Pentecost 17

Sermon for Hope Episcopal Church
The Reverend Martha Frances
Year B, Pentecost 17, Proper 21
30 September 2006

Text: Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48
Other Readings: Numbers11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Psalm 19:7-14; James3:16-4:6

What a rich collection of Bible stories we have today! Sometimes I wonder what scripture I can possibly preach on, but these readings are so vivid I hardly know where to start. Preachers often begin their sermons with the closing verse of today's psalm. I, too, plead to God when I preach, "Let the words of my mouth & the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O God."

The amazing story in Numbers from the Hebrew scriptures attracts my attention today. The Israelites are grumbling again, weeping & wishing to be back in Egypt. They seem to have forgotten being slaves in Egypt under increasingly oppressive conditions when they wept, begged, & pled for deliverance. God had heard their moaning & groaning & gone to quite a bit of trouble to produce a burning bush, a series of 10 plagues to get Pharaoh’s attention, a Passover dinner eaten on the run, & a rather elaborate parting of the Red Sea, topped off by the drowning of Pharoah's army. Not exactly good news if you were one of Pharaoh’s Egyptians, but it would make quite a movie, perhaps starring someone like Charlton Heston.

Now the rabble is out in the desert. Rabble paints vividly how unruly these folks are on their journey to the Promised Land. They don't like life in the desert at all or the boring manna God has given them to eat, & it's all Moses' fault. So what does Moses do? He blames it on God, of course! Our translation merely says Moses was displeased. He sounds more than displeased to me! Other translations say he was troubled & grieved, finding the whole interchange disgraceful. So he tells God what he thinks. He gripes & complains to God that he's not strong enough to care for all these people by himself. He tells God, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them. I don't wanna live; I want die. I'll go out & eat worms!" Can't you just hear Moses' whiney little voice? And I'll be he stomped his foot, too. Stirred up quite a bit of dust!

We can learn several things from this conversation between God & Moses. First, Moses doesn't picture God the way we moderns usually do. Moses sees God as a mother. Moses complains to God, "Who do you think I am? Am I their mother?" "No! You are! You conceived these ungrateful wretches. You gave birth to them. Why am I responsible You're their mother. Now you be their mother & feed them. Moses recognizes that only a mother's love can be as deep as God's. That in itself is truly phenomenal.

But there's more. Can you believe that Moses would talk that way to God? Do you often yell at God like that? Now occasionally, I get angry when I think I'm getting a raw deal, & sometimes I even tell God what I think. But I seldom let God have it the way Moses does here. Moses must really believe God loves him like mother & that God is big enough to take this tantrum & still love him. Moses begs God to put him to death, asking it as a favor because he feels his burden is too heavy. Even when Moses is deeply troubled, he trusts God's love enough to tell God what he really feels.

In addition, we learn that even though Moses is whimpering & childish in his complaints to God, God provides a plan to solve Moses' problem, or at least to lighten Moses' load. God tells Moses to find 70 leaders among the people & God will empower them to help Moses lead the people. We don't know exactly what it meant that God granted the 70 elders part of Moses' Spirit, exactly what they prophesied, or how it helped Moses, but clearly, God's action took some of the pressure off Moses. In today's world, we call that "delegating responsibility." Moses didn't have to do all the work himself. He could share the burden with the natural leaders in the camp, & God empowered them for leadership.

Certainly, in our ministry here at Hope, we all need to recognize our own call to do part of the work & trust that God will share the necessary Spirit so the Gospel is spread much farther than one or two of us could share it. Working together on the BBQ yesterday is an example, & we all need to allow God to use our time, talent, & treasure to continue to grow this parish for the glory of God & the strengthening of this community. Isn't it incredible how we can all pull together for an event & grow closer in the process? And even when I act childish, whining & fussing, God listens to my plea & does for me what I cannot do for myself. God does that for you, too. We just have to trust that God is in charge & then let go & let God.

Notice that God gives some of the Spirit to a couple of leaders who don't even come to the meeting. We have to remember that God empowers people to do ministry even when they don't come to Hope. God can work even through those people who don't follow directions & orders. Here we see Moses' wisdom. Moses doesn't stop them from prophesying. Moses says that he wishes all God's people were open to the Spirit like these men are.

It is here that we move over to the Gospel for today. We're told that John asks Jesus the same question. The disciples have seen someone casting out demons in Jesus' name even though he isn't one of their group. John wants to forbid him from using Jesus' name. John wants to keep control, to keep the Gospel for a select group. Sometimes we meet people who think their way of loving & following God is the only way. Usually, they mean that if we don't agree with them, we are wrong. Have you ever been accused of not being a real Christian? Have you ever accused someone else of that-even in your thoughts? What does Jesus say?

Jesus forbids them from stopping the renegade healer. Jesus is wise enough to realize that if the healer is using Jesus' name, he must believe in Jesus' power & will not be Jesus' enemy. Of course, the disciples have just returned from a mission when they were unable to heal the way this outsider can, so they're probably quite jealous. It's not fair for this guy who's not even one of Jesus' regular disciples to be able to do what they can't do themselves. But Jesus utters a wise statement: "Whoever is not against us is for us." Jesus tells us we need to trust the Spirit where it lands & to include everyone. It's not easy to include everyone, is it?

How does Jesus say to treat others? He says to attend to their needs; to give them a cup of water to drink. At Lord of the Streets, we knew that we must fill our folks' tummies along with giving them soul food. We'll be exploring in the next several months ways we can help feed those who are in need. Here at Hope we offer several groups & opportunities for feeding souls: Sunday Bible study, Brotherhood of St. Andrew, Daughters of the King, & periodic study groups like the Bonhoeffer group going on Wednesday nights now. Jesus says we need to be good examples to the little ones, the new Christians, & not make things harder for them. He says to accept all who want to come, to help them find the proper book in church & come over for coffee hour after church. Remember that Jesus says, "Come to the banquet! Don't leave anyone out!"

Also, Jesus didn't mean literally that we should cut a hand or foot off or pull our eye out either. That part of today's Gospel used to really bother me. I don't like pain, & the worst maiming I've done to myself is having my ears pierced. Now I know Jesus was talking about the defects of character which cause me to stumble. My shortcomings started out as the defense mechanism I used to cope with life. When did they quit working for me & begin to work against me? I don't know. All I know is that eventually, they became unhealthy. For example, my hard work quit being a way to get valuable tasks done & began to be the way I proved that I was worth something. I still find myself very proud of the hand or foot that can accomplish hard work so people will think I'm great. Furthermore, I can't get rid of defects of character by myself. I can't always see those faults myself, so I have to meet regularly with a spiritual director or a sponsor to help me find them & be willing to let go of them. Then, I have to be entirely willing & ask God to remove them.

And what do I get for all that letting go & letting God? I get to enter the kingdom, the reign of God. I get an invitation to the heavenly banquet. I don't earn a place at the party; God has a place for me already. God has a place for each of you, too. We can't have a banquet alone. We're in this together. And we must be about the business of broadening God's invitation to others to come to the banquet. We come to the banquet table every time we share Eucharist with one another-Eucharist means "thanksgiving." At Christ's banquet table, there's no place for weeping & whining & wishing God had left us in Egypt as slaves. When we seek first God's kingdom, we will find the door is already open, we'll be given our place at the table, & our only appropriate response will be "Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia."