In his early years, American landscape photographer Ansel Adams studied piano and showed some talent. At one party, however, as Adams played Chopin’s F Major Nocturne, he recalled that "In some strange way my right had started off in F-sharp major while my left had behaved well in F-major. I could not bring them together. I went through the entire nocturne with the hands separated by a half-step."
The next day a fellow guest gave Adams a no-nonsense review of his performance: "You never missed a wrong note!"(1)
Sometimes, it seems like we are like that. We sit in the church over a period of years. We are not ignorant of the teachings of Christ, and yet our lives are not in harmony at all with all that we profess and believe. Some days and weeks we do better than others, but all the while, as we try to juggle responsibilities and roles, it feels like we are playing in two different keys. Things don’t always mesh up neatly. There is too much dissonance and not enough harmony.
As we begin to look at our text for this week, I want us to see that this story about Jesus’ disciples shushing someone who was doing ministry in Jesus’ name immediately follows Jesus dealing with the disciples as they were getting their feathers up over who was going to be the greatest disciple.
Jesus had to be frustrated with them. I can see His body posture shift as His shoulders droop forward and His head lowers. Jesus is thinking, "I just got through telling them that to be first, they must be last of all and servant of all." Then, Jesus picked up a child. Children were valued just one notch up from slaves. And he says, "Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
My, Jesus had dealt with that problem of being the greatest, hadn’t he? He had challenged their thoughts and actions. He had taught them, and He had let them know that, through their attitudes and behavior, that’s how they were treating God. As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to Me.
Then Mark inserts this story. On His way to Jerusalem, with death looming in the coming weeks, Jesus continues to teach His disciples. 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." How could they call Him Teacher when they seemed not to learn and understand what He was telling them? We still do that today. We call Him Teacher, but our attention span is short and our discipline is spotty. He is like a coach who gives us the play book, and week after week, we chaffe at the expectation that we learn the plays.
And so, John, after being taught that to be great we must be the last and be the servant of all and that we minister to Christ as we minister to people without power and influence, like children. John says to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." Jesus surprises John, who cannot connect one teaching time with the next, by saying, "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us."
John probably wasn’t ready for that. This idea of unity under the name of Christ is a very important one for our church, the Disciples of Christ. We frequently use an expression of Barton Stone, one of our founders, which says, "Unity is our Polar Star." We believe strongly that we are brothers and sisters with all Christians who confess Jesus as their Savior. We do not criticize other denominations or religious groups, but we seek to work together for Christ and for the community.
Will Willimon observes "In verse 9:42 Jesus tells them that whoever causes one of the mikroi "little ones" in the church to stumble would be better off to be thrown into the sea! Then follows a list by Jesus of horrible consequences that result from bad behavior.
In the Gospel, two different but complementary gospel tendencies appear to be at work. On the one hand, Jesus commends an inclusive and as open as possible approach to judging who is in and who is out. All those who confess his name, who do what they do in response to his name, are to be commended and welcomed by his disciples. The test for the in and the out, at least in this passage, is neither doctrinal nor theological. It is ethical. Those who are kind to disciples (9:40) shall have a just reward because, "whoever is not against us is for us."
But then the ethical discussion is intensified and Jesus stresses the dire consequences of causing "one of these little ones who believe in me" to sin. The text is clearly about how the world ought to treat Jesus’ disciples, and, by implication, how Christians ought to treat one another. The "little ones" are the vulnerable. Salty Christians are needed, those who will "be at peace with one another" (9:50).
We cannot approach this text without reacting to Jesus’ exaggerated, metaphorical assault on our senses as he discusses the consequences of anyone who would lead these little ones astray. If your hand, foot or eye offend you, cut it out.
Thursday, May 1st, 2003, five days after Aron Ralston had first entered Utah’s Bluejohn Canyon on what should have been an eight-hour, 13-mile day hike, he cut off his own arm to save his life. Aron was an experienced outdoorsman, but he broke an important rule and went out alone. He broke another rule by not telling anyone where he had gone. Hiking down a gorge, an 800 pound boulder moved and trapped his arm against the rocks. He was alone. He had run out of food and water. He had been trapped for five days. He made a decision to sacrifice part of his arm to have a chance to survive. His mistakes were costly.
Sacrificing a part to save the whole was not a new idea. But Jesus used this idea to underscore the offense of putting a stumbling block before one of the little ones who belong to Him. Through our stubbornness and mistakes we can become stumbling blocks to others. How many of us know someone or have ourselves experienced the anger and cynicism that drives us away from church. We can become so out of sorts with our faith in God that we become a cynical, walking billboard not only against God and the church, but we become a stumbling block to those around us who could benefit by our positive example and encouragement in being a faithful disciple. Whether we admit or not, we cause pain to ourselves and to the people around us.
Fred Craddock tells the following story about his family. "My mother took us to church and Sunday school; my father didn’t go. He complained about Sunday dinner being later when she came home. Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father would say, "I know what the church wants. Church doesn’t care about me. Church wants another name, another pledge, another name, and another pledge. Right? Isn’t that the name of the game? Another name, another pledge." That’s what he always said.
Sometimes we’d have a revival. Pastor would bring the evangelist and say to the evangelist, "There’s one now, sic him, get him, get him," and my father would say the same thing. Every time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of somebody being hurt. And always my father said, "The church doesn’t care about me. The church wants another name and another pledge." I guess I heard it a thousand times.
One time he didn’t say it. He was in the veteran’s hospital, and he was down to 73 pounds. They’d taken out his throat, and he said, "It’s too late." They put in a metal tube, and X-rays burned him to pieces. I flew in to see him. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat. I looked around the room, potted plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards twenty inches deep beside his bed. And even that tray where they put food, if you can eat, on that was a flower. And all the flowers beside the bed, every card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.
He saw me read a card. He could not speak, so he took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare. If he had not written this line, I would not tell you this story. He wrote: "In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story."
I said, "What is your story, Daddy?"
And he wrote, "I was wrong."(2)
We live in a permissive age in which people are quick to blame and slow to accept responsibility. Someone sues a fast food restaurant because her coffee was too hot and she chose to drive with the coffee in her hand. We judge most of our actions on the basis of their effect on ourselves rather than our actions’ effects upon others. Today’s Gospel is a testimonial against that kind of thinking.
Today’s Gospel tells us that we are responsible for how we live, and we are warned not to be a stumbling block. Some don’t want to be bothered by any responsibility for anyone else. To become great is to become the servant of all. Even when we have stubbornly made mistakes that hindered our faith and the faith of those around us, let us accept responsibility and painfully do what is necessary to correct our mistakes and let us help those watching us in the distance by letting them know, "we were wrong." Amen.
Century Christian Church, October 1, 2006 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org
____________
1. Retrieved 9-25-2006 from www.esermons.com email, quoting from an issue of Daily Walk.
2. Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, eds., Chalice Press, 2001, p. 14.
