SALT TALK
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Text: Mark 9:38-50
Fat, sugar, salt – all are staples of the current cuisine of our culture. Dieticians and health workers blame them for much that is unhealthy in our diets. Our tendency to excessive use affects negatively our general health as individuals and as a society. After my mother had a heart attack a few years ago, she had to switch to a salt substitute or use herbal alternatives to flavor food. But I will confess, they are no more palatable to me than are sugar and fat substitutes, even in the face of health concerns like pre-diabetes and high cholesterol. One’s taste buds become so attached to certain sensations that it is very difficult to settle for anything different.
Salt, of course, over the centuries has served both to purify and to preserve. It is not surprising that Jesus and other sages would turn to images of salt to speak metaphorically on matters of purification and preservation. Today’s text from Mark’s gospel is not clear in any linear fashion. It reads as an almost random collection of wisdom sayings from the lips of the teacher and the pen of his follower who writes this gospel. However, when placed in the wider context of the whole 9th chapter of Mark’s gospel, it is possible to make associations, both direct and loose. The writer is trying to say something to people who are so attached to certain choices and life styles that it is very difficult for them to consider anything different. Maybe he’s still speaking to us.
To begin with, if you remember, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan refer to Mark’s gospel as the gospel of “failed discipleship” (The Last Week). Over and over we find these very human followers struggling to catch Jesus’ meaning. Most often they miss it completely as they take off on some tangent. This must have grieved his heart. For, as their teacher, he had an urgent concern that they prepare themselves to carry on the work of the realm of God after he was no longer physically with them. Now before we too quickly and glibly judge the denseness of those first disciples, we might want to give thought to whether or not there are places we, too, have missed the mark or might have responded in similar fashion. As we have noted in the past, their expectation was that their attachment to the Messiah would lead to their own prominence and privilege. But, before we are too harsh on them, I wonder if we ever – openly or secretly – desire to be a little more recognized, to have a little more of what life has to offer, to be in a position of power or fame or fortune? These are rather typical human desires, not necessarily restricted to those first century Galileans.
Jesus had tried to speak to them of his imminent death. He had tried to show them the way of God’s Suffering Servant. He had tried to teach them what the realm of God is like. Perhaps that way seemed grim and challenging to them. Perhaps it raised their fears and sharpened their anxiety. As people who generally did not have much to begin with and who had given even that up to follow Jesus, it might not have sounded like good news to hear that there was more sacrifice ahead. It is not surprising that they sank into denial, changed the subject, created diversions, buried their heads so they wouldn’t have to hear or handle what Jesus was saying to them. As he spoke of his death and resurrection, they entered into a debate about who was the greatest among them. As he urged them to open themselves to the very least of humanity so they could truly understand him and really know God, they moved to rebuke someone not of their group who was healing in Jesus’ name.
To explore further the context, you may recall that earlier in this chapter, Mark recounts the failure of the disciples to exorcize a demon from a boy in Jesus’ absence, in spite of the fact that he had authorized them to do such healing in his name. When Jesus confronts the crowd and his disciples, you can hear the frustration in his voice as he addresses them. You can imagine how they must have felt – embarrassed, frustrated themselves, like inadequate failures. I’m sure Jesus did not mean for them to feel excessive guilt and shame, but what else are humans likely to feel when they don’t get it, when they don’t measure up, when they miss the mark?
These feelings must have remained simmering in the depths of the disciples as they encountered this unnamed someone, casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Gentle John is appointed as the spokesperson, “…we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” If they could not cast out demons, surely someone from outside their select circle should not be able to. There is a sad quality here as John, perhaps quite unintentionally, equates “Jesus’ name” and being one of “us.” It must have been galling to them that someone outside their circle could do the very thing they could not, even though they had the certificate of authorization from the teacher himself.
How would you or I handle such a situation? “Here I am. I’ve given my whole life to studying the Word. I’ve engaged in all the prescribed spiritual practices. I’ve been a prayer warrior. I’ve lived in longing for just one little sign from God. And here this young outsider, a child really, comes on the scene, speaking the truth and doing the work of the realm of God. He hasn’t paid his dues. She doesn’t have the right credentials. How dare he? Who does she think she is?” Could we find a way to open our arms to greet this one as a child of God? Could we practice the radical hospitality that goes beyond our precious beliefs, our sacred images, our own desires to be the favored one? You see the disciples were envious of this unnamed exorcist and envy leads to animosity and even violence and destruction.
Perhaps you are not familiar with envy, but it is out there, lurking somewhere, even today. Kenneth Carder says, “When threatened with loss, when feeling insecure, we circle the wagons. Gathering the clan and resisting the outsiders is a popular reaction against insecurity and fear. Identifying perceived enemies and resisting them is a popular diversion used by nations and individuals. Ethnic cleansing, heretic hunting and other methods of exclusion are deadly reactions to fear and insecurity” (Kenneth Carder, “Unexclusive Gospel”, The Christian Century, September 10, 1997.)
Perhaps these disciples lived in a culture, not unlike ours, in which the desire to get ahead, to be honored with fame and fortune, to have one’s name in lights or in the paper or on youtube is a driving force. Perhaps they believed that a pecking order was essential to good social structure so that only those who had gone through the training or came from the right family or gender or race or class deserved to get ahead. “But that is not the way it is in the realm of God,” Jesus says. “There is room for everyone – large and small, poor and rich, educated and simple, every color, every gender, every orientation. None is better than another because each and everyone is made in the image and likeness of God. Each is a child of God.”
The realm of God is characterized by peace and harmony, love and compassion. There’s no room for rivalry and envy and judgment and hostility. It is not life as we know it so well. Marcus Borg says that "…the Teaching of Jesus is world denying; indeed, the world of culture as the center of existence comes to an end” (Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, p. 114 [Borg's emphasis].) According to Borg, "Jesus called his hearers to a life grounded in Spirit rather than one grounded in culture" (p. 116.) That is, it’s a new world, a new order to life, one in which there is no more strife and jockeying for position and judging sisters and brothers and turning them in to enemies and bombing them to smithereens with words or looks or weapons of mass destruction. There is health care for all and food for all and shelter for all and no one studies war any more. This is not utopia, friends, this is the very realm of God. We were made for it as it was made for us.
So the salt talk continues. “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Yes, we have to accept others, even if we disagree on fine points of doctrine or what constitutes best practice or which is the correct way to sing the song. For, there are many roads to God. It says so, right here in “the book”. Oh, and by the way, “…whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” In other words, it may not be long before you are grateful that some stranger, some outsider, some queer fellow or odd sister offers you a cup of cool, clear water in Jesus’ name – yes, even without literally invoking that name.
There are dimensions of God’s realm that are not only beyond our control, but beyond our seeing. However, the message of radical hospitality and of radical discipleship is clear. “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me…if your hand causes you to stumble…if your foot causes you to stumble…if your eye causes you to stumble…” That is, we’ve got to find ways to live beyond anything that would cause us to stumble and fall, beyond anything that would make one of these little ones – child, youth, adult, senior – stumble and fall.
The consequences are dire. Gehenna, now known as hell, was quite literally the constantly burning, vermin–infested garbage heap just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. It was the valley cursed by King Josiah because here Ahaz and Moloch had sacrificed children as burnt offerings to pagan gods. So, in a real sense, Gehenna or hell is a place of human creation, both in the practice of evil and in the need to dispose of our refuse. We can choose life in the realm of God or we can find ourselves on the trash heap. Of course, Jesus is using hyperbole here to stress the importance of this teaching. One writer suggests he may even be using a sort of dark humor to get their attention and make his point. But the bottom line is not really onerous. He does not desire to condemn anyone to hell. We are quite capable of doing that on our own. What he is saying is that it is better to be right with God and in peace and harmony, love and compassion, joy and service with your sisters and brothers than anything you can imagine in this life on this earth. In fact, it ultimately is as essential as salt.
In the realm of God, everyone will be “salted with fire,” will be made right, will be purified and preserved as only God can do. “Salt is good.” “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another,” Jesus says to his contentious disciples, struggling to understand and to follow his way. “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another,” Jesus says to us today as we struggle to understand and follow his way. Salt talk is good for the soul. I think I’ll take a little more to season my own life. How about you?