Pentecost 19 have salt in yourselves
Mark 9:38-50
† In the Name of Jesus †
God’s gifts of mercy and peace, are given to you, because of our Lord Jesus Christ. AMEN!
Sugar or Salt
Question for you old time movie folks. Was it Mary Poppins or Sound of Music, that had the female lead singing a song about spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down?
Maybe my mom tried that trick on me, because of that movie. Or maybe her mom, or Auntie Toni taught it to her. I remember as a kid, often having to swallow a spoonful of sugar, or maybe two or three, when I was sick. No matter the tricks used, I could just not swallow a pill. I think that the combination of being miserably sick, and sugar have been eternally linked in my mind. Perhaps that is why I cannot stand most deserts.
Sugar is used, so often like salt, to flavor things that we eat and drink. But they are not interchangeable, as they have different purposes. Sugar is used to sweeten, or perhaps more accurately, to mask the flavors that are bitter, sour, or even starting to spoil. . In comparison, salt brings out the flavors of the food, not masking them as much as preserving them, and emphasizing that, which is good.
The comparison of the two work well, with today’s gospel reading, as we consider how we are flavored by the world, or by Jesus. For the world’s influence in our lives is much like sugar.
What is Masked?
The scandal-causer
Pleasure masking Hell
Are we this serious?
Quote on Spurgeon
Put enough sugar into something horrible tasting, like coffee, and even the most taste sensitive child will drink it. For the true taste of the drink is hidden by the sugar. A great example of this is coffee, or even better, the base syrup of coke-a-cola, without the sugar added. Blech. Basically, sugar is the great masking agent, when it comes to food. It overloads our sense of taste, and we cannot distinguish if what we are eating or drinking is good for us, or not. I mean, think of all those sugar coated cereals. Without the sugar, they are no different from the bland ones we hate. They would look, and taste like cardboard. It takes what is not pleasurable, whether bitter coffee, or horrible tasting medicine, or even rotting fruit, and makes it pleasurable.
So much of what the world offers us is similar. It looks pleasurable, but it is there, to cause us to fall into sin, to stumble through life. The overriding pleasure, fame or fortune, causes us to ignore the true nature of the sin that entraps us, and those it entraps around us.
IN dealing with sin, Jesus uses three terrible examples, vivid examples I have always struggled with understanding. We need to hear them again,
42 "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 44 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 46 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ’where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’
In the example, we see Jesus discussing the idea of sin being caused by physical parts of our bodies, and that it would be better, to lose that part of our body, than to end up in hell. Often this has been reduced to the hands representing that which we do, our feet representing where we go, and our eyes, representing what we see, or contemplate doing. If we do things, that lead us to sin, then be rid of that influence in our life. The same for places we go, or the things we look at. Those things, those places, those things we see, act like the sugar, that overloads our sense of pleasure, and gets us caught in the trap of sin. We become blind to the sin, because of the temporary pleasure it offers, risking something that pleasure will never be able to mask.
Hell.
Where the worm does not die, nor is the fire ever quenched.
One pastor who I really respect for his sermon crafting, wrote this,
“Sometime in my ministry, the church I served changed from being a church desiring to be salt to a church desiring to be honey to help the world’s solutions go down a bit easier. At first I thought it was a problem of liberal vs. conservative, or peacemaking vs. war-making. But lately I’ve decided it reflects the more fundamental problem of the church and the world.” (Will Willimon)
The world sugar coats sin, so that we can swallow the taste of hell, along with the pleasure that the world would provide. Do we really see the impact of temptation, and sin, as being so serious that we would chop off part of our life, rather than let sin get a hold of us? Do we sin as dangerous as gangrene? Or do we just accept it, as part of what living in this century means?
Do we mourn when a friend or family member is caught in sin’s grip? Or do we passively allow them to stumble and fall into sin? Jesus mentions that as well, in noting that it is better to have a huge miller’s stone, the kind that takes a donkey to rotate on top of another stone, tied to one’s neck and then tossed into the sea; than to cause or allow someone to sin or to fall into scandal. One pastor I read this week commented that he could not read such passages like these, without considering all the people he knew, that likewise were trapped by sin.
We do it all the time, sugar coating it, by saying, we cannot butt into their private lives. That we are not told to judge, or stand in the way of their “rights”.
The Nature of Salt
Iodine?
Purifies, protects, Stings
Gospel flavor’d
Moving away from sugar-coating for the moment, I wonder how many of you remember the days of getting a cut, or a deep scratch, treated with iodine, or methiolate? Do you remember the initial burning sensation, as the iodine penetrated the wound?
The very first time I went body-surfing when I moved to California, was at the state beach near Dana Point. Not long after I got in the water, I was riding a large wave, which crashed before I expected it to. It dragged me along the bottom, but where I expected a sandy bottom, there were only small jagged pebbles. They caused all these nice little cuts, which the salt water immediately treated! OUCH!!!!
Iodine, or even the basic version of table salt, has been used to purify the wounds, and protect it. That action causes the stinging sensation. And boy can it sting. In fact, it can hurt more than the wound that it treats. But that cleansing, that purifying, is so needed! Otherwise bacteria killed off by the salt could infect the wound.
It is that very cleansing property that makes salt both a great preservative and something which enhances flavor.
Where sugar-coating can mask the effect of sin, the gospel acts like salt. It gets into our lives, ripping out the damage done by sin, healing the wound and protecting it from further infection. It will sting a bit, as we realize the damage done to us by the sins that ensnare us. That is the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives, cleansing us from sin. God is the Great Physician who only removes that which is not supposed to be there, leaving life, and health behind. A life enhanced by the salt of the Gospel.
For in cleansing us, we realize that we are cleansed to a purpose. Having been cleansed in baptism, are indeed purified, and made holy. His blood acts like the most potent salt, freeing us form sin, and giving us life. Cleansed this way, with the salt still active in us, we are welcomed into fellowship with God. Not just now, but eternally.
As serious had sin had dominated you and I, as incredibly potent its effects had been, causing our lives to spiritually rot, so great is the effect of Christ in our lives. Creating life, where there had only been decay and death.
We too, are salt
Sprinkled through the World
Have we changed them or them us?
Gospel Dude, Eldad and Medad
It is interesting to me, that God doesn’t stop, after He has counted us righteous and cleansed by the blood of Christ.
Given the Holy Spirit in Baptism, we too become like salt, sprinkled out throughout the world. We become living examples of how NOT masking sin, but dealing with it, can change a person. How God’s cleansing power can restore life, and hope, and joy, to those that only know life as lifeless, and hopeless.
IN the very beginning of the gospel, the apostle John tells Jesus that he wants to stop someone who, in faith, is healing people in Jesus name. A similar incident occurs in the Old Testament, where Joshua asks about two men, proclaiming God’s love to the people of Israel. Jesus responds saying no one can see God’s work happen through them, and talk bad. Moses tells young Joshua, that He wishes God’s spirit would fall on all of Israel, that all would proclaim God’s love. That the world would know the salt, and how God affects our life.
My friends, those of us who believe; those who trust in Him are indeed the people of whom Moses spoke. For we, having been cleansed by Christ, who have been given new life in the Holy Spirit, are indeed the salt of the earth. We can flavor the entire earth, knowing how God changed our lives.
We are not just members of a congregation, but indeed, we are missionaries, with the mission of bring Christ to each other, and to our community.
For we live in Peace, not just peace with each other, but peace with God. The incredible peace that passes all understanding, and constantly guards our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus.
AMEN?
AMEN!
