Have a taste of this [hand out teaspoon of salt to someone in the front row]
“If salt loses it’s saltiness with what will you season it?”
I have two things that I would like to draw out of today’s texts about ways in which we can lose our saltiness - one personal and one public. One personal - about how live our lives, and one public - about how we run organisations which we belong to, be it companies or the Church. Which would you like me to talk about first?
[Take a vote of the congregation. The point of doing this is that while I don’t change the content of what I say, by giving the congregation a choice over the order I say it in, I give them a sense of ownership]
PUBLIC
Everyone knows that the Vietnam War was a disaster for the Americans. However it took until 1997 that definitive work on why the Vietnam War was a disaster was published - a PhD thesis entitled “Derelection of Duty” by one HR MacMaster.
The problem with the Vietnam War was (according to McMaster) not that America made mistakes - but that it failed to learn from them.
On the ground Captains knew exactly what was wrong with the commands they were getting. But if they disobeyed them, they may save their soldiers lives, but they would not get promoted. This went right up the ranks. Even the highest General could not speak directly to President Johnson about any concerns they had. They had to speak through the Defense Secretary McNamara. Any one who tried to bi pass the chain of command would be told off. And even if the Generals did get through to McNamara, they were meant to listen and obey, not feed back ideas. “if you are not for us you are against us” And so, even though everyone at the bottom knew what was going wrong, no one could get their superiors to listen to them. And the War was lost.
Consider our Gospel reading. The Apostles were quite clear there was a chain of command. At the top was Jesus. They argued frequently about who came next. Was it John and James ? Was it Peter and Andrew? Was it Judas the money man? But one thing they were sure of … it was the 12 who came next. So what was someone out side the twelve doing trying to cast out demons in Jesus’s name? He wasn’t even a proper disciple of any sort - he had just seen someone in distress, and had acted to help WITHOUT the proper permissions. Jesus on the other hand takes a different attitude.
“Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able to soon afterwards speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us….. 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 round your neck and you were thrown into the sea”
Look what Jesus does here - he is quite happy to tell people off when they are getting it wrong (he tells the powerful Apostles off) but he is even more happy giving permission “Do not stop him”. Here was someone at the bottom of the hierarchy seeing someone in need, and casting out the demon in Jesus name.
In pretty much every company up and down the land, people on the shop floor … the lowly cleaner on the hospital ward, the zero-hours customer assistant in the shop, the lowest ranking guy or gal in the factory. - All these have ideas, often very good ideas, about how the job could be done better. Any of you in this congregation who have relatively low ranking jobs will probably agree with me. The problem companies face is how do you get those ideas from the bottom to the top.
So moving on from Vietnam to the disastrous war in Iraq. It’s pretty disastrous at the moment. It started off pretty disastrous. But there were pockets in the middle when things were turned around.
It started off just like Vietnam - a defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld who refused to listen to anything the Generals were saying. And when Generals tried to say the plan wasn’t working, they got side lined, not promoted.
But one particular Colonel, was put in charge of a Town called Tel Afar, where things were going disastrously wrongly. He quickly turned things around. He listened to those who were below who were telling him what was going wrong, and ignored the orders from above him. In that particular area (and for as long as that Colonel was in charge) Al Quaida in that area (what is now ISIS) was totally defeated. For his troubles, this Colonel was twice passed over for promotion. But he had the confidence to carry on - and when he couldn’t get his ideas heard up the chain of command he would phone those higher up in the line, or where that failed call a journalist. How did this Colonel has the confidence to challenge that unquestioning loyalty to a top down chain of command was the best way to win a war? Because this Colonel was HR MacMaster - the very same man who 7 years earlier had written the seminal PhD on why America lost the Vietnam war.
Moses summons 70 elders to the tent of meeting to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Two people don’t make it to the tent. Yet God still fills them with the Holy Spirit and in an entirely unorthodox manner in the middle of the encampment, these two begin to prophesy. The other elders are furious. These two have not followed the chain of command. They have not followed proper procedure. It doesn’t matter that God seemed to have blessed what they have done. They didn’t have permission.
Moses’s response “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets”
like Jesus:
“Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able to soon afterwards speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us….. 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 round your neck and you were thrown into the sea”
Now some of you may be bosses in your workplace and have the chance to apply it.Others of you may not. But I’m the boss in this church, so I do have the chance to apply it. I want us to be a church where people are free, like the man casting out the demon, to take initiatives. A bottom up organisation, becasue any other oraganisation rapidly loses its saltiness.
One final story - way back in 2005 the scientific journal Nature did a study to see which was more accurate, the Top Down Encyclopedia Britannica with its great experts, or the bottom up Wikipedia to which anyone can contribute. They compared articles on a number of subjects - and found that in Encyclopedia Britannica there were an average of 2.92 small mistakes per article; In Wikipedia there were an average of 3.86 mistakes. Ah hah - said the Top Down Chain of Command Encyclopedia Britannica we are more accurate than Wikipedia. BUT, 24 hours after Nature published that study, Britanica still had all those mistakes, 24 hours after Nature had published that study, every single one of those mistakes had been corrected in Wikipedia.
PERSONAL
Have a taste of this [Salt]
The other way I want to talk about whereby we can lose our saltiness is personally. A few months back if you remember I invited all of you to come up and write prayers and tie them to the altar rail. Now these were all anonymous so I don’t know who wrote what, but there were many many of them that expressed a lot of pain. Phrases like “Lord help me just to keep on going when I feel so low”
You come to Church. Everyone’s cheerful. The Vicar has got a big smile. Perhaps it’s baptism like today with Willow’s Christening. A great joyful celebration. And of course you are smiling because it’s a happy occasion and you want to support Willow. But inside there will be some people here - who feel very low.
In our bible reading we Moses being completely overwhelmed by life. “If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once” Moses says to God. He is going through a time of great workplace stress. Perhaps you have been through stress at your workplace? Moses has followed God’s instructions and led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. And what happens - they whinge, they moan “If only we had meat to eat … there is nothing at all but this manna to look at”
And Moses can’t take the personal attacks: Lord “If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once”. Moses isn’t just suffering workplace stress, Moses is depressed.
Moses isn’t the only biblical figure to be like this. Elijah too becomes overwhelmed with life. Having done Amazing stuff - confonting Ahab and Jezabel, miraculously defeating the prophets of Baal, raising a widow’s dead son - after all the high’s Wlijah collapses alone in a cave. “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts , for the Israelites have forsaken your covenants, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone are left and they are seekin my life to take it away” (1 kings 19:10)
One of England’s finest preachers in the 19th Century was Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Frequently during his ministry he was plunged into severe depression. Sometimes he would be out of the pulpit for two to three months at a time. Arnold Dallimore in his biography of Spurgeon entitled, “Prince of Preachers” wrote, “What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know…even his desperate calling to God brought no relief.” “There are dungeons,” he said, “beneath the castles of despair.”
…
A young Midwestern lawyer suffered from such deep depression that his friends thought it best to keep all knives and razors out of his reach. He questioned his life’s calling and the prudence of even attempting to follow through. During this time he wrote, “I am now the most miserable man living. Whether I should ever be better, I cannot tell. I awfully imagine that I shall not.” But somehow, from somewhere, Abraham Lincoln received the encouragement he needed, and the achievements of his life completely vindicated his bout with discouragement.”
Winston Churchill, a considerably courageous man and one of the greats of history, suffered from terrible depression most of his adult life. He once commented that it followed him around like “a black dog.” [three illustrations
Depression is no respecter of persons, it strikes young and old, male and female, rich or poor, well-known or unknown, believer or un-believer alike. Depression knows no boundaries.
So what are we meant to do? Put on an outward smile and “rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice?” that is not good advicse for those who are feeling low or suffering actual depression. It is reading one verse out of context - if you or your friend is depressed, telling them to “rejoice” “Go on, just snap out of it” - isn’t going to help is it?
So what does the bible say? First of all, it doesn’t say everything. Some Christians will say you shouldn’t use CBT or medication for the bible because they are not mentioned in the bible. Well there is a good reason they are not mentioned in the bible: They hadn’t been invented yet. The bible doesn’t tell us everything about how to cope feeling low, whether it’s a one off thing or full on depression. But it does tell us useful things.
It tells us for example to get out there and do something
In 1 Kings 19:1-18 The prophet Elijah having stood up to the blaspheming King Ahab is now running away. He is depressed thinking that he is the only person who has been faithful to God.
There is the famous passage where God speaks to him not through the earthquake, wind or fire but through the still small voice. And as God speaks to him he not only gives him a task
“15 Then the Lord said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. 17 It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. 18 Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
Or take today’s reading from Numbers “Gather to me 70 of the elders of Israel, people whom you know to be elders of Israel and officers over them, bring them to the tent of Israel, and have them take their place with you”
Moses had been moaning to God -
‘Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favour in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child”, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? 13Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, “Give us meat to eat!”
14I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. 15If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favour in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.’ (numbers 11:11-15)
He is well and truly depressed - and God gives him a task - to organise this prayer meeting where God will give a common vision to all the leaders through the gift of prophecy
Go out there and do something. When you down - whether a little bit down or as down as being clinically depressed, the hardest thing can be dragging yourself out of bed - but as Elijah and Moses found however hard it may well be the best thing.
And thirdly it’s in the bible - you are not on your own. Elijah - who thinks he is on his own discovers there are “7000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal”
Going into himself and ruminating on how difficult it was had made Elijah miserable - going out there with the 7000 other people who had not bowed down to Baal and getting on with the task lifted his spirits.
Moses discovers there are 70 elders he can turn to for help - and again his spirit is lifted.
Now you might be thinking that our readings about Moses being depressed don’t really fit with the joy we will experience later in this mass as we baptise little Willow and welcome her into God’s family. Perhaps wouldn’t it have been more appropriate if the Church of England had given us some great triumphal moment from Moses’s life like God speaking to him through the burning bush, or getting the Red Sea?
But the good news for Willow is that God isn’t just there for her on the celebratory days today. But if ever in her life she has a moment like Moses God will be there for her too lifting her out of it. God is there for you Willow on the good days and on the bad - God is there for you every day.
And so is his church
Romans 12:15 “rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” - we are here to celebrate, but if anyone needs there saltiness topped up too - we are here for you with that too.
………….
[remember the two parts of the sermon could have been delivered in either order]
CONCLUSION
Have a taste of this (give spoonful of salt to a member of the congregation)
“If salt loses it’s saltiness with what will you season it?”
We have looked at two things - the PERSONAL and the PUBLIC
How institutions from the American Army to the Church to the Company you work in - can lose their spark, their saltiness - if they fail to be the place where people can contribute from the bottom up.
How as individuals we can sometimes get worn down by the toughness of life - and as well as getting counseling or CBT or antidepressant, those medical gifts that God gives us, we can can also have our saltiness restored by doing the hardest of all things - getting out of bed and doing the task God gives us, and embracing the people he sends to work with us.
Today we welcome Willow into God’s family
Into a family, not a hierachy, somewhere where you are able to try things out and take initiatives “whoever is not against us is for us”
Into a relationship with God who is there for the Good times as well as bad. It may seem strange to be talking about the bad times on such joyful day - But the reason joyful because that relationship there for the bad times too.
Keep your salt levels high!
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This sermon was preached on September 27 2015 in St Barnabas Church Northolt.
Many of the illustrations used in this sermon come from other sermons on this site, but having rediscovered this sermon from 2015, I have unfortunately not saved all the references.
