Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Scriptures: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22, Psalm 124, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50
Sermon
Much has been happening in the community of St. Stephen’s, not the least of which involves a special congregational meeting next Sunday after worship. More about that during the announcements, but I hope you will be able to attend. As our members and regulars know, I’ve been in Rhode Island on assignment for Naval training, and am glad to be back.
Thank you for your prayers and support while I was gone, and for welcoming me back from Officer Development School, also known as “officer boot camp.” It was a very challenging but also very rewarding five weeks. In the training environment, I wasn’t allowed to perform all of my regular functions as a chaplain, but I prayed every day to be empowered to show God’s lovingkindness to our instructors and my fellow officers, and God was faithful, often despite me, and always in the face of the extreme environment we shared.
I won’t speak much from the pulpit about my experiences there, but I will weave one point of reflection into this sermon. As I wrote to you last month, I don’t take it for granted that you, as a congregation, were willing to extend a call to a pastor who also serves in the Navy Reserves, who’s dual-hatted in an uncommon way.
Thank you for partnering with me in this call to serve the women and men who serve our nation. Thank you especially to everyone who took on more responsibility or took on a new role in our church community. I am grateful to be on this journey of discipleship with you.
Discipleship. Have you ever started to describe an experience – to share it with someone – and realized partway through that what you’re describing probably sounds absolutely terrible to anyone who hasn’t experienced it the way you have?
Case in point: here’s a brief note I shared with my wife on the morning before graduation from Officer Development School. The subject line was “AMAZING PT” – all in caps – and of course “PT” stands for “physical training session.” I wrote:
Good morning! PT was actually fun this morning. Many of us were nervous, because PT is always outdoors, but this time, they had scheduled it in the gym. As we entered the gym, music was playing over the PA system, and the instructors seemed unusually relaxed. The music stopped, and we went through our regular warm-ups, but then they put on the song “Roxanne,” and we had to hold a high-plank for the entire song, about 3 minutes. Every time Sting sang the name “Roxanne,” we had to do a pushup.
Next we did squats to a song about someone named Sally, and then burpees to “Help me Rhonda” by The Beach Boys. Writing about it, it sounds like torture, but after some of the other PT they’ve put us through, and given the commitment we make to staying fit, it was truly a good time.
That’s the note I wrote to my wife around 6am, three days ago. Now, she could have responded, “Clearly you’ve lost your mind; that sounds horrible.” Instead, she responded lovingly, “You sound so happy. I’m glad it was fun and didn’t involve the sandpit.”
Thinking about today’s Gospel reading, I think that her answer parallels the expectation that Jesus has for his Disciples, regarding how to treat the spiritual growth of other people. In enjoying such rigorous PT, I was undergoing a change in my own health and attitude.
I’m not someone who enjoys exercise. About 5 weeks ago, if you’d put me through a routine like that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to walk afterward. Three days ago, though, on the floor of that gym, I had a blast. If she’d simply called me crazy, she might have set a stumbling block on my road to further growth. Instead, now when she hears the Beach Boys blasting from my stereo at 5 in the morning, she’ll know that I’m exercising. (Just kidding.)
Discipleship is hard. Discipleship is almost impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced its blessings. I think about our food pantry. For everyone here who supports the food pantry, how do you talk about it to your friends and family who have no experience with such a ministry? Someone might ask, “How was your weekend?” You could say, “It was great! I spent hours on Saturday lugging heavy boxes out into waiting cars in the parking lot of my church!” Or another question, from the commitment we make to stewardship: “Hey, how are you going to spend your bonus this year?” “Oh, I’m so excited. First, I’m gonna tithe!”
Obviously, we can give better descriptions than that — we can be more authentic witnesses to Christ at work within and through us — but the point is that, out in the wonderful, wild world that God created, there’s not a lot of context for service, for self-sacrifice. Our knee-jerk reaction to scarcity is to hoard. Our reaction to threats is to flee, hide, or threaten alike. When, through God’s love, we live differently than this, and follow Christ’s example, to a world steeped in sin, so focused on fulfilling our own needs and desires, the faithful actions of a Christian might seem instead like they invite suffering into our own lives, and who wants that.
Mark, Chapter 9, continues the theme of putting ourselves last. Last week, the sermon I prepared focused on a teaching passed down from the Reformer Martin Luther, about the Theology of Glory and the Theology of the Cross. (And thank you to Mary Lang for delivering the sermon.) Like Jesus’ first Disciples, and really almost everyone who met Jesus, we as human beings tend to assume that God’s favor rests on the rich and powerful, and we hope that God will bless in ways that likewise glorify us here on earth.
Jesus’ entire ministry flips this worldly understanding on its head: Jesus, son of the all-powerful God, and the promised Messiah, comes to earth to bear our suffering, revealing his purpose and ours through death on the cross and resurrection into eternal life. As Pastor Daniel Erlander writes, “In the crucifixion, Jesus said YES to the way of the Father; in the resurrection the Father said YES to the way of Jesus.”
In other words, Jesus’ life and ministry embodies the Theology of the Cross: submission to the will of God, absolute trust in God, dedication to human liberation from the power of sin, solidarity with human suffering, and freedom to love as God loves even and especially when it exposes our vulnerabilities. This is the way of the crucified messiah. Following Christ is not only about celebrating on Christmas and Easter mornings. Rejection, humiliation, suffering – Christ knew them all.
Being dependent is frustrating. We’re frightened that our weaknesses will be revealed. We hate to be rejected or humiliated. The theology of glory can therefore primp our egotism: wouldn’t it be nice to be first, to be highest, to be exalted? To stand alone, strong and proud?
This is the message the disciples are endorsing at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading. Even though, as usual, it’s the disciples who are under the microscope, and it’s their behavior we scrutinize, as usual, we can learn alongside them. Where do they fall short of Jesus’ expectations for discipleship?
Earlier in Chapter 9, we read that the Disciples try and fail to heal a boy who seems to be an epeleptic, verse 18. The boy’s father comes to Jesus, reports on the Disciples’ failure, and ultimately Jesus heals the boy. So, just a few verses later, we see the Disciples coming to Jesus to report that they tried to stop another man who was successfully casting out demons in Jesus’ name. With our benefit of hindsight, it shouldn’t surprise anyone here that Jesus corrects them, when he says not to stop anyone who performs a miracle in the name of Jesus.
It’s difficult to tell how this story is connected to the next, about stumbling blocks, dismemberment, and salt, but here’s the point that Jesus is making. Professor Matt Skinner, of Luther Seminary, paraphrases Jesus on verses 38-41: “When you’re in a war against evil, against the forces of chaos and destruction, don’t worry about what uniform somebody’s wearing. If somebody’s doing work that supports our work, rejoice and be glad in that. The stakes are incredibly high.”
What comes to mind for you when you hear the image of a “stumbling block”? Maybe it’s our optimism, living with modern medicine as we do, but most people seem to think of a relatively tiny obstacle, and a quick recovery. Those of us who have lived with chronic pain, or for whom recovery from a fall is not simple, can understand this image differently. No matter the size of the obstacle, a stumble is bad news.
You and I are gathered here this morning as a response to the Good News, the Gospel. “The more Mark [reveals] about who Jesus is, the more Mark [reveals] what discipleship looks like. […] This way of following is open to any[one].”
Let us thank God for freeing us from sin to live as God’s people. Let us pray that God may make us aware of the stumbling blocks we place in others’ way, as they seek to know and follow God. Let’s be especially vigilant against stumbling blocks in our own paths, whether someone else puts them there or we fail to clear the path for ourselves, accepting sin in our own lives instead of offering our whole hearts and minds to God.
God is just. Christ is faithful, and on Christ’s faith alone rests our salvation. With our eyes on the Cross, and our hope in Christ’s resurrection, I say “Thanks be to God.” Amen.