Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
Our Gospel reading this morning is kind of a weird combination of things. It’s a bit like eating chocolate and onions. Strawberries and mustard. Kiwi and pasta sauce. It just doesn’t go together. We’ve got these 2 parts. In the first portion we have St. John complaining to Jesus about some dude driving out demons in Jesus’ name, but wasn’t on their team. And in the other portion, we have Jesus giving His famous “Pirate Sermon” - gouge out your eye, cut off your hand and your foot if they cause you to sin! Yarrr! Go and get your eye patch, hook and your peg leg and enter into paradise! By the way, what did the sea say to the pirate? …Nothing. It just waved! Get it, waved!?
So what do we make of this eclectic mix of themes? What is God’s word trying to tell us here. Well, we will take the first part first. If you remember last Sunday, the Disciples were getting taken down a notch because of their pride-filled hearts. They were arguing about who was the best. Who gets to sit at our Lord’s right hand and be top dog in the Kingdom of God. The Lord calls them on their sin and puts a little kid in the midst of them to show them that greatness in God’s eyes comes from humility and humble service. You wanna be first?! Be last. You wanna be a big man? Serve the least. So it’s right on the heels of this rebuke that we get our first verses today. St. John says “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us” (MK 9:38).
This is John trying to deflect the Lord’s previous rebuke by dragging someone else down. I remember doing this as a kid. Do you remember when Prairie Oasis had the water slides?? That was Moose Jaw’s top attraction before the Spa and the Casino and the Tunnels! Families would come from miles around to have a slip slidin’ good time at the Prairie Oasis pool, believe you me! I remember this one time I was there and they only had one of the two slides running. The other one was dry, just sitting there alone and forlorn, having no fun at all. So me and my friend thought it would be a great idea to run up the dry slide rather than take the stairs back up to the top like a caveman. So up we went! But guess who got busted by the ever-watchful gaze of the lifeguard? Me and me alone! My friend made it up scot-free. But when I was getting my face ripped off by the lifeguard, did I simply stand there and take my lumps? Oh no, like a true bestie, I dragged my friend down with me! “He did it too! He did it too!” I exclaimed, figuring that I could soften the blast radius by spreading it out. But no, it was the same wrath that fell on both of us instead of just me. We both got kicked out and banned from the slides after that!
Just like I didn’t succeed with my deflection, John didn’t succeed with his either. Our Lord Jesus gives him another wrap on the knuckles: “But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward” (MK 9:41). If you remember, the disciples couldn’t drive out a demon and now, this outsider can. John finds fault with this person because of it. Such things should be reserved for the disciples alone he thinks. Instead of being so jealous of their calling, they should rather be rejoicing in goodwill wherever they find it. People were becoming polarized at this time. Pharisees on the one hand and Jesus on the other. The Pharisees were very much against Jesus and His disciples. But this unknown exorcist wasn’t on their side, therefore he was actually with Jesus. So the point is, the disciples should not poo-poo any acts of love and service done in Christ’s name for God will honour these people for their service.
So now we can see how the two portions of the reading from Mark’s Gospel are connected. The Lord uses the graphic image of cutting off body parts to cut off sin such as the pride and jealousy that St. John and the disciples are exuding. And to be crystal clear, the Lord is not commanding literal amputation! Rather, He is commanding a stark and vivid and graphic repentance. So these readings aren’t strawberries and mustard after all. They are more like peanut butter and jelly, going together hand in hand. Don’t be filled with sinful pride. Don’t drag down others who you are jealous of. Rather rejoice that the Kingdom of God has come and continues to bless our world in many and various ways.
To me this idea plays into St. Augustine’s, and later Luther’s, understanding of the “invisible church.” It’s this idea that there is a visible church - in this case, the disciples. Here they are. The visible followers of Jesus. There’s Peter, there’s James, there’s John, clearly seen as those who believe in Jesus and have dedicated their lives to preaching and teaching the message that Christ has come to die on the cross for the sins of the world and give forgiveness, life and salvation to all who believe and are baptized. This is the same way we would view our congregation here at Emmanuel. We are the visible followers of Jesus, preaching His word, administering His sacraments, devoting our lives to the Gospel. But there are also others. Our Lord tells us this in John 10:16 “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” There’s these other sheep, the one’s you don’t see. The invisible sheep. The invisible church. These are known only to God Himself.
So the message becomes clear. Don’t be a pride-filled knucklehead and think that our team is only one there is. Jesus tells this same thing to Nicodemus in John 3: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (3:8). The Lord works in mysterious ways. He is actively at work in the lives of His people both hither and thither - those we know and see gathered here, and those we don’t. So don’t hinder them and their service if they are serving the risen Lord. Don’t be “Judge Judy” like the disciples were or like Joshua did when he tried to get Moses to stop Eldad and Medad from prophesying in the camp. Moses says “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (Num 11:27-29).
Would that all the Lord’s people would hear His Word and keep it! As St. James tells us today: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you” (4:10). Humble yourself. “Don’t speak evil against one another” (11). Rather rejoice that Christ has come to save us all, poor miserable sinners that we are. He has humbled Himself on the cross that we may be exalted by faith. Don’t be Judge Judy, but strive to serve one another at peace with one another, “encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Heb 10:25). Amen!
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