Proper 21B.  26 September 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Esther 7:1-6,9-10; 9:20-22. Days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.
James 5:13-20. Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.
Mark 9:38-50.  Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

O God of Beauty, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Well, nothing says, “Let’s begin a program year” like our Gospel reading from Mark today! As one vestry member asked the other night when we were talking about this passage with its gruesome illustrations of maiming and fiery hell, “Remind me, who makes the calendar of readings?” One answer is that the Episcopal Church’s enormous, bicameral, legislative branch meeting in convention in 2006 voted in favor of adopting the Revised Common Lectionary, the three-year calendar of scripture readings. The RCL, as it is called, was developed and tested by an ecumenical group of English-speaking liturgical scholars and denominational representatives from around the world. The practice of a liturgical calendar of readings goes back to ancient Judaism.

The RCL engages a wide swath of Christians of various denominations around the world in the same scripture readings appointed for Sunday worship. Congregations that use the RCL over the course of three years hear much more of the Bible read aloud–the good, the bad, the ugly–rather than being tempted to read a much narrower set of the pastor’s favorites. But still, less than 15% of the First Testament is read (not including the Psalms), and 72% of the Second Testament is read. Furthermore, the RCL is androcentric and male-focused. After listening to Isaac Everett’s beautiful and prophetic preaching from this pulpit last week, I thought it’s worth mentioning that Episcopal priest and First Testament scholar Wilda Gafney has developed a Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, which schedules many more of the stories of women in our scriptures. Two volumes of a four-volume set are out, and there’s a movement afoot in the margins of the Episcopal Church to start using it, even though it is unauthorized! That seems right up Emmanuel Church’s alley.

So I will get to our troubling Gospel lesson, but not before I say something about Queen Esther: beautiful, brave, patient, and smart, who used her position and her gifts, and risked her own life on behalf of her people. Esther’s name appears more times than any other woman in the Bible, and she speaks more than any named women except for Judith. In the Christian Testament of the Bible she is the ideal against which Herodius  was compared and found to have utterly missed the mark, when a king, intoxicated by wine and the beauty of a woman, offered to do anything she wanted. Queen Herodius coached her daughter to ask for the murder of John the Baptist. Queen Esther asked that she and all of her people be saved from a scheduled massacre. Esther’s courage, compassion, integrity, and the quality of her leadership changed her war-torn world and brought peace. The Jewish Feast of Purim celebrates Queen Esther and calls for sending presents to people who are poor and gifts of food for all. We at Emmanuel are lucky to participate in the fun with our cousins at Central Reform Temple whenever we celebrate Purim and Mardi Gras together.

Esther is a great leader to have in mind when we hear this reading from the Gospel of Mark. You might recall the disciples have just been arguing amongst themselves about who is greater. Jesus has said, whoever wants to be first must be the servant of all. Now a random person has been casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Someone who isn’t even one of Jesus’ group of followers, isn’t one of the in-group, is casting out demons in his name; and they think, that’s gotta stop. John tells Jesus, “You can’t let just anybody use your good name as their authority. You’ve got to have some standards, Jesus!”

And Jesus’ response? He says, don’t stop him; whoever is not against us is for us. Once again, it’s opposite day with Jesus in Mark.  (Matthew 12:30 has Jesus say the more familiar, “Whoever is not for me is against me.”)  But according to Mark, it’s whoever is not against us is for us! Here it’s not about tests of identification or criteria of membership. The disciples may still not get it, but Jesus has actually learned something from his encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman. He has learned that God’s healing grace is bigger, deeper, and wider than you thought; don’t try to place restrictions on it, or on people who are delivering it.

And then right away, without missing a beat, Jesus reminds his disciples that they need others;  they depend on those with whom they minister for the basic necessities of life. Boy, that’s a hard one isn’t it? “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you carry the name of the Anointed, I swear to you, such a person certainly won’t go unrewarded!” Whoever assists you will be honored in God’s name. Here’s a lesson for any of you who’d prefer to not be on the receiving end of help from people whom you are trying to help! Jesus is teaching here about mutual ministry.

Then Jesus admonishes them by saying, “Don’t you put stumbling blocks in the way of beginner seekers.” (That’s what little ones means in the Gospels. It could be a reference to the one casting out demons or a reference to the ones offering water; that’s not clear.) In other words, don’t scandalize people who are doing good deeds, even if they are not following Jesus the way you are or you think they should. Don’t try to stop someone who is offering to care for you when you think you don’t need their help. One of the things that people who like to give often forget is that giving and receiving are as connected as breathing in and breathing out. It’s quite deadly to do one without the other for very long.

This reading from Mark suggests just how highly we should regard a relationship with the Holy One. Jesus uses pretty-strong language to say that if any part of us gets in the way of a relationship with the Divine, get rid of it; it’s not worth it. It’s clear to me that the examples Jesus gives about getting rid of a body part that causes someone to trip someone else up are not to be taken literally. Judaism never advocated self harm, and Jesus’ followers did not practice it either. Jesus is using hyperbolic language to assert that whatever gets in the way of a relationship with God, let it go. It would be better to live into the Realm of God without some part of ourselves, than to live in the burning trash-heap outside of the city walls, a garbage-dump place called Gehenna, here translated as hell. By the way, you might think, based on the pop-culture notions of Christianity (assisted by the lectionary), that hell is a pretty big issue for Jesus or a pretty-big issue in the New Testament; it’s not. There’s really not that much talk about Gehenna, the real valley outside the city of Jerusalem, where rubbish was gathered and burned, as a metaphor for separation from God. Most of the talk of hell comes after the New Testament was written, in the imaginations of later Christians. Remember that the Apostle Paul, argues eloquently that nothing whatsoever can separate us from the love of God.

Then we hear Jesus reminding his followers about salt. Everyone – everyone will be salted with fire. (Other ancient manuscript copies of Mark say that everyone will be salted with salt.) Salt is good, and this fire is good. This is a testing, refining fire. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can it season? Have salt within yourselves (in this tasteless world), and keep peace in one another. That’s one of my favorite lines in the Gospel of Mark. Have salt within yourselves, Jesus said. I can think of at least eight reasons that salt would be a good thing to have within ourselves. I’ve recited these before; and I listed them again last week at HK McKinney’s wedding! Here they are:

• In Jesus’ time salt was used as currency, as a form of money; salt and salary come from the same root.
• Salt has healing qualities.
• Salt has preservative qualities.
• Salt has seasoning qualities; it enhances flavor.
• Salt has cleansing or purifying qualities.
• Salt was considered to be a portent against evil forces. People still throw salt over their left shoulder to keep the devil at bay.
• Salt was a sign of permanence. Eating salt with someone in Biblical times meant you were bound to them in loyalty, in a covenant of friendship.
• Salt thrown into a kiln, when pots are being fired, will change and beautify the surfaces of the vessels in ways that are unpredictable and can’t be completely controlled.

Whether Jesus was thinking of just one, several, or all of these reasons, what he was saying was: have value within yourselves and everyone else; keep peace with one another.

Everyone will be salted with fire. Everyone will be salted with salt. Everyone will be subject to unpredictable and uncontrolled beauty! Have salt in yourselves, and keep peace with one another. Notice that Jesus is saying to the group: have value in yourselves, plural. You are all valuable, he is reminding them; those of you in the in-group, those outside the group, all. Remember that; hold on to it. Have value in yourselves; have healing and preservative qualities; have the spice of life in yourselves; have cleansing and protective qualities; have distinctive character, Jesus is saying; and keep peace with one another. Keeping peace means more than just keeping one’s mouth shut. Take your lead from brave Queen Esther, who bravely spoke out on behalf of herself and her people.

Keeping peace, shalom, is much deeper, much more profound, than keeping quiet. Keeping peace is definitely not at the expense of valuing oneself or one’s community;  and it’s not valuing oneself or one’s community so much that peace cannot be kept with others. It’s both/and, as we like to say. It’s carrying the tension of knowing that each one is so beautiful and so valuable, this community is so beautiful and so valuable, that conflicts that arise must be resolved. Being at peace is not about avoiding conflicts; it’s about resolving conflicts that inevitably arise in community and between communities. “Everything just according to God’s will,” as our cantata for today begins, in sorrow and in joy, in bad times and in good times. Everything according to Love’s will alone. What Jesus is saying, translated into our vernacular, is: “In the Realm of God everyone is beautiful in unpredictable ways, so hold the salt and pass the peace.”