Don't Blame me

September 27, 2015 Mark 9:38-50 Don’t Blame Me Year B 18th Sunday After Pentecost Have you ever tasted gravy with no salt in it. it is like eating a grey or brown blob of nothing. But put a little salt in it and it makes all the difference in the world. Salt can add flavor to a lot of things. Jesus calls us the salt of the earth – the world is the gravy and those who follow Jesus are the salt. The flavor of God. Today I want to start at the end of the scripture where Jesus tells us to maintain your salt and keep the peace. Paul says to use your salt and keep your faith. The world is changing – we don’t put salt on everything anymore. I don’t even use salt anymore. There was a time when I did not even have salt in the house, and as time went on, I do. Our bodies need salt – salt is a part of who we are – it is a part of our earth. It is no wonder Jesus would use salt as an image of who we should be to the world. Someone said that salt is sort of like the soul of dead meat. A piece of meat with no salt will rot and decay. Take that same piece of meat and rub it in salt – and it will maintain it freshness. When Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth- that was his intention. – be the soul of dead meat. Last week I told you that the first time that I read the gospel – I was scared into being a Christian. Jesus threats scared me into wanting to be a good person. This is one of those scriptures that scared me. It was the threat of going to hell for doing the wrong thing. All throughout the gospels, Jesus has much more to say about going to hell then he does about heaven. He wants to make sure that hell is a place that you do not want to go. To sin is terrible but to teach another to sin is infinitely worse. O. Henry has a story in which he tells of a little girl whose mother was dead. Her father used to come home from work and sit down and take off his jacket and open his paper and light his pipe and put his feet on the mantelpiece. The little girl would come in and ask him to play with her for a little for she was lonely. He told her he was tired, to let him be at peace. He told her to go out to the street and play. She played on the streets. The inevitable happened—she took to the streets. The years passed on and she died. Her soul arrived in heaven. Peter saw her and said to Jesus, “Master, here’s a girl who was a bad lot. I suppose we send her straight to hell?” “No,” said Jesus gently, “let her in. Let her in.” And then his eyes grew stern, “But look for a man who refused to play with his little girl and sent her out to the streets—and send him to hell.” God is not hard on the sinner, but he will be stern to the person who makes it easier for another to sin, and whose conduct, either thoughtless or deliberate, puts a stumbling-block in the path of a weaker brother. Being the salt of the earth means being the one who makes a difference. A positive difference in someone elses life. Changing the Signs William Barclay, a British theologian, tells the following story in his commentary on this Biblical text. He told a story about someone changing signs. That is, at an intersection of the road, one sign would point to the city of Seattle and another sign would point to the city of Tacoma. And the boy wondered to himself: How many people could I send down the wrong road if I changed the signs? Your very life is a sign post with a sign on it. Are you sending people down the wrong road or the right road? Being salt of the earth means leading people to the ways of God. Jesus was that if you mislead another’s faith, it will be better to have a millstone wrapped around your neck and for you to be thrown into the sea. That was a common punishment in Jesus time. When someone was a threat to the community, they would be thrown into the sea. We don’t do that to people anymore. Not physically, but spiritually we do it all of the time. Everytime we gossip, we don’t hold people accountable. We see something going wrong and we don’t try to stop it. We are putting a milstone around the spirit of others. We are not being the salt of the earth. If it is not enough to be threatened with hell, Jesus says if your hands, your feet, your eyes cause you to sin, then you need to cut it off. Many in the present generation would not agree to have surgery for any reason. My uncle got gangrene in his leg, and refused to get help, because he felt that he would not be any good without it. My cousin needs a knee replacement and yet refuses to have surgery. I hope that I never have to make a decision like that about my body parts. But once again in Jesus day – he knew a lot of people who had lost a leg or a foot or even an eye to an accident or even due to a punishment. In those days, if you were a thief you would get your limbs cut off. Jesus knew that the greatest sins that we commit are either with our hands, our feet and our eyes. We work with our hands. But the hand also has another special purpose. When you meet someone – what is the first thing that you give them? You give them your hand as a sign of welcome. You can do things with your hands, but you can also not do things with your hands. You can work and make things happen, or you can fold your hands and refuse to do anything. You can extend your hand and welcome people, or you can refuse to extend your hand and make watch them fall We go places with our feet. We can either go to the right places or the wrong places. We can use our feet to walk into the church, or to walk into the club. We can use our feet to go to the produce section of the grocery store and get healthy vegetables, or we can use our feet to get pizza. You have heard the term vote with your feet – we make choices with our feet and where they take us. We sin with our feet and the places we go. And it has been said – that blind people do not commit crimes of passion. We react to what we see with our eyes. We develop our desires and passions based on what we see with our eyes. Back in the day, it was believed that the eyes were the keys to the heart. If you wanted to know how someone really felt, all you needed to do was look in their eyes. Jesus says if your hands and your feet and your eyes cause you to sin, then cut them off. And most of us would rather die then lose a limb. More importantly though I think that when we do sin – we blame the sin on our hands, our feet, our eyes, - and not the heart inside that controls them all. We continue to blame the outside forces – and not take responsibility for our feelings, our thoughts, our spirit. What Jesus is really saying to us – is that we need to get rid of anything in our lives that stand in the way of us worshipping God. Hell – true hell is living outside of the will of God. As long as we ignore God’s plan for our lives – then we are miserable in this life and the next. Faith in God is a total commitment – and it requires all of your spirit all of your soul. A fellow by the name of Ed Peterman tells a story from his childhood, when he grew up on a farm in Preble County Ohio. His family discovered they had some rats in the barn, so his parents got some traps. One night they baited them with cheese, and set them out around the barn. The next morning young Ed went out to see if they had caught anything. The first traps he examined were empty. When he came to the last trap, he saw something strange. The trap had been sprung, and while there was no rat in it, he noticed that it did hold the severed leg of a rat. He ran to tell his parents about this unexpected finding. They followed him back to the barn. When they got to the trap with the rat's leg in it, his parents just nodded and smiled knowingly. "What happened?" Ed asked them. "Tell me what happened!" So they told him. The trap had caught the rat by the leg. The rat knew that its life was at risk, so it chewed off its own leg to escape. "That's the way rats are," his father said. "Better to go on living with only three legs, than to die with all four." Ed just stood there for a while, marveling at the courage it took for the rat to choose to survive by chewing its leg off and leaving it behind. It makes one wonder whether we would have the courage to do what the rat did. If you were caught in a life-threatening situation one day, would you be able to cut part of yourself off and leave it behind in order to go on living? That's one of those things we never truly know, unless and until we actually faced that situation. Would I be able to surrender a hand or a leg, a memory or a grudge, an obsession or a long-held opinion, if my life were at stake? Or would I cling desperately to the futile memory of how things have always been before, and so bring about my own death? Jan Campbell “Cut It Out” The analogy of an operating room, where radical surgery must be performed, is a most useful way to understand this Scripture. Most of us today would accept the notion that the whole body is worth more than any of its individual parts, and when we develop a cancerous tumor on eye, hand, or foot, we cast aside “the offending member” — with regret, of course; but we operate on the assumption that it is better to enter life without the diseased organ than not to live at all. If a troublesome organ hampers our life or threatens our very existence we eliminate it. We recognize the principle involved. When a gall bladder or appendix is so badly diseased that it gives us no peace, we cut it out. When a hand or foot is diseased beyond help, we are not loathe to amputate in order to save everything else. When a tumor is malignant and threatens to take our entire life away, we are not hesitant to say to the surgeon, “Cut it out!” It is far better to leave behind the tumor than to threaten one’s whole existence. We understand the principle involved. And what is true in the physical realm, translates over into the spiritual realm. If there is something in our lives: some habit, some action, some attitude, that gets between us and God, we must “cut it out.” Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com God wants us to live our lives in freedom. He wants us to get out of the trap. He wants us to run free. Look at what is holding you down – and let it go – and go on with your life. With all of this talk about millstones around our necks, and losing limbs – what is the good news that Jesus is trying to tell us. Transform Your Heart Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century church father said, “God never asks his servants to do what is impossible. The love and goodness of his Godhead is revealed as richly available. It is poured out like water upon all. God furnished to each person according to his will the ability to do something good. None of those seeking to be saved will be lacking in this ability, given by the one who said: ‘whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.’” Ask the Holy Spirit to transform your heart by the fire of his love that you may wholly desire what is good for your neighbor. Gregory of Nyssa, a fourth century church father's comments on this passage. Being the salt of the earth is not about the hard and difficult things – that we have to agonize over – it is about the things that are obvious and right in front of your face. Jesus also says that if you just give the person in front of you a cup of cold water when they are thirsty that you will be rewarded. Being a Christian is not about the hard things, it is about the easy things that you could do every day. It does not take a lot to say I love you. We use our hands, our feet, and our eyes everyday. We can do right just as easy as we can do wrong. We can help people or we can stand by and let the world run its course. Being the salt of the earth – means making a difference in the little things that God puts in front of you every day. Salt is sodium Chloride. Salt Sodium is an extremely active element found naturally only in combined form; it always links itself to another element. Chlorine, on the other hand, is the poisonous gas that gives bleach its offensive odor. When sodium and chlorine are combined, the result is sodium chloride. What is sodium Chloride? Salt. Common table salt. The substance we use to preserve meat and bring out its flavor. Love and truth can be like sodium and chlorine. Love without truth is flighty, sometimes blind, willing to combine with various doctrines. On the other hand, truth by itself can be offensive, sometimes even poisonous. Spoken without love, it can turn people away from the gospel. When truth and love are combined in an individual or a church, however, then we have what Jesus called "the salt of the earth," and we're able to preserve and bring out the beauty of our faith. Be the salt of the earth – and make a difference. Amen. Object: tape player or radio that plugs in, tape of pleasing music, volunteer to hold the cord of tape player or radio CHILDREN'S SERMON by Angela Akers Good morning, boys and girls. I brought some music for you to listen to today. (Have volunteer start the tape player) Isn't that pretty? This tape player is very handy. I just plug it in, pop in a tape, push PLAY, and out comes the music. (Have volunteer pull plug on tape player) Hey! What happened to our music? Somebody unplugged the tape player. Well, we'll just plug it back in and listen some more. There, that's better. Oh, I love this part! Listen really carefully. (Volunteer pulls plug again) What in the world is happening to my music? Oh, the tape player is unplugged again. Boy, that's frustrating! This tape player is in perfect condition, it's all ready to play beautiful music, but if it's unplugged from the wall, it just won't play. That's because all the power for the tape player comes from the power source in the wall. Without its main source of power, the tape player won't work. If it's plugged in, then it has all the power it needs. But if it comes unplugged, then it loses all its power to play beautiful music. Have you ever thought of yourself as a tape player? Our power for living a good, happy life comes from God. But sometimes we can become disconnected from God, just like this tape player was unplugged from its power source. You know what "œunplugs" us from God? Sin. Sin is what separates us from God. Sin unplugs us from our true source of power, God. (Plug in tape player and start the music) Things like lying, stealing, being mean to other people, gossiping about other people all these things are sins. (Pull the plug) They "œunplug" us from God and keep us from living good, happy lives. Let's pray and ask God to take away our sins and keep us "œplugged in" to Him. ……Extra illustrations There is an old eastern fable. A man possessed a ring set with a wonderful opal. Whoever wore the ring became so sweet and true in character that all men loved him. The ring was a charm. Always it was passed down from father to son, and always it did its work. As time went on, it came to a father who had three sons whom he loved with an equal love. What was he to do when the time came to pass on the ring? The father got other two rings made precisely the same so that none could tell the difference. On his death-bed he called each of his sons in, spoke some words of love and to each, without telling the others, gave a ring. When the three sons discovered that each had a ring, a great dispute arose as to which was the true ring that could do so much for its owner. The case was taken to a wise judge. He examined the rings and then he spoke. “I cannot tell which is the magic ring,” he said, “but you yourselves can prove it.” “We?” asked the sons in astonishment. “Yes,” said the judge, “for if the true ring gives sweetness to the character of the man who wears it, then I and all the other people in the city will know the man who possesses the true ring by the goodness of his life. So, go your ways, and be kind, be truthful, be brave, be just in your dealings, and he who does these things will be the owner of the true ring.” A missionary tells a lovely story. She had been telling a class of African primary children about giving a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus. She was sitting on the verandah of her house. Into the village square came a company of native bearers. They had heavy packs. They were tired and thirsty, and they sat down to rest. Now they were men of another tribe, and had they asked the ordinary non-Christian native for water they would have been told to go and find it for themselves, because of the barrier between the tribes. But as the men sat wearily there, and as the missionary watched, from the school emerged a little line of tiny African girls. On their heads they had pitchers of water. Shyly and fearfully they approached the tired bearers, knelt and offered their pitchers of water. In surprise the bearers took them and drank and handed them back, and the girls took to their heels and ran to the missionary. “We have given a thirsty man a drink,” they said, “in the name of Jesus.” The little children took the story and the duty literally. Edward F. Markquart, Millstones All too often, gossip, silence, and exclusion serve just these purposes, cutting off the prophetic from the congregation. This is what the Apostles were doing to this one man “caught healing.” They were demanding that Jesus hobble his powerful works because he wasn’t one of them. We can stop our pettiness by taking four actions: 1. Get out in the harvest; Recognize the crisis in harvesters and the ripeness of the harvest. If you don’t bring the harvest in during its due season, it will not just sit out there and stay ripe. This is the harvest time and we need laborers. Let’s be one and pray for more! 2. Quit defending the faith and take the offense in outreach; Rest with Gamaliel, the wise Pharisee who trained Saul. In Acts 5:38 he said that God doesn’t need us to defend his name; he is quite capable of that himself. If someone’s work is of God, it will continue. If not, it will cease. 3. Recognize the signs of pettiness in our life and flee them; If we are surrounded by ducks and quack; it usually means we are a duck. If those around us are petty and small, guess what... We must flee such people! Instead, we should move in the company of giants, heading towards the outer boundaries of our “known world.” If we seek out people who don’t have time or use for gossip, then we will be forced to live at their level. They will hold our behavior and conversation to a higher standard and we will either grow to meet those standards or begin talking behind their backs as well. Let us hope it is the former. 4. Maintain the habits of faith. We must maintain the habits of faith; a. Pray constantly, b. Hunger for God’s Word, c. Maintain a small group of accountability, and d. Be in personal relationship with “least of these.” Attending to these habits keeps us from becoming small-minded and hard-hearted. Jerry Goebel, Stumble The Fellowship of the Bearers of Cold Water An old man named Calvin had lived a good life as a farmer for years. One day an evangelist came to the community, and, in the course of his stay, visited Calvin and asked him what denomination he was. Calvin answered the question like this: "When my grain gets ready for selling, after I've harvested it and packaged it, I can take it to town by any one of three roads ” the river road, the dirt road, or the highway. But when I get my grain to town and go to the buyer to sell him what I have, he never looks at me and asks, ˜Calvin, which road did you take to get your grain to town?' What he does do is ask me if my grain is any good." Friend, is your grain good - the grain of your discipleship? That's all that really matters. When we get to Heaven we will probably find some (Roman Catholics) and some (Baptists) and some (Presbyterians). And they'll be just as surprised to see us as we will to see them. But we will all belong to just one fellowship. Let's call it the Fellowship of the Bearers of Cold Water. We will all be people who have lived out our discipleship through acts of kindness to others. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com Staff, www.sermons.com. Adapted from a sermon by David H. Johnson. Frederick Buechner defines the Kingdom of God in this way: “It’s like finding a million dollars in a field, or a jewel worth a king’s ransom. It’s like finding something you hated to lose and thought youUd never find again - an old keepsake, a stray sheep, a missing child. When the kingdom really comes, it’s as if the thing you lost and thought you’d never find again is you.” (Frederick Buechner, WISHFUL THINKING, New York: Harper and Row, 1973, p. 50) Escaping the Rat Traps