Mark 9: 38-50                    Growing in Faith ? Back to Basics                         E/GR/DC      Oct.1, 2006

1. The disciples are still worried about who is first and best.  Today?s question has to do with who is in and who is out.  To get the full impact, it?s helpful to know that this is part of the same conversation we wrestled with last week.  Jesus has just answered that whoever would be first, must be last of all, servant of all, and welcome those who are vulnerable and on the edges.

2. In the very next sentence, John, brave enough to voice the others? (maybe even our) concern, says, ?What about the guy who was healing in your name and he wasn?t one of us.?  We understand John.  Those people aren?t like us, God.  The disciples and us may express this concern from the best of motives.  Loyalty, confidence in the truth of how we express our faith, a desire to not weaken our faith, or to keep unity in the church.  Too often, though, the motive may be that we?re not that sure we?re right, and so have to fence in our truth to shore it up.  It may be that our loyalty is to the institution rather than the Christ.  The means justifies the end.  Or, we may just rather be negative, preferring to forbid rather than rejoice because another has brought healing and joy.

3. Whatever our motive, we part company with Jesus, whenever we take a narrow view of faith instead of a wide one.  We?re not intended to be a little clique off in the corner hedged in with thorns.  God?s kingdom is as wide as God.  A familiar hymn reminds us there?s a wideness in God?s mercy like the wideness of the sea, and the love of God is way broader than our human minds can imagine.  Jesus is essentially saying, ?don?t look for labels; look for actions, attitudes, spirit.?[i] 

4. ?Get back to the basics,? in other words is what Jesus is saying.  And he doesn?t mean the narrow moralistic definition people usually mean when they want to get back to basics.  The basics were the teachings that were lived and repeated over and over again by Jesus.  He means faith, forgiveness, generosity, integrity, justice and love.  Remember when Jesus said of a Roman, considered a pagan by his listeners, ?I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.? (Matthew 8:10)  It?s not so long ago in a rural Manitoba community I know far from here, that parades were organized by Protestants to protest against Catholics, building fear and hatred.  We?re still close enough to that in our minds that we need to be on guard.  For you know, as do I that a person from another denomination or faith, may indeed be a closer soul mate, stronger example by how they live their faith, following Christ?s basics, than someone closer by birth or denomination.

5. The very next fear out of most people?s mouth, ?But doesn?t that water down the faith??  How could living the wideness of God?s mercy, possibly water down anything?  As Christians we read the same text.  The same basics are there.  Over and over Jesus calls us to an active faith that forgives, is generous in welcoming, that has integrity, justice and love.  These aren?t obscure texts that can be pulled out of context.  They are the themes that echo all through both testaments.  People will tell me when I speak of an integral teaching of Jesus, ?Well it says one thing in one place and another in another. How can I know what it says??  By reading the Bible.  The whole thing through many times.  Then we see the basics.  The themes that are at the holy heart of God.  If we learn and seek to live those basics, we?re not watering anything down!

6. Jesus? strong rebuke to John is for any of us who in our arrogance would assume that God?s action in the world is limited to the forms we?re familiar with.  Robert Frost beautifully described it.  ?Something there is that does not love a wall.?[ii]  That something is the mind of God.  Not only the church, but the world continues to suffer terribly from our head-long rush to build fences.  If we would only use a fraction of the energy to build roads of understanding and cooperation that has gone into fences, we?d build a very different world.

7. And then, to make sure they get the servant message from earlier in this passage, Jesus tells them, ?Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will be rewarded.?  Crazy isn?t it, how much we seem to need this reminder.  Here Jesus underlines again the basic teaching of the high, holy valuing of simple kindly service.  Familiarity may not breed contempt but blindness.  We do not see the basic necessary kindness needed or given.  Interesting how someone new coming into a home sees the same loving servanthood, and is generous in gratitude.  Those who live there all the time are then reminded of the gifts given every day.  With the gift and dilemma of instant graphic news reporting the horrendous reality of starving families, crowded refugee camps, children forced into the sex trade, the suffering is so familiar, so over-whelming, we do nothing.  But when we find those in need of the cup of cold water and reach out, we receive the blessed gift of sharing in God?s ever-aching care for all the world?s sons and daughters.  A feeling and reality that is it?s own incredible reward.

8. As a true middle-eastern teacher, Jesus now approaches this important teaching, from the opposite direction.  Do not cause one of these little ones on the edges to stumble or sin.  We might think we?re off the hook.  I?m no modern Fagin from Oliver Twist, teaching pickpockets.  But today?s sins are more social sins, with horrific results to multitudes of people.  No one person is responsible.  Yet our share is real.  Our investments, high standard of living, use of non-renewable resources and poor stewardship of God?s earth wrong generations of those on the edge, if not ourselves.  We sin when we bring no challenge to mounting violence, the increasing gap between rich and poor, indifference to racism and preventable poverty.

9. And with a swift concise motion, Jesus moves from offenses against others? well being to offenses against our own well being.  Being part of God?s family is such an incredible gift, that anything that might prevent it no matter how good, in and of itself, needs to be ruthlessly removed!  If in our preaching and teaching, how well we do it becomes more important than the message or our master, the hand that writes and the mouth that speaks must be cut off.  If the busy hand is so occupied with the spotless appearance of the house, that the love and hospitality of the home becomes secondary, it must be cut off.  Certainly it calls us to sacrifice anything that obviously leads to my hurting others.  A fantasy life that takes away from my connection to my primary relationship.  Making a team that leaves a student exhausted and unable to learn or participate in family life.  Accumulating things when they become a substitute for life.  Taking care of family and community if that preoccupation cuts out the whole family of God.  Whenever the means displaces the end, Jesus says, ?Make any sacrifice to change it.?  Daring surgery for the sake of the life that is more than everything.

10. Anyone who has inadvertently eaten porridge made without salt, understands Jesus caution about the importance of good salt.  Not used up in the ovens where it is insulation, not cut with sand or other substances, but good salt!  The salt, the message of the good news of God?s new reality, the gospel of love is what makes the disciples life and message life giving.  If we?ve lost our understanding of Christ?s basics, when we lose our abilities to be servants, or become so sweet we do not speak out against monstrous wrongs, we become insipid and tasteless.  When we have the salt of the gospel, we are at peace, and contribute to peace.

11. Interesting isn?t it, when we set ourselves the task of growing in faith, we find ourselves in the midst of some of the most difficult of Christ?s teachings in the lectionary.  Possibly because we don?t grow physically, mentally or spiritually without great effort.  We do grow by focusing on the basics of Christ?s life and lessons.  Faith, forgiveness, generosity, integrity, justice and love.  Wide open boundaries, roads not fences.  Reaching out to the world in joyful servanthood, sprinkled liberally with the salt of the Gospel!  May God continue to bless your growing.
12. We come now, rejoicing in Christ?s wide-open welcome this World Wide Communion Sunday.  Each one of us is welcome.  Here we remember our connection to God?s children around the world, all celebrating the mended relationships and the New Life available for our receiving.