Accepting those who are not one of us

October 1, 2006, Proper 21B

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

Three men died and went to heaven. St. Peter met them at the gate and said to the first, “You are a Baptist. You go to room 15, but don’t make any noise as you pass room 8.” The second man was told, “You’re an Episcopalian. You got to room 21, but don’t make any noise as you pass room 8.” And the third was told, “The Catholics are in room 10, but don’t make any noise as you pass room 8.” Finally they asked St. Peter why do we have to be quiet going by room 8. Peter explained, “Those are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They think they are the only ones here.”

An interesting little story, and you could probably substitute any number of denominations (or sects) in place of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Today’s scriptures are so rich that they contain the basis for at least 5 sermons. From the first sentence of the old testament lesson, we hear, “the Israelites said, ‘ If only we had meat to eat!... and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”

Here they are complaining about the manna, and in Jesus’ day the people complained about Jesus, “Our forefathers ate manna in the desert, what will you give us?” And they said, “Are you as great as Moses who gave us manna.” Do you know what ‘manna’ means? It quite literally means, “What is it?” They’d never seen it before, they had no idea what it was until Moses told them. He tells them, “This ‘what’ you see can be used to make bread.”

And now they are sick and tired of eating “what,” and so they complain. “We had great food in Egypt – meat and melons, and cucumbers and onions…” Here Moses is, stuck out in the middle of nowhere with thousands of complaining people – and to make matters worse, God gets mad too listening to all the complaining.

You know, when you are mad and you feel bad and people are blaming you for their problems, you have a tendency to snap at ‘em – especially when you know there’s not a cotton-pickin’ thing you can do about it, but they’re still going to blame you anyway. Sometimes that’s a pretty helpless place to be. And Moses does about the only thing left to do – he cries out to God. “God, why have you placed this burden on me? I didn’t ask for it! I didn’t want it! I told you I couldn’t do this.” I know what Moses said, I’ve heard it echo out of my own mouth. I remember a priest friend of mine who would say, “Oh, Jesus, come back right now so I don’t have to go through this.”

God’s answer might just be different from what we expect – he essentially tells Moses, “You need help. You don’t have to carry this burden all by yourself.” And God has Moses call 70 of the elders of the camp and they go the tent of the meeting and he has them stand all around the tent. Then the Lord comes down in the cloud and takes some of the spirit that rests on Moses and gives it to each of the 70 elders and they begin to prophesy. And that was great because they were in the tent when that happened.

But two of the elders didn’t go to the tent. They were just hanging out around the camp but they got the spirit anyway. And they began to prophesy, also, but not in the tent, they prophesied out in the camp. Someone heard them and were just absolutely incensed that they would do that somewhere other than the tent of meeting. It was unheard of, unprecedented; nobody’d ever done that before.

So the young man who heard them ran to tell Moses, and Moses’ assistant, Joshua, said, “Moses, make them stop!” Moses’ response was, “Are you jealous? – Don’t be jealous – I wish everyone had part of the Lord’s spirit.”

Doesn’t this story sound just like the gospel lesson? John comes up to Jesus and tells him, “we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he was not one of us.” That sounds just like Joshua, doesn’t it? Jesus says, “don’t stop him – it’s not a competition – it’s not a win or lose situation. He can’t speak evil against us – whoever is not against us is for us.”

Both Moses and Jesus are telling us, DON’T TRY TO LIMIT WHO GOD CAN WORK THROUGH – OR HOW GOD GOES ABOUT SHOWING HIS POWER!!!

And truth be known, it sounds just like any number of denominations today. Some denominations think they are the only ones who have enough of the truth to be accepted into heaven. Some individual congregations are exclusionary, and that’s a shame because they miss the richness that is available from sharing our individual and collective experiences of Christ. I think both Moses and Christ are telling us that we have to be more accepting of those who have a different brand of Christianity from us. But Jesus doesn’t stop there.

Where the Numbers reading ends with Moses reprimanding Joshua, Jesus uses his reprimand as a springboard for a more detailed sermon. He goes on to talk about not being a stumbling block to others belief. Unfortunately sometimes we are, without meaning to be – but our intent should always be to help others come to an understanding of Christ and his church. Sometimes we can do that simply by welcoming them into our midst and treating them as something special.

Most people that walk through the doors of a church for the first time, whether they know it or not, have been drawn there by God. God may have worked through another person, a parent, a friend, a child, a spouse. I remember a student from Sam Houston University that was dragged kicking and screaming into St. Stephen’s in Huntsville for an Easter morning church. She told her mother, “I’m a Baptist and if I go to church on Easter, it’s going to be to a Baptist church.” Her mother told her, “My friend invited us to her church and we’re going.” By the time the service was over, she was a total “convert” and eventually was confirmed at St. Stephen’s.

When someone is seeking Christ, God will bring them to the place where they can hear the message they need to hear – either for their own healing, or their own acceptance. Of course, some people who show up here at Redeemer come out of curiosity – they’ve heard the stories and just wonder if they might see some out breaking of the Spirit. Some people may not have heard of us and just come looking for a traditional church. And we have to be ready to receive them, regardless of the reason they come.

We have to be intentional about being available to welcome those who come and help make them feel “at home” in this atmosphere. Our service sometimes strays from the printed bulletin, and we need to be ready to help newcomers find their place or at least not feel lost. We need to be willing servants of Christ, ready to accept everyone into our midst and show them the love that Christ has for each of us.

But before I end, I want to make a comment about the next part of this lesson. This can be a dangerous text because Jesus is using hyperbole and there have been people who have taken it literally. I just want to point out that removing a part of one’s body does not keep that person from sinning. The hand doesn’t make a person take things that don’t belong to them. The eye does not cause a person to covet or lust. Sin dwells in the heart, not the members. It is the heart that has to accept a change if a sinful person is to be made whole.

I don’t care how much you care for someone, regardless of what you do or say, you cannot change that person. Only God can do that. Only the Spirit of God can convict and change. But God calls us to faithfully stand by that person and to pray for them and not abandon them.

Each person must be willing to open up their hearts to God that he and he alone can come in and cleanse our lives and our souls. Let us pray: (silence)

Most gracious God, you alone know what lies in the depths of our hearts. We ask you to come in and cleanse us. We invite you to probe and purge those things that still separate us from being totally yours. Lord, bring our love of you to the surface so that it may well up in us like an ever flowing spring until the bubbles over with love that spreads out from you to all those around us. Lord, let us be witnesses to you and to the power that resides in you – the power to heal our lives from the inside out. (silence) Amen.

Please feel free to email me with any comments or questions at nan@doerrworks.com