corinthians all refer to God using fire to refine us.

And notice how Jesus puts it: “salted with fire.”

You know how salt works, right? When my mother was teaching me how to cook she told me to be careful with the spices I used but to be especially careful with salt. “You can always put more salt in,” she said, “but it’s awfully hard to take extra salt out.”

We just use a dash – a quarter teaspoon – a pinch. A little is enough.

The “fire that refines” is not the fire of the trashheap of Gehenna. It is a temporary fire.

Even if it were, like Dante imagined in Purgatorio, to last for a thousand years, what is a thousand years, compared to eternity?

But our refining fires never last that long, do they?

Even if we are miserable 24-7 from the day we are born until the day we die at the very outside we’re only miserable for 120 years, most folks about half that.

But who is miserable all the time? Even folks that don’t believe in silver linings have to look for the grey in the clouds some days.

And usually, misery is our own choice. If you don’t believe that, there is a nice book with a three-letter title near the mid-point of the Old Testament you should probably read again. The KJV version of Job is probably one of the loveliest pieces of writing in the English language, but you can read it in any old version if you want.

But our trials and tribulations, they never last very long. A day, maybe a week? Perhaps your trial even lasts an entire year. What is one year in your life to the seventy or eighty or ninety you will live? You sleep more than that. By the time you’re sixty, you will have slept for about twenty years.

When you consider that it’s no wonder generational gaps exist. Teenagers think that everything they do is SO important, but their grandparents just shrug and say, meh – I’ve slept longer than you’ve been alive.

The point is that our trials by fire – the fire than refines us are a salting.

We are sprinkled, seasoned, salted with fire so that our dross may be burned away and we may be pure sacrifices for God.

That’s what Jesus is telling us to do with our own bodies.

He’s giving us a warning. Either you remove the log from your own eye (to mix biblical allusions) or God will do it for you.

If you are unwilling to remove that hand that causes you to sin, do not be surprised when, salting you with the fire of tribulation, God removes it for you.

Now, let’s think for a moment about what this passage means for our church.

I don’t mean The Church. I mean our church – the Jacksonville Church of the Brethren.

I think if we were to be given a diagnosis it would be “failure to thrive.”

That is, we’re here, we’ve got the space, we’ve got the resources, we’ve got people who are driven to serve

and yet we don’t seem to have anything else.

What is this trial, brothers and sisters?

What limb is causing us to stumble? What millstone is around our necks? What log is in our eye?

I read a passage online while researching this message.

A woman spoke about what she wanted in a church:

Men preaching and speaking,

no praise band,

no karaoke music,

lots of scripture,

people dressed up,

no announcements,

no grungy looking kids

And as I read this, apart from thinking the lady didn’t sound like much fun, I thought to myself – wow, lady, what you should be saying is “God has led me to the church where I am. This is what I can do to make it better serve God.”

We’ve been through a six-month exploratory process now, brothers and sisters. Next Sunday, we’ll have Reverend Jim here, preaching the word. I don’t know what will happen the Sunday after that or the Sunday after that

and what is bad about that is that I don’t think any of you do, either.

At least, none of you has told me, if you do.

Everyone who has talked to us about the survival – the revival of our church has said we – as the last members of a dying congregation have got to stand up – we can’t take our trials sitting down – we have got to stand up and come forth and we HAVE to be God’s hands working in this Church.

We can’t sit around and wait. Jesus said the end would come like a thief in the night and that we should be always on our guard.

We’ll we’ve let our guard down. When was the last time you brought someone to church?

I don’t mean invited. I mean brought. Made them come. I keep inviting my friends but leaving it at that. I don’t think that’s enough.

Tell a friend they’re coming next Sunday. Go by their house on the way here. Tell them to come over with their spouse or with their kids and pretend you’re young again and have a sleep over. Wake them up and feed them and bring them here.

Do we know our neighbors right here in Murray Hill? Why not? What can we do to get them here? Have we knocked on their doors? Have we truly opened ours?

Why not? What are we afraid of? What are we hiding?

Even little children know the song “This Little Light of Mine.” Why are we hiding our light in these concrete-block walls?

I want everyone to come up here and pray together. I don’t care what we say to start off with. But we should end whatever we say with this: “Lord, in Jesus’ name we give our lives to you and to your church.”

And when you feel like it’s time to let go, we’ll stop praying – but then I want you to tell at least two people here today what you can do for God right here in this church.

And I want these seats to be full next Sunday.

Come pray together, brothers and sisters.

Children and God

Mark 9:30-37 (New International Version)

³⁰They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, ³¹because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise." ³²But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

Who is Greatest?

³³They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" ³⁴But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

³⁵Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."

³⁶He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Children and God

I

What Jesus said:

A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied, "I'm drawing God."

The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like."

Without looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."

One thing we may overlook when we read today's passage is Jesus' comparison in the final verse. Let's look at it again:

"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Now in mathematics and logic, there's a law called the transitive law. The transitive law states that if A=B and B=C then A=C.

So when we welcome that child, we welcome Jesus, and when we welcome Jesus, we welcome God-the-Father. Or, using the transitive property, when we welcome the child, we welcome God. Which means, to an extent, the child is God.

Wait, what?

First, we've got to remember that irrespective of what athiests and "feel-good believers" might say, Christianity is inherently logical -- there's a reason Christ is called the logos.

So when Jesus, an educated Jewish man (as we know from Luke chapter 2), tells his disciples that a child is mathematically equal to God, we ought to pay attention.

We should ask three questions whenever we want to know what's "going on" when Jesus talks -- and, unlike the disciples, we shouldn't be afraid to ask those questions. The questions are:

1) what prompted Jesus to say such a thing?

2) what did Jesus want his audience to learn?

3) what does Jesus want us to learn?

II

Why Jesus said it:

Okay, at the beginning of today's passage, we've got Jesus and the disciples -- and they're in hiding. This is hardly the first time Jesus took his "inner circle" away from the crowd; sometimes they went to the forest, the desert, the gardens, on a boat -- but Jesus and the disciples often went on "retreats."

They're on retreat here, in Galilee, because Jesus is teaching the disciples -- specifically about His impending death. He tells them, a little more than halfway through Mark -- and well before their entry into Jerusalem -- that He is going to be killed and then raised from the dead.

The disciples, though, they don't get it. And what's more, they're too afraid to ask Jesus what on earth he means. They'll play guitar and sing "Kum Bah Yah" but when Jesus talks about the difficult stuff, they're stumped. At least they didn't fall asleep on him.

To make matters worse, on the bus trip home, instead of trying to figure out what Jesus meant by the fairly clear statement "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise," the disciples start bickering about who is the greatest. Good thing Cassius Clay wasn't a disciple.

It's in response to this silly debate about the best among the mediocre that Jesus tells the disciples that "if anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all," and then grabs a little kid (by the way, the Greek is unspecific about gender -- so maybe the NIV should say "it" not "him") and says "by the way, if you want to be nice to God, be nice to these little ones -- because they're just like God."

Now the disciples are so stunned that they try to focus Jesus' attention elsewhere -- "hey, there's this guy casting out demons in your name" but Jesus just brings the focus back to children -- "don't make them stumble, or else."

I think it's pretty clear here that in response to ignorance, pride, and boasting on the part of the disciples, Jesus says -- "be childlike."

Don't be prideful, ask questions. Be a child, Jesus tells his disciples -- because they all would know that, under Roman law, children were the property of their father -- they were the least, legally speaking. Be a servant -- be a child, Jesus says, and then you will be like God.

Of course, Jesus was the ultimate servant, as he tried to tell his disciples on the retreat and showed them on the cross. In this, Jesus mirrored God the Father -- what is the definition of a servant but one who gives to us? Gives us life, everything really -- and yet is the master of us all.

So Jesus was saying "look guys, don't talk about who is the best -- that's not important -- what is important is being like a child -- being the servant of all."

It's a pretty strong rebuke, really. Here all the disciples are thinking they're hot stuff and Jesus says "nope, kids are more important and closer to God."

III

What He wanted the disciples (and us) to learn

Humility.

That's pretty easy, right?

Well of course, it's not. Humility is a pretty hard lesson to learn.

And we know, right, that the disciples weren't very good at learning it.

So why try?

Well the first reason is that all of Jesus' lessons are hard to learn. They're counterintuitive, difficult, and frequently even dangerous -- remember that following His own advice got Jesus killed.

Heck, the entire point of Lutheranism is to pretend that Jesus wasn't talking about our lives on earth but our lives in some "other kingdom."

Of course, if that were true, Jesus wouldn't have needed to die -- or really even come to earth.

But Jesus did come here -- to talk about our lives on earth and how we should behave, not just what we should believe.

Luckily that's one of the reason Mack and his buddies rethought Lutheranism and one of the reasons we're here today.

We know that it's hard to follow Jesus.
And we can ask the questions the disciples were afraid to ask.

Unfortunately, we've only got the text of the Bible to speak unequivocally to us. Just those collected words, shifted and translated a bunch of times -- some folks even think the whole thing is made up.

But even there we can see what the disciples didn't -- and THAT's why Jesus said what he did to the disciples. So that they'd remember it and we'd read it one day.

It's great that the disciples were so confused by most of what Jesus said -- that way they'd debate it, remember it, talk about it, and eventually write it down.

If they "got it" the first time Jesus said it, they'd have probably forgotten all about it twenty or thirty years after Jesus died and was raised. Lucky for us they tended to be on the "slow side."

So what does Jesus want us to learn?

We'll pretty much what He always wants us to learn:

Don't worry about life, 'cause God's got it under control.

That is, don't worry about being first. Instead be last. Be a servant, not a master. Be good to children, be like children. Because what are children, naturally? Last time I checked, little children were happy. Sure, they throw fits, but the default setting for little kids is joy. That's why we like being around them.

I mean, here's Jesus, living at the height of Roman power in a provence where folks frequently railed against the government -- and he says "don't worry about being in control -- be like a child -- no rights, no control, servant to all and master of none -- and be joyful."

Because ultimately, folks, whether we love Jesus or not, whether we're the President or the King of France, or the Emperor of Rome, or the Pharaoh in Egypt, a bum in the street, a lawyer, a doctor, or a french-fry maker, we're never in control. I don't care if you blame fate or randomness or the stars -- everyone "knows" we aren't in control of our lives.

So why pretend? Why complain?

Jesus says, as he always does, that we should embrace our existence as given to us by God. We should accept what comes with a joyful heart and we should give love and joy to everyone we meet, especially the children and those who aren't in control.

Which is everyone.

God bless, y'all.

Pray with me,

Lord, we know that we are children.

Help us remember that you are in control

and that we can only serve

and that we will always be the last

and the least

and that we can rejoice

knowing you love the least

most of all.

When God Tests Us

When God Tests Us

Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Cone find themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi. Who should come along but Jesus, and he asks the four famous theologians the same Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”

Not prepared for Barth's brevity, Paul Tillich stumbles out: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.”

Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”

Finally James Cone gets up, and raises his voice: “You are my Oppressed One, my soul's shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”

And Jesus writes in the sand, “Huh?”

I the test is not the temptation

In Genesis chapter 2, God gives Adam the first test – don’t eat of the tree of knowledge.

temptation was introduced in Chapter 3 – and it was a pretty easy temptation to overcome, right?

“just say no” – but in this case, there was no peer pressure, no corner to be backed into – although God could foresee the serpent tempting Adam and Eve, God made sure they could get out of the temptation.

That’s why in James it says: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”

God does not tempt us.

We do enough of that ourselves

and the world takes care of the rest.

What God does is ensure that we will always have a way NOT to sin – not to fall into temptation

You’ve heard the bit of “pop theology” that goes: God will never give you more than you can handle,” right?

Well, don’t try finding that passage in the Bible because unless you’ve written it in there, you’re going to have a hard time.

We can sort of think this through, right?

Everything God gives you is more than you can handle because you can’t handle anything without God’s help. So let’s take that bit of misinformation out of our heads and replace it with the real quote – not the one from the internet.

In Corinthians, Paul writes: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it”

Now that’s a big difference, right?

And one that makes a lot of living easier to understand. When we’re burdened with the pain of living, when we forget that Jesus has given us the greatest gift of all, we often feel like we can’t handle what we’ve got. We can’t play the hand of cards that God – or in these times of weakness, fate or luck, has dealt us.

And then we’re reminded of that passage that doesn’t exist – God won’t give us more than we can handle” and we KNOW that we can’t handle what we have

and we break down

and we give up

and we let go

and we turn away from God.

Think about that when you start misquoting the Bible – twisting it to sound nice is still twisting it.

What the Bible says is not that we won’t be given burdens

but that we won’t be tempted beyond our ability to say no.

Every time you or I have given into temptation – of whatever sort, there has been that moment when we thought “no, we shouldn’t.” And then we gave in.

Why? Why ignore the very moment when God is stopping time for us and allowing us to be right?

Why fail then?

On the TV show “The Biggest Loser,” where people compete to lose the most weight, they have a saying “nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.” I can’t attest to that, but I can tell you than nothing feels as good as following God’s will.

And God’s will is not our will.

Even Jesus knew that when he prayed “not my will, but yours be done.”

II God’s tests

But temptation is not God’s way of testing. Temptation is the Devil’s way, the world’s way, our selfish nature’s way of getting us to fail one of God’s tests – that of following Him.

But God tests us in other ways. The “following God test” is one that only one person has ever gotten an A+ on. All the rest of us fall short of the curve set by Jesus.

But that’s a summative test. A summative test is one that comes at the end of teaching – did you learn what you were supposed to? Our lives are one big standardized, high-stakes test, and death is when we turn our scantrons in.

But God gives us formative tests, too – tests that discover what we know and tell God when we’re ready to move on.

Probably the most famous of these tests is when God tells Ol’ Abraham to go sacrifice his grown son on Mount Moriah. Grown son, mind you – so it was a bit of a test for Isaac, too – to let himself be all tied up and readied for the altar by his pops.

And Abraham and Isaac passed the test with flying colors – or at least they crammed really well for the test. Or rammed? Anyway they came out of the test alive, which is more than we can say for their school mascot.

God used that test to find out just how loyal Abraham and his family would be – could they be the foundation for God’s holy nation? Only the test would tell.

Jesus liked to use tests, too.

In the chapter after today’s passage He asked his disciples “who do you say that I am?” Peter, being the Rabbi’s pet, spoke up and answered “the Christ” (that means the anointed One of God, by the by – “messiah” for those of you who like multi-syllabic words) – can’t you just imaging good old Rocky – “ooh ooh, Rabbi Jesus, Rabbi Jesus, I know da answer!”

Jesus used the test to find out what the disciples knew – and what he could teach them.

What was he going to teach them? Those of you who are top-notch in bible memorization can probably guess

but let’s go back to today’s reading first.

My favorite test in the Bible comes from today’s passage.

A Greek woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter, and Jesus replies in his ever-compassionate way (and I’m paraphrasing) – “get away from me dawg, I ain’t got nuthin for you – I gots to take care of mah own.”

Okay, if you don’t like the New Urban Standard version, we can go back to the NIV translation – he says “First let the children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs.”

You may have observed in your reading of the New Testament that Jesus is not always polite in his responses to requests for aid.

I think this is just preparing us for the upcoming test – you may have noticed that God is not always polite in his responses to prayers for aid, either – sometimes his emphatic NO comes with a burden, often not unlike a cross.

Our job is not to get offended if we can’t understand the niceties of God. Our job, like Job, is to accept what God has given us

BUT

like Job, we can ask questions without fear.

Which is what this brave Greek woman did. Instead of being offended that her first answer was no, giving up, and turning away from God, instead she asked the right question

not “God why won’t you help me?”

but “aren’t you here for the whole world?”

The first question shows ignorance.

The second question shows understanding.

Once the second question was asked – that’s “but even the dogs get the children’s crumbs” – the demon had to leave the Greek woman’s little girl because now Jesus was with her.

Once the Greek woman realized that God was here on earth not to heal and do magic tricks, but to feed his creation, well then, things got better. She passed the test. And when she passed, Jesus knew that the whole world was ready for his message.

Which brings us back to the disciples.

Once they knew that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, the chosen one, the anointed one of God, what were they ready to know?

Well, the end of Mark 8 has it clearly for us:

³¹He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³²He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

³⁴Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ³⁵For whoever wants to save his life^[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? ³⁷Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? ³⁸If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Once Jesus knew the world was ready for him – as he found in Mark 7, and that his disciples knew that he was the Christ, Jesus could begin talking about exactly why he was on earth and what he would do – and the great gift of life he offered to all.

When you come to the final test, what will be your answer?

If you know now you’re failing, God has a great grade recovery plan. Just ask him, and Jesus will give you copies of all his notes, and if you still can’t pass, we’ll, he’ll be glad to take the test for you.

Pray with me,

Father,

we know your tests are not temptations

and that temptations do not come from you

but the strength to overcome them does.

When we are tested

give us the wisdom

to answer correctly

or ask the right questions

and when we fail

send us your Word

with all the answers

we will ever need.

In Jesus name,

Amen.