Sermon Archive

"The Welcoming Church", Mark 9:38-50

Date: September 27, 2009, The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: The Rev. Dr. James D. Kegel

GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST, AMEN.
            David Hartwig, a four year old, came up to me after our pre-school children’s chapel. I was the assistant pastor at Edison Park Lutheran Church in Chicago and one of my duties was to present the week’s Gospel at the pre-school level for our church school. It took place so long ago that little David is probably about to enter middle-age now but I still remember him asking me if he should pluck his eye out. “Of course, not, David,” I said. “Jesus just said that in the Bible make people listen. He says we should love Jesus more than anything, even ourselves.” Jesus’ words are pretty dramatic—“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 go to hell to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut if off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and 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 their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.” Well, looking back, I wonder how in the world I ever I talked about all this to pre-schoolers. It reminds me of when I joke with Kimberly Falk that she should do a children’s message with paper dolls and a hibachi grill. Those who follow Jesus get to stay paper dolls and even put on fancy paper doll clothes; those who don’t love Jesus, well, into the hibachi they go. I know it bugs her when I bring this up and neither she nor I would ever do this for our children. None of us want to hear about the fire of hell and a worm that never dies, so I am not going to preach on this part of the text.
            At other times I have talked about salt—we are to be salt of the earth. In the ancient world, Roman soldiers were paid in salt—that is where we get our own term, salary. Just a little salt can flavor any food and preserve it as well, but I am not going to preach on that this morning either.
            Instead I would like to look at the first part of our text which has been called “The strange exorcist.” It seems that John and the other disciples saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name. The man was not a follower of Jesus or under the disciples’ authority and likely someone using the Lord’s name superstitiously. The disciples tried to stop him. Reading this I thought of the two thousand years of church history and that of Israel as well. In our Old Testament Lesson, Joshua, his assistant and successor goes to Moses. Two men, Eldad and Medad had not gone to the Tabernacle to receive the spirit of prophecy but prophesied in the camp. Moses answered him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” I suppose that it was important to keep order in the Hebrew camp.  It is important to have good order in the church. Our Lutheran confessions say that no one should publicly preach or teach without regular call, really without being ordained. Throughout the history of the church popular movements have risen up and been suppressed by church authorities. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for being a heretic—Jan Hus, Savonarola, hundreds had their bodies burned to save their souls. The most famous Norwegian reformer was Hans Nielsen Hauge who was imprisoned under the conventicle act by the Lutheran Church of Norway—he was preaching without being ordained or under the authority of the bishop. John Wesley preached in the fields because the Church of England, of which he was a priest, would not let him preach in church buildings. Jewish authorities sought to stop the Christian movement: Stephen stoned, James killed, Peter and Paul thrown into prison, early believers driven out of Jerusalem. Peter and the apostles would have been killed but the Book of Acts records that a Pharisee in the Council known as Gamaliel, respected by all the people, stood up and said, “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men…keep away from these men and let them alone because if this plan or this understanding is of human origins, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God.” Right doctrine is important. Our Gospel says that it would be better to have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to cause a little one to stumble. Those in authority both spiritual and if possible temporal are charged with keeping God’s Word, preaching it in purity and protecting it. One of Queen Elizabeth’s titles is Defender of the Faith. She appoints bishops and recently let it be known that she would not appoint one put forward by the church. It is why kings instituted the inquisition and church authorities bound heretics over to be burned, why emperors expelled unbelievers or false believers, Jews, and why even in recent times, sectarian groups were forbidden to pretend that they were churches, no bells, no steeples, no proselytizing. Jehovah’s Witnesses were put into concentration camps along with Jews and homosexuals. Scientology is considered a business in Britain and against the law in Germany. Those who teach false doctrine and lead others astray are dangerous. Like a certain exorcist, perhaps, who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name but was not a disciple like John and the others.
            But wait…Jesus does not commend John but scolds him. Jesus had just been teaching about welcoming little children. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but him who sent me.” Jesus’ men have just been upbraided for trying to one-up each other and told to become like children, humble and unassuming. Greatness is found in service; hospitality especially to the least, welcomes God. Now the disciples are still at it—making sure that they are in control, that every one will recognize their greatness. We can get prickly too when we think our dignity is under attack but who were these church fathers anyway but tax collectors and fishermen now acting high and mighty? Jesus calls them to task again. Even outsiders can do works of grace and mercy. They may not be ordained, or in the right denomination, maybe they are not even Christian, but Jesus blesses them. Anyone who loves Jesus, any one who wants to follow God and lives out justice and mercy, is acceptable. Even giving a cup of water in the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. God’s spirit could rest on those outside the tabernacle; the blessing of God can be upon the unknown exorcist. The whole idea of inside and outside breaks down right here.
            Central Lutheran Church is a welcoming church. I am so proud of our welcome statement: we embrace all of God’s people regardless of ethnicity, physical and mental abilities, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or economic circumstance and we welcome all to join with us in worship, fellowship and ministry. Of course this statement, adopted overwhelmingly, really makes it much harder for us. I know when some group says they are friendly, it makes me wonder if it is just words or really true. This week we received an e-mail from a woman in Portland who had been asked if there was a welcoming church in Eugene for gay and lesbian people. She had to say, United Lutheran Church, because Central wasn’t listed as Reconciling-in-Christ. I had a woman say that gays and lesbians are the easy ones to welcome because if we want to welcome blind people, then we will make a Braille version of our service available (and because she brought this up we are trying to do just that). We have had some discussions over the last couple of months about handicapped people, especially handicapped children—one of you told me about an experience at a Lutheran camp where they talked inclusivity but did not make any attempt to include a handicapped boy. We received an e-mail here at Central that I would like to share with you: “Pastor, today my mother and I (a Lutheran pastor’s wife and daughter) visited Central Lutheran during our brief stay in Eugene. With us were another Lutheran pastor (retired) and his wife. Your church building is beautiful and the organ everything a Lutheran would require—and more—for hymn singing and making music to God’s glory. But my word, we have never been to a more unwelcoming church. Your greeters greeted friends by name and looked right through us. There was literally no one who said hello! Even the sharing of the peace was perfunctory. It was the oddest experience and one that has left us bemused all day. I’m telling you this because your bulletin and website claim that Central Lutheran is a welcoming church. We were welcomed with more enthusiasm and more frequently at Macy’s after the service.” I got back from vacation and got this. We might be advised to take our welcome statement out of our bulletin and admit that like many Lutheran churches we like people who are just like us and usually talk only to people we know—Garrison Keillor describes us as “shy Lutherans” for a reason.  I’m with you—when I asked if anyone would volunteer for the Fiesta Latina I described Central as us Norwegians, Swedes and Germans. That is my background and maybe that of many of you too, but some of you are not German or Scandinavian—we have African-American, Asian-American, Latinos and Latinas here. We have people with handicapping conditions here--some born with them, some whose intellectual capacity has diminished with the passing years; we have gay and lesbian people here. We have sinners here and that is all of us and we have redeemed here too—all those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved.
            Last week Rabbi Maurice Harris of Temple Bethel Israel wrote a piece on humility in religion. “I believe much rests on our ability to adopt an attitude of humility about the greatness or absolute rightness of one’s own religion. This is an attitude I call religious humility. It is absolute certainty, whether personal or religious, that gets us into trouble.” Moses told Joshua that the ideal would by the spirit of God resting on each person that everyone would speak God’s Word as a prophet. Jesus told John and the other disciples to welcome the little child, to be hospitable, and to not worry so much about power and authority. God does not need defending and order, while important, is not most important. Be charitable and welcome those who may not be welcome in other places, accept the works of justice done even outside the community of faith and deeds to be rewarded by God. Truth and love go together in a welcoming church.

Amen.

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