Sermon- 17th Sunday after Pentecost

The Gospel According to Mark 9:38-50

38 John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone* casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ 39But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. 41For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
Temptations to Sin
42 ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me,* it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. 43If 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,* to the unquenchable fire.* 45And if your 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.*,* 47And 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,* 48where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
49 ‘For everyone will be salted with fire.* 50Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it?* Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.’

$7,909.62, 24 hours, not one single set of verses read together. This is the stuff of Salvation on the Small Screen, a book written by an emerging church Lutheran pastor named Nadia Bolz-Weber. She is challenged to spend 24 consecutive hours watching Trinity Broadcast Network, a 24 hour cable channel dedicated commercial free, inspirational programming.
$7,909.62 is the total of all the items offered for sale on this commercial free channel. Dvd’s, bibles, even Faberge style eggs. 24 hours is the challenge. Recording her responses and the responses of family and friends fill the pages of her book. She calls her task- Christian Fear Factor.
Now, I lived my own little share of Christian Fear Factor in college. I grew up Lutheran, along with all that might mean. No one ever told me growing up that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart, we didn’t talk a lot about the devil, Sunday texts were always from the lectionary, not to supplement a sermon series, I never heard the phrase spiritual warfare until college. I could talk up and down about saint and sinner, I knew pretty much all the words to A Mighty Fortress, I was a big fan of Martin Luther.
So, I pack myself up, and for a reason I still don’t truly understand, I drove down to Hope College, a small Christian Reformed school in West Michigan. I am one of the few Lutherans on campus, and everyone else seems to know music I’ve never heard before, in fact, they seem to know a Jesus I’ve never met before. They can pull verses out of the bible like no tomorrow. And, because I’m in college, and because I have always had a bit of a rebellious streak, I decide that I’m going to be the liberal Lutheran voice on campus.
All of this sets the scene for an evening during my senior year. We had worship three times a week, and a big worship service on Sunday evenings. I’m there, with all my friends, none of whom are Lutheran, and most who think I’m a little off my rocker. Worship is great, I’ll give it that. The huge worship space is packed. It is energetic and enthusiastic. People are there because they really love Jesus. Worship ends, and another student taps me on the shoulder. Brooke, he says, I just have to tell you, God’s laying this on my heart, I’m worried about your salvation.
Wait. I’m Lutheran. We aren’t a people who can worry about our salvation. We can’t do it, because we know once we start we’ll never stop. So we give all the stuff of salvation over to God. That’s what my people do- we trust in grace alone. We don’t worry.
For the writer of Salvation on the Small Screen, and for myself, I must tell you, I would really like to get some of the disciples from our gospel today with me to say, “We saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he is not with us!” I’d like to get a little Joshua response from our Old Testament lesson and say, “They don’t get to prophesy! Lord you must stop them!”
For those of us that gather here Sunday after Sunday, my deep hope is that we are Lutheran for a reason. It isn’t just because this is the closest church and we don’t want to have to walk too far on a Sunday morning. I hope that in this place we have found a way of seeing God that seems true, that bears the fruits of the spirit, that soothes our souls and connects us with something bigger than ourselves. I’m a Lutheran pastor because I love being a Lutheran- I love living into the questions, I love that we don’t know all the answers, we have such a deep theological tradition that I really can’t imagine being anything else.
The disciples and I are of the same tribe. They are nine chapters into the gospel of Mark, and even if they keep getting confused and they always seem to be one step behind, they aren’t going anywhere yet. They are following Jesus, even when he keeps telling them things they don’t want to hear. They want to be with him, maybe even be like him.
So, no surprise, when someone starts casting out demons in Jesus’ name they are the first to put a stop to that crazy business. You don’t get to do that unless you are with us, you don’t get to do that unless you are one of us. I mean, how is Jesus supposed to know that these demon casters are even good theologians? How is he supposed to know that they are worthy of the ability to cast out demons? We must remember, only a few scenes earlier in our text, the disciples themselves couldn’t cast a demon out, so how can these outsiders be doing the business of disciples?
It’s pretty scary when we get a glimpse into the methods God will use to bring about the kingdom. It’s pretty scary to look straight in the face of someone who is worried about my salvation because I’m a bit too liberal, and realize that God is going to use him, just like God uses me to bring about God’s purpose for the world. God is going to use the Lutherans and the evangelicals and everyone else in between, and that is a hard truth, because it means that those holes in our theology? They are getting filled by someone else. Those thin parts of our tradition? Someone else might be getting it a bit closer to right than us.
But, that does not mean that anything goes. I can tell you, if you leave this sanctuary this morning and start quizzing people at work about their salvation, you’ve probably missed the point. Because, there are consequences, and Jesus makes them all sound pretty harsh. Cut off your hand, pluck out your eye, cut off your leg. Put a millstone around your neck and jump in Lake Michigan. Cause a little one to stumble, and it would be better to lose your tongue than continue on that path.
This is the part I would rather ignore. Jesus just sounds harsh. He is demanding and serious, and not warm and fuzzy and holding babies like last week. There is fire and salt, and body part plucking. Jesus sounds like he should be the first one in line to tell that renegade demon caster that he better get with them or he is against them. Jesus is not kidding around when it comes to sin, and the stumbling of believers.
This is serious stuff, the stuff of sin and relationship to one another. The stuff of God’s kingdom and the ways that we break our relationships with others and with God. How serious? Serious enough that we ought to be cutting off those parts of ourselves that cause others to stumble, serious enough that we don’t just pretend everything is okay, we know that we get it wrong again and again and again. Law and gospel is the stuff of our lives- and the law is not a teeny tiny blip on the screen- we ought not live in ways that break down our neighbors, that silence them and cut them off from God, we ought not teach in ways that break relationship with God, or reinforce sins of injustice. But along with that law, we always see gospel. The Gospel of freedom, the gospel of promise, the gospel that is our salvation.
God uses all of us, broken sinners with incorrect teaching and broken relationships. God uses us, even when we seek to silence one another. Knowing who God is, and how far God will go, and who gets to be in the circle with us, it is pretty scary stuff. As in the book of Numbers, the Lord has put the spirit on you, on me, on our friends who disagree with us, and on disciples who just don’t get it. And for that, with fear and faith, we say, thanks be to God. Amen.