Proper 20, Year B, September 22, 2024

Prayer
Beyond all human boundaries, O God, your deeds of power take place, and your healing mercy is at work.  Ours is not to restrict the wonders of your saving grace but to give joyful thanks for your compassion wherever we may find it.  Teach us to use well the riches of nature and grace to care generously for those in need and to look carefully to our own conduct.  We ask this through Christ, with whom you have raised us up in baptism, the Lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Mark 9:30-37

"As a sermon preparation strategy, use your social media platform this week to ask 'What stumbling blocks do you put in the way of others?' or 'What stumbling blocks do Christians put up that hurt the cause of the gospel in the world?'"

Commentary, Mark 9:38-50, Amy Oden, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"It is not so much that salt ceases to be salt but it becomes contaminated by additions over time, dirt, stones, etc, so that it becomes useless. He links salt with peace. In the context salt is an image of integrity and wholeness."

"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost 17, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

In the first section of the narrative we are reminded by Jesus that just as creation is working God's purposes out, so too are our actions; along with the actions of others. We are involved in minor and major ways in building up the kingdom of God.  Notice that the statement from Jesus is not, "You are either with us or against us." But rather, Jesus offers a positive statement that if someone is working with us this is good.  Here we have the key positive message that frames the rest of our reading today.  Jesus is saying that we are to be working with one another and that we are to see that when others work with us (regardless of their place in or outside our community) they are working towards a positive end.  They are working towards and in concert with the laborers in the vineyard who are building God's dominion.

I think this is a very difficult piece of Gospel wisdom. Perhaps it is difficult because we are so rooted in our ancient reformation war, I don't know.  The reality is that we are being called to spend time focusing on building up the basileia - the dominion of God.  And, we are to not spend time talking about how they (over there) do it wrong.  Even though as humans we would rather, by our nature, spend most days pointing towards other Christians in our own denomination and outside, take their inventory, and help them see that they are doing it wrong.  Moreover, we are sure they are appreciative of this help.

It is as if Jesus is lifting up our eyes and saying, "Now stay with me.  Stay with me.  Stay focused on our work."

As soon as he does this we receive from him some more teaching. Remember, as in last week's lesson, Jesus is teaching, and teaching, and teaching. So, in the next verses we see Jesus taking up this notion of focused attention on the kingdom of God, and like a jeweler reviewing a stone, he turns his subject in the light and offers us a vision of our work.

These special sayings are in Jesus' time not meant literally but allegorically. (Joel Marcus, Mark, vol 2, 690)  Even Philo, the Jewish philosopher and biblical scholar living circa Jesus, understood these sayings as images or symbols and necessary for teaching.  Key to this understanding seems also to be the underlying notion that those who are lame in life are made whole in the afterlife. I don't particularly want to go down this road of discussing the afterlife. My intention though is to point out that Jesus is proposing that it is better to live life wholly supportive of the Gospel.

First we have the person who offers the cup of water.  This person's tiny action, Jesus points out, will have a momentous impact on the kingdom of God.  Jesus' words about the "little ones" is a reference not to children but the emerging Christian community.  It is a reminder, as in the passage before, that we are to work together and towards the kingdom in our small and big actions.  We are not to get in the way of people. Certainly, Jesus is clear that those who get in the way of the kingdom will suffer for it.  Like the cup of water, getting in the way of the kingdom in small and big ways will also manifest itself in the future. 

Then Jesus turns to the Christian community.  He says to the "little ones" themselves: life is better with all your parts and a lot less sinning.  Like in Matthew's gospel (18:6-35) he first offers a vision of a kingdom in this world with all the parts of the body of Christ working in concert.  Don't be looking at how others are doing it; Christian communal discord itself is not helpful in the kingdom of God. 

Furthermore, Jesus asks his followers, while paying less attention to others, pay more attention to themselves.  Jesus is saying if your own hand offends you don't commit sin, if your foot offends you don't put it anywhere you may commit sin, if your eye offends you don't think about committing sin.

And, like in Matthew's gospel we see some metaphorical connections with sexual sin being one of Jesus' concerns.  I'll let you read Joel Marcus for a more in depth study of the metaphors.  (Marcus, 697)

Just as we are dissuaded in the beginning of the passage from a notion that the kingdom of God will only be for a particular sect of Jesus followers doing it right, in this passage we are not left believing that simple communal division or sin is the goal of his teaching.  Then, Jesus continues by speaking about salt.

Jesus says we will be salted with fire.  In my opinion (choosing one of the scholastic sides in this debate) Jesus is saying that fire will refine in a positive way.  Furthermore, that we are to be careful and keep our salt flavorful. Finally, Jesus says that this flavorful salt is a metaphor or sign of our inner harmony with God and God's kingdom and our eternal harmony with our neighbor.  Salt, a metaphor for wisdom, is part of living life with Jesus.  Jesus says, "Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”    Be wise, and live in harmony with one another.  Be wise and work together.  Be wise, and build the kingdom together.

So we end where we left off.  Selfish behavior, sectarianism, disunity, intolerance, creating conflict, and the rest of basic human behavior will lead us away from the kingdom of God.  We find ourselves creating community that is out of sync with God's Garden Social Imaginary. Such action, Jesus is clear, will derail the work of the community that even now is seeking to build up the kingdom of God through God's mission.

Yet, Jesus invites us to share, be one with our brothers and sisters, to stop and step away from the things that draw us from the love of God, and to be filled with God's wisdom.  God in Jesus Christ is offering us a communal love instead of a religion which is focused on individual loneliness.  We are being shown the wisdom of God in living together and for one another; as opposed to living for ourselves alone.

So this week as you and I take the pulpit perhaps we might all think about offering a message of communal tolerance, sharing, virtue, and peace.  After all, everyone already knows how millstones work and what if feels like to have one around your neck.


Some Thoughts On James 5:13-20

"The words about faith and works are dotted with examples about how others are to be treated. The plight of the sick, then, is not that they simply pray by themselves and have an individual faith. The community is to gather; this seems to be a central dynamic of the understanding of the healing."

Commentary, James 5:13-20, Micah D. Kiel, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"Not only are the prayers of the righteous powerful, James reminds us that the prayers of the righteous are effective. Prayer still changes things and it changes people."

Commentary, James 5:13-16, Christopher Michael Jones, The African American Lectionary, 2008.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

We continue to make our troubling way through James.  Some scholars think that this last bit of James is actually a sermon, regardless we come to the conclusion with an eye to the work of prayer. We have already been speaking about our response to God's grace and the work we must be about if we are to immolate the Christ we claim to follow. Now we are to bathe that work in prayer.

Pray in and out of season, whether we are happy or sad, in good health  or bad. We are to call upon God and make our petitions known.

Using the image of anointing oil for healing we are to anoint all that ails us with prayer.

We are to pray for the leaders of the church, for each other, pray for the righteous and pray for the sinner. Confess your sins and I will confess mine.

When praying we might be mindful of Luke 18:9-14: “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The truth is that we are all sinners and we have all fallen short. We are saved by grace alone to be sure. We should always be wary of praying for others and what we might pray for them. We might be wise to take James' prayers and pray them fervently always eager to confess our sins rather than to pray for the others' sinfulness.

Prayer is a powerful tool. We know it helps with healing, it helps with community, it enables us to come into the nearer presence of God. If we pray for our enemies we will learn to love them. If we pray for brokenness we may find a way of peace. If we pray for healing we may obtain it.

Typically the prayer of the religious leader mentioned by Jesus doesn't go very far except to make the person praying more distant and separate from God.

So with humility, gentleness, and honesty approach the altar of God and pray to him asking for mercy, forgiveness, healing, reconciliation, grace, and love.


Some Thoughts On Esther 4:1-17; 7:1-10; 9:20-22

"If you haven't ever read the book of Esther, read it now. It's not long, and you will need the whole story to preach this text. You will immediately notice that the book of Esther reads almost as a stand-alone text within the biblical canon. "
Commentary, Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22, Amy Oden, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"Not content with having saved their people and taken care of Haman, Esther and Mordecai used their new power to orchestrate the slaughter of seventy five thousand of their old enemies. The whole unpleasant account is contained in The Book of Esther, which has the distinction of being the only book in the Bible where the name of God isn't even mentioned. There seems every reason to believe that he considered himself well out of it."
"Xerxes, Esther, Haman, and Mordecai," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

"The Book of Esther understands well the challenges of living in a world where one might have to juggle and negotiate different, even conflicting, identities and loyalties– one political, one ethnic and religious."
"Esther and the Politics of Identity," Amy Merrill Willis, Political Theology, 2012.

The humor of the book of Esther is reflected in Purim celebrations (the annual Jewish festival that commemorates the story of Esther). At Purim, participants dress up in costumes, put on Purim shpiels (humorous plays), and generally have a raucous celebration. When the name of Haman comes up in the reading of the scroll of Esther, it is drowned out by booing and noisemakers. When the names of Esther or Mordecai are read, they are cheered. There is even an ancient tradition from the Talmud instructing Purim celebrants to drink until they are “unable to differentiate between the phrases ‘bless Mordecai’ and ‘curse Haman’” (Megillah 7a).2

... Here, then, is one place where this humorous, raucous story of Esther might lead us: to the understanding that in the ordinary events of life, and sometimes in the not-so-ordinary events, in the coincidences and chance encounters of our days, we are called and claimed by God. And we may even, like Esther, find the courage to answer that call.

Commentary, Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22, Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

After being persuaded by God through Mordecai, Esther goes to king Ahasuerus. When he asks what her request is, she replies that she wishes him to save her people from death. Part of the bloodshed of this parable like story is the continued violence that is rooted in desire and played out scapegoating all in its path.

While a fun story of evil, deception, and heroes played out at Purim, it is nothing less than the same age old tale of jealousy, hate, revenge.

Yet the story is about call and vocation too. It is about the ordinary person of God who seeks to live within God's narrative. We are found. We are invited. We are part of God's saving act. Moreover, this saving act is happening in our daily lives. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes:

This, for me, is the ultimate statement of hashgacha pratit, that wherever we are, sometimes Hashem is asking us to realize why He put us here, with these gifts, at this time, with these dangers, in this place. Hashgacha pratit is our fundamental belief that God never abandons us, the He puts us here with something to do. Even in the worst hiding of God, if you listen hard enough, you can hear Him calling to us as individuals, saying U’mi yodeia im l’et kazot higa’at lamalchut? “Was is not for this very challenge that you are here in this place at this time?”

You don’t have to change the world to change the world. Let me explain. If we really believe, as the Mishna in Sandedrin, says Nefesh achat k’olam malei, that “A life is like a universe” then if you change one life, you can begin to change the universe the only way any of us can, one life at a time, one day at a time, one act at a time. 

We must always ask ourselves, what does Hashem want of me in this place, at this time? Because there is always something Hashem wants of us, and we don’t have to be anyone special to have a sacred task. We can just be a Jewish woman called Esther, or a Jewish man called Eddie, and yet, somehow or another, our acts might have consequences that we cannot even begin to imagine. Even though you may feel sometimes that this is a world and an age in which there is hester panim, where you look for Hashem and you can’t find him, He is still saying to us U’mi yodeia im l’et kazot higa’at lamalchut?, “Was it not for this moment that I placed you here on Earth?”

The reality is that we often think our biblical story of call and vocation begins with the disciples. Then we mix it all up in a big blender of church history, and the growth of professionalism and what we end up with is a discourse about vocation that leads to priesthood. This is not at all what our sacred texts tell us. They tell us instead that we are part of God's narrative and we are invited in our daily lives to work for good and to transformation of life for others - to the good. In this we are recreating a world that more closely resembles the garden narrative of God. 

We are in our daily lives making a difference, in a very real way, one person at a time. 

We are unaware of where our actions will lead or what they will bring. We have so created an understanding of vocation that it is about our job and money. The ancient notion was that our vocation themselves would bring about good and goods in and of themselves.

Wendell Berry in his book of essays Our Only World takes on this a bit. In his essay towards the end of the book a book “Our Deserted Country,” Berry reflects about how machines have transformed the rural landscape. This in connection with corporate farming has played a role in both capitalism and professions. The mass migration to cities is tied here clearly. Here is what Berry writes about when he reflects on work and vocation:

The idea of vocation attaches to work a cluster of other ideas, including devotion, skill, pride, pleasure, the good stewardship of means and materials. Here we have returned to intangibles of economic value. When they are subtracted, what remains is ‘a job,’ always implying that work is something good only to escape.

From an essay The Loss of the Future published in Manas, volume 21, 1968, Berry writes about how this idea of vocation and livelihood and work is connected deeply into the life of a community. He writes:

 A community is not merely a condition of physical proximity, no matter how admirable the layout of the shopping center and the streets, no matter if we demolish the horizontal slums and replace them with vertical ones.  A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.

Berry also wrote in a bit contributed to the UTNE reader in 2010 On Work the following:

The old and honorable idea of 'vocation' is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted.

These thoughts resonate as we ponder the vocation of Esther. Her work of courage saves many lives and while perhaps the king has some sense of economic value in it...God does not. It is the living of life itself that has value. Her prophetic work is deeply part of the mental and spiritual condition of sharing life and space with others. It is Esther's vocation that she understands the connectedness of her own life with those of Mordecai and others. She knows that she and they have each other. And, that in her relationship to those of the court (the king included) that they are woven together too. She embodies a concern for others. She is called, she has a vocation, she is invited to a good work, it is hers to do, it is her moment. She is called for just such a time as this. Finally, it is this particularity that we share with her. We are called in our lives, in each of our lives, for just such a time as this.




Sermons Previously Preached on This Week's Texts

The Audacity of God Oct 2, 2015 Sermon preached at baptism and confirmation service at St. Mark's Bay City, Texas; Proper 21B, 2015



Thoughts on Esther and vocation from my book: Vocātiō: Imaging a Visible Church. You can order your copy here.

Esther, the queen of Persia, was called by God and given work to do. In a departure from how God dealt with Moses and Abraham, God did not come to Esther directly, but spoke to her through others. While the means may be different, God’s invitation was the same. Haman had a plan for King Xerxes to annihilate all of the Jews in the kingdom, and Esther was the agent of protection for God’s people. It was Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, who first spoke to Esther about the plight of her people in Esther 2:7, and she was immediately brought into the conflict.

Through Mordecai, God invited Esther to “go” and plead with Xerxes not to carry out Haman’s plan (Esther 4:8). Esther resisted God’s invitation delivered through Mordecai. Mordecai then said, “For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). Mordecai reframed Esther’s royal standing as an opportunity, an invitation into the greater story of God and God’s people. Despite her fearful preoccupations about safety, God invited Esther to enter the plight of her people. She was to be a blessing to the world by stopping the king’s violence and saving her people.

In connection with Isaiah's call...In the midst of this sea change, Isaiah was called. Abraham heard God’s voice, Moses heard God speak from a bush, and Esther heard God speak through Mordecai. Isaiah’s calling was inaugurated by a great vision.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.” 

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. (Isa. 6:1–4)

Esther was afraid to honor God’s call because it put her at risk. Moses had other plans and believed he could not speak well enough to accomplish what God wished. Isaiah suffered no such ambivalence. He humbly accepted God’s invitation, believing that he was not worthy to go for God because he was unclean. God sent one of the creatures down and touched Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal taken from the altar. Then God asked, “Whom shall I send? Who will be my messenger?” God invited Isaiah to respond. Isaiah answered, “I will go! Send me!” (Isa. 6:6–8). Again, it was an invitation to go—an invitation that overwhelmed misgivings about worthiness, personal plans for the future, or bodily safety.

...We are part of this history. We are part of God’s call to Moses. We bear witness to a God who raised Jesus Christ after first raising the people of Israel out of Egypt. We are to be “a sign that God has not abandoned the world.”  God’s “work”—God’s “vocation”—is outside of the world’s powers, and different from the way these powers work. Moreover, God’s shalom can only be enacted in person, in community between human beings. Our society stands against this notion of God’s “sending” work—this community of shalom. We reject God’s invitation and refuse to go. We prefer to articulate God’s shalom as a form of sanctified political activism instead. The invitation to Moses, as with Esther, Isaiah, and Jonah, was no mere political activism. God invites us into a real community where political modes of speech have no purchase. There are political implications to shalom, but for those who accept God’s invitation, the journey quickly becomes about a community and a narrative that resonate far more deeply than any political tribalism. God’s typology, God’s paradigmatic way of inviting and sending, cannot be about clericalism alone, nor can it be about any singular social theory.

...God invites and God sends all of God’s people. This is not a professional or clerical invitation. God’s call to ordinary people undergirds all other work done in God’s name. The core of everything else the Church does is peaceful human interconnectivity. Decisions about who will do what are marginal. The most important thing the Church does is hear God’s voice of shalom. This calling finds its first home in ordinary people living ordinary lives. After all, Moses and Esther were not trained to speak to the rulers of their world. Creating the community of shalom is not a professional exercise. There is no financial or economic benefit to any of those whom God calls. God calls the ordinary, unprepared, and often tentative to be God’s voice and to create a new world in God’s name. There is certainly no safety guaranteed in this work. We must take care not to read back into these call stories the credentialed authority of the modern professional, or the erratic genius of the postmodern technological revolutionary. Heeding God’s call is not an economic exchange. There is no room for the prosperity gospel here. Looking back into these stories and making them into a legitimization of the priesthood or a defense of clericalism perverts these texts by reading them through the lens of modern religious systems. Such systems are not implicit in these narratives. The God of Sinai invites the Church to share the burden of this new shalom society equally amongst all her members (Exod. 18:13–27). Everyone has a share in the peaceable kingdom.

The powers and authorities of this world are “alien” to God’s desired kingdom of shalom.  We are invited to risk the walk with God, and to relate to each other in ways that transform the present moments we experience. The faithful who say yes to God’s invitation set aside their plans and die to self so God can undertake mighty works through our relationships. The words to Isaiah echo for us, “Whom will I send? Who will go on my behalf? Who will be my messenger?” It is a not a call to professionals or specialists. God calls all brothers and sisters into new relationships, and a new kingdom of shalom. Who will answer the invitation to go? Who will be willing to be the one sent?