Year B
Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29
Psalm 19:7-14
James 5:13-20
Mark 9:38-50

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

When I was in the Air Force…  I served as a medical laboratory technician…  the training program for that job code was among the Air Force’s longest…  three months  studying chemistry…  serology…  bacteriology…  parasitology…  and blood banking… in the classroom…  and learning how to draw blood…  by practicing on each other…  and sometimes even on ourselves…  and after all that was done…  there were nine more months of on-the-job training at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH…  rotating through all the same departments…  getting hands-on experience…  and then…  when I graduated…  I was assigned to an AFB in Rome, NY…

And the people with whom I served…  experienced me as different…  I was introspective…  reserved… contemplative…  I didn’t participate in their almost weekly Monday morning ritual of seeing who drank the most six-packs on Saturday night…  and these things made me Other…  but although I was good at what I did…  and

performed my lab work with precision…  although I made significant contributions…  although the work I did was in the name of healing others…  I was not part of the in-crowd…  I wasn’t following them…  I didn’t measure up to the standards of inclusion…  that they valued… 

Shortly after today’s Gospel passage…  James and John…  say to Jesus…  Teacher…  we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you…  and Jesus replies…  What is it you want me to do…  and they answer…  Grant us to sit…  one at your right hand and one at your left…  in your glory… we want to bask in your glory…  and by extension…  own some of it ourselves… 

Theologian John Shea writes… this desire to be great…  comes with the territory of being alive…  every living thing wants to persist and expand in being…  in plants and animals this drive remains on the biological level…  but in humans…  it becomes more complex and wide ranging…  not only do we want to survive biologically…  but we want to be important and esteemed…  the center of attention and adulation…  and we weigh most everything in terms of whether it promotes or diminishes us…  and Shea calls this…  the Greatness Project… 

And by extension…  we want our church to be best…  our denomination to be best…  our religion to be best…  we want our political party to be best…  but do we speak evil of those who are not in our tribe…  regardless of the Gospel work they are doing…  in spite of our desire to lift up…  and promote…  the best life-giving…  and life-saving qualities of the Gospel…  do we sometimes do speak evil of those who don’t agree with us…  do we put figurative stumbling blocks in front them…

The earliest use of the phrase…  stumbling block…  is found in Lev. 19:14… and it’s the prohibition of putting a large rock in front of a blind person…  it describes a cause of guilt…  and in the Septuagint…  when the Hebrew word is translated into Koine Greek…  it means…  a snare for the enemy…  understood literally…  it’s a trap…  understood figuratively…  it’s anything that leads to sin…

And then Jesus shares this didactic hyperbole…  exaggerated claims intended to make a point…  about hands…  and feet…  and eyes…  we may not do…  what Leviticus says not to do…  but like other things that Jesus teaches…  he says this to help us look at ourselves…  and understanding it this way…  we must ask…  what do we do that causes others to stumble…  do we set any kind of traps for them…  do we stand in the way of anyone’s spiritual growth…  and more importantly…  how do we ourselves stumble…  do our hands do God’s work or our own…  do our feet walk in God’s ways or our own…  and do we see what’s really going on around us…  or do we only see the things that work to our own advantage…

For today’s Gospel writer…  for Mark…  discipleship is hard…  it takes a lot longer than Air Force training…  and that’s why he records Jesus’ dislike of bad religion…  of predatory behavior…  of any behavior that ensnares someone…  so he makes these points about our need to grow up…  and not be like children who trip up the disabled…  or purposely scare someone…  and think it funny…  we all have lots of lessons to learn…  about our need to let go of what’s getting in the way of us ushering in God’s plan for creation…

In all three synoptic Gospels…  John the Baptist says…  I baptize you with water…  and in Matthew and Luke…  John adds that the One who is coming after him…  will baptize with fire…  and today…  Jesus says… that everyone will be salted with fire…  that…  salt is good…  but if salt has lost its saltiness…  how can you restore it…

Table salts…  with additives…  will lose their flavor and texture over time…  many contain iodine to enhance their flavor and health properties…  and anti-caking agents that prevent it from clumping…  and it’s these additives which degrade over time…  and why table salts are good for about five years…  but unadulterated natural salts do not spoil…  it’s the additives…  what we might call salt’s impurities…  which cause it to spoil…  so in Jesus’ time…  if salt lost its saltiness…  it’s because it wasn’t pure…  and being salted with fire means that the Holy Spirit will burn away the impurities within us which cause us to stumble…  like our participation in the Greatness Project…  and leave us with a desire for more and more of God’s purity…

The Rev. Mike Kinnamon claims that…  the word denomination is a wonderful adjective…  but it can be an idolatrous noun…  so he urges people to say things like…  I’m an Episcopal Christian…  or I’m a Lutheran Christian…  the late Rev. Walter Bouman…  who helped write the Called to Common Mission covenant…  said…  the agreement between the Episcopal Church and the ELCA is a witness that God is making One…  what had previously been divided…  and failure to be in full communion with each other is sinful before God…  because it means that denominations are simply brand names competing for a share of the Christian market…  and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said that…  for us Christians…  Jesus is our doorway to God…  but for us to think that God couldn’t possibly act in some other way…  is for us humans to put God in a very small box… 

But we still struggle with different groups and communities…  and our investment in them…  and the identity we take from them…  and we sometimes demonize communities which are not our own…  not because of what they do or don’t do…  but simply because they are not following us…  but I believe that God’s work…  Tikkun Olam…  repairing the world…  transcends labels…  that’s why those who are defined by many different labels…  are still quite capable of contributing to God’s Greatness Project…  it’s why Jesus said…  that no one who does a deed of power in the nameless name of the Great I AM…  will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me…  and so I return to the words of Moses at the end of today’s reading from Numbers…  Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets…  and that the Lord would put his spirit on them…  that the Holy Spirit would rest heavy on us… and we would provide healing and reconciliation…  in all places…  and for all people…