A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; James 513-20; Mark 9:38-50]
Eldad and Medad missed the bus. Consequently, they weren’t present when Moses called the 70 other elders of the people to be set aside as his leadership cabinet. They were no-shows when the Holy One “came down in the cloud” and took some of Moses’ spirit, which God had given to him, and put it upon the gathered elders. And wonders of wonders, the 70 immediately began to prophesy. This is to say that these newly minted “trustees” of the People of Israel spoke clearly and publicly about what God was doing among them at the moment.
After the consecration and when the assembly of newly identified leadership returned to camp, Joshua [the young man whom Moses mentored and who would eventually take Moses’ leadership place] – Joshua noticed that Eldad and Medad who were not at the “ordination” were prophesying in the camp as if they were. Joshua ran to Moses to report this grave irregularity with the intent of stopping their unauthorized activity; but Moses declined their request and simply said, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.”1
All summer and into this fall season, the Sunday gospel lessons have been about one, central theme: Following Jesus and what it takes to do so. Specifically in Mark’s gospel, we have seen and heard the overriding fact that Jesus (to use the Prophet Isaiah’s phrase) has “set his face like flint toward Jerusalem”.2 This means that for Jesus, there is no turning back now. The train has left the station, and it will not stop until Jesus reaches Jerusalem, where he will inexorably fulfill his unique ministry – a ministry which most fearfully involves the cross.
Part and parcel to the trajectory that Jesus takes, his Disciples (including us) don’t get what he is doing; nor are they (or we) necessarily attracted to it, when Jesus explains his actions. But to the Twelve’s credit, they continue to follow Jesus; and as today’s gospel lesson indicates, they try to do what Jesus does – just not very well.
From the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, crowds of people come to him because of his stirring and authoritative teaching but mostly because of his public acts of healing. Clearly, his teachings gain traction with the people, given that he breathes life into the precepts that have too often been viewed as dusty school lessons that can be outgrown and thereby tossed aside. Yet, even more clearly, Jesus’ acts of physical restoration and healing are what attracts and stuns. Whatever his healings mean or indicate, the people flock to him to get relief. And in terms of the Twelve (always remember that they are us), Jesus teaches them what it takes to stand in the God-life and to do the God-life. To their credit (and like us) they try to learn their God-lessons and absorb them into their lives. Yet, as we have painfully seen, this student-teacher effort has its stressful ups and downs, with the overall headline being: Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.
So it is in this day’s gospel, John (Zebedee brother to James) speaks to Jesus to report that in their reconnoitering of the area they came across someone who was casting out demons in the Lord’s name. In his one and only cameo appearance in the First Gospel, John tells Jesus that this guy must be stopped because he is not an affiliate of Jesus’ known disciples: “He is not following us,” he gasps in exasperation.3 With a displeased edge to his voice and perhaps a cocked eyebrow, Jesus tells John (and us) that such overly-rigid concerns are neither necessary nor appropriate. The reason, Jesus explains, is that anyone who does something good and powerful in [Jesus’] name is an ally, certainly neither a threat nor an enemy. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it, Jesus says, “…God notices.”4
That’s the good news. Being a disciple involves no accreditation other than the willingness to follow Jesus and to the best of a person’s ability to do in their own lives what Jesus did in his. To this discerning point, I recall what the late American poet and civic voice, Maya Angelou said: “Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better.”
Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.
But with this hopeful, humane-sounding news there is also some hard news about the responsibility and consequence of misrepresenting Jesus.
… if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.5
At which point Jesus begins to spell out what seems to be some pretty graphic “bad news” about misrepresenting him and distorting the God-life.
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell. And if our foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out, it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.6
So … my fellow followers of Jesus, what did you hear in all this? To what extent does this message of gentle hope and sobering admonition connect with you and the way you (and I) represent Jesus?
Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.
Here are three of my own responses to today’s scripture readings and specifically to the issues of our following Jesus.
Jesus’ priority is consistently MISSION and doing missions “in his name”. This is to say that we are to do missions like Jesus did missions. Yet, in some very public Christian circles there is a great deal of talk that speaks a dangerous half-truth. That half-truth is that God uses imperfect people to do the Holy One’s perfect work. The true part of this proclamation is a matter of history – biblical history even; but more to the point, just look in the mirror to locate a more immediate example of imperfection doing Christ’s mission. “Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better.” Yet, what is not mentioned about God using imperfect people and is the omitted half of the truth is this: What do the imperfect people that God uses do with and in their lives? In what ways are we imperfect-yet-chosen-people learning to “do better”?
For instance, do they prophesy, not as carnival hucksters predicting (if not manufacturing) the future but of men and women who know what God is doing at the moment and who speak publicly and consistently to THAT stunning and quite frequently inconvenient truth?
Do the imperfect ones “preach good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind?”
Do the imperfect ones set at liberty those who are oppressed; and are they willing and able to proclaim that God’s love and mercy is acting now with us and in us and through us?7
Do they embody the Christ-life by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God?
Do they walk that walk or just talk?
Jesus has set his face like flint toward Jerusalem. Who among us – the imperfect ones -- will dare to follow?
Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.
Have you noticed how often the ones who want the most requirements, the most stringent standards for others are so frequently the ones who excuse themselves and shun placing themselves under the same discipline? In today’s gospel lesson, John Zebedee is a good example of this.
In this year’s lectionary rotation (we are in “Year B” of the three-year gospel cycle), several of Mark’s sequential stories were leapt over. The most prominent of which is the account of Jesus’ Transfiguration on the mountain. That momentous story comes immediately after the exchange over answering Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” As you probably recall, in the Transfiguration story Jesus takes his inner disciple circle of Peter, James, and John up a “high mountain”, where at prayer Jesus was transfigured in radiant white light, with a voice from heaven reiterated what was heard at his baptism: “This is my beloved son; listen to him.”8
Once Peter, James and John recovered from such an experience and gathered their wits about them, Jesus led them back down the mountain, where a man confronted Jesus with a complaint. “Teacher, I brought my mute son, made speechless by a demon, to you. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and goes stiff as a board.” [And here is the point] “I told your disciples, hoping they could deliver him, but they couldn’t.”9
Fast-forward to today’s gospel episode, we see John (of the Transfiguration Three) now calling out someone who is, in fact, casting out demons in Jesus’ name but is not a member of the fraternity of the Twelve. Moreover, this is the same John who in last week’s gospel reading was a part of that gossiping disciple group who were discussing which of them was the greatest. And now, in light of his personal failure to heal the epileptic boy, John wants the competition to be silenced and disbarred by Jesus.
As with Moses before him in the Eldad and Medad caper, Jesus refuses to put the cart before the horse, saying: “… no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.”10 Which is to say, following Jesus and representing Jesus through the actions of our lives changes a person. Mission in Jesus’ name transforms a person, makes her or him more Christ-like – even if they don’t realize it. This is the import of what we pray as we conclude the celebration of the Holy Eucharist: “By him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father…”11
Or, then again, we can conveniently eliminate the “God” part and let the populist focus be on us and what we alone can do. Mission …not in Jesus’ name but in our own name.
We all know that discipleship is hard, especially for “imperfect” people (like us). Discipleship is hard because it requires sacrifice. At the crucial core of the matter, discipleship (that is, representing Jesus and the God-life in our own lives) entails letting go of our agendas for what life is like on God’s terms. The point is that sometimes this letting go requires sacrificing some “good” things in our lives, things that are, nonetheless, distracting us (if not misleading us) from following Jesus and doing his mission. And this, I believe, is the meaning of what Jesus says when he speaks so graphically about amputation.
In Jesus’ hyperbolically rabbinic example, four times he mentions a condition that “if” it is present in a disciples’ life, that impediment must be removed – even if that impediment is “good” in other contexts. So, (for instance) what is it that your hand seeks to grasp that distracts you from the God-life? If our hand is addicted to grabbing for what we think we need to be ok, then perhaps we need to come to grips with this misleading and potentially destructive attitude and seek ways to mitigate, if not completely eliminate it. For following Jesus entails open hands to receive what only God can and does give. Think about your posture at the Communion rail.
If with our foot we are prone to kick aside whatever contradicts our sense of convenience, then perhaps it is better not to have such an oppressing, violent foot at all.
And if our eyes focus on the sight of what we believe will make us all better, safe and secure, then perhaps we need to confront what prevents us from seeing God and God’s gifts of mercy, grace, and love, which are right in front of our noses.
It is, Jesus says, better to go without these important things than to be cast into the garbage dump which is perpetually on fire. (That’s the “hell” Jesus refers to: the perpetually burning garbage dump – especially the one outside of Jerusalem, near to where he will be executed on the cross.).
Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.
Follow Jesus and do God the best you can until you know better. Continue to become what you follow. Amen.
1. Numbers 11:29
2. Isaiah 50:7
3. Mark 9:38
4. Mark 9:41 - The Message
5. Mark 9:42
6. Mark 9:43-49
7. Luke 4:18-19
8. Mark 9:2-8
9. Mark 9:17-18 – The Message
10. Mark 9:39-40
11. Book of Common Prayer. Conclusion of the Eucharistic prayer, p. 363
Comments