Lectionary 26 (B) — Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Mark 9:38–50
Before I begin, there are two details I need to address, that don’t fit in my sermon. The first is about cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye. Sometimes we try to soften Jesus’ hard sayings, and usually that’s a mistake. But this time, he is using exaggeration to make his point. There are rare illnesses that cause people to physically harm themselves. I’m certain Jesus would send them to medical professionals for help, and not want people to actually mutilate their bodies. It just needs to be said out loud.
Second, I changed words reading the Gospel. You know the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, and then translated to English. Our English Bible says, “thrown into hell,” but I said, “in the trash.” Actually, the word “hell” isn’t in the Bible anywhere. That doesn’t mean there is no hell; it just means the Bible’s words are different. Jesus actually says, “Gehinnom.” This is the name of the valley just south of Jerusalem where the city’s trash was taken and dumped. Like the mines under Centralia, Pennsylvania, at some point in history the trash caught fire, and couldn’t be put out; it had to run its course. We eventually came to think of an eternal, hellish punishment, but I personally think the idea of just being thrown away really drives the point home. Thanks, Jesus.
These harsh words of the Gospel pair well with the Old Testament reading. Jesus is told of people healing in his name, who aren’t his followers. He tells his disciples to stop complaining. Which is exactly Moses’s issue.
Moses is leading the Israelites, journeying for unnecessary years through the wilderness, to eventually get to the land of God’s promise. And they are whining. As usual. This time, they are whining because they are hungry. Sure, God has provided for them all the food they could possibly want. But it’s bland. Not enough variety. The manna is okay and all, but it would pair nice with a filet with an imported bleu cheese sauce and a lobster tail with drawn butter and Brussels sprouts almondine. We were slaves in Egypt, yes, but at least they gave us decent food.
Moses is sick of listening to them, so he’s angry. Angry, not at them, but at God. “Why did you give me these people to care for? Did I give birth to them, that I should now have to raise them, carry them on my back?”
God’s response should be annoyance, and in part, it is. In the verses we skipped today, God promises to send a strong wind from the Mediterranean, bringing thousands of quails, every day. The people can eat them, until they’ve had so much it comes out their ears, until they can’t choke it down anymore.
But God also gets Moses’s point. Making him carry the burden alone isn’t fair. So seventy elders, leaders of the people, should be set aside. At a special gathering, they’ll receive God’s Holy Spirit, and they can share Moses’ burden.
Not everyone is willing to play by God’s rules, though. Two of the seventy elders, named Eldad and Medad, decide not to show up. God doesn’t seem to be bothered by their disobedience. They’re back in the camp, with everyone else, and the Holy Spirit comes to them as well. It’s upsetting to see; these elders dancing and proclaiming God’s will and prophesying. Make them stop, Moses!
And Moses says, “Are you jealous for me? I wish all the Lord’s people were prophets. I wish the Lord would put his Spirit on everyone.”
In 2015, our Lutheran National Youth Gathering was in Detroit. 30,000 teenagers in a city that was definitely not prepared for that many people in one spot. Which didn’t stop it from being incredible.
On the third day of the event, we gathered for a few hours with just the other youth members from our New England synod. There was an interactive Bible study, some games, and a worship service where the Bishop of New England, Jim Hazelwood, preached. When it came time for Communion, Jim held the bread and the wine, and told the old story of the night when Jesus was betrayed. Then he handed both of these elements to teenagers, and stood back to let them serve the meal.
It was a wonderful shock. I’ve always thought it a little strange that Communion can only be consecrated by an ordained pastor, with occasional exceptions authorized by the Bishop. After all, what makes me so special? I went to seminary, was trained, yes. But education only goes so far. And I was ordained, sure. In 2010, then-Bishop of New England Margaret Payne put her hands on my head and prayed for the Holy Spirit to come and fill me with its gifts. It was beautiful, and meaningful, and yet not really different than when I was one month old, and some Methodist pastor in the Poconos put his hands on my head and prayed for that same Spirit, who filled me just the same.
The reason that Lutherans don’t have seven sacraments like our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers isn’t because we think they’re wrong. We do believe that most of those things—Ordination, and Confirmation, Confession, Marriage, Healing, and the rites related to death—are indeed sacrament. But they aren’t separate sacraments; they’re all expressions of the same one. They’re all part of Holy Baptism. The Holy Spirit that calls some of us to form loving relationships and families of every shape and size, who calls us to professional ministry, who even calls us into life after death, is the same one who calls to and fills us in Baptism.
Bishop Hazelwood knew that. Instead of keeping the bread for himself, he gave it to a teenager, who was “ordained” by the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Baptism just like the Bishop. Yes, the Bishop’s calling and the youth’s calling were different. But the work of a Bishop is not holier, or more necessary, or more faithful than the work of a “kid.” Or any of us. In the end, Moses got his wish. All the Lord’s people are prophets, and that the Lord has put his Spirit on them!
Today is my last official Sunday with you, though you’ll find me here some of the Sundays in October too, providing coverage while the bishop looks for “what’s next.” I have made many mistakes here, but we have also done good ministry together, and I have felt well-loved. The end of a pastor’s time, even one like me intended to be short-term from the start, is not easy for you or for me.
But I am not too worried about the future. And here, right here in the front row, is a sign of the much larger “why.” Yes, today is my last day. But that is overshadowed by something far more important happening here, not an ending, but a new beginning. Hudson, this beautiful little child, will come forward. When he does, he will do nothing of substance. Maybe fuss and scream a little if the water surprises him. But God will be the one who acts here. He will be drowned in the waters and born again to new life in Jesus. He will have the three-times holy name of God spoken over him, and with the old words of the prophet Isaiah, the Holy Spirit will begin her life-long process of renewal within him. He will be anointed as God’s chosen, beloved child, a member of the priesthood of all believers, and welcomed into the family of Christ. He will, of course, not become an officially ordained pastor of the Lutheran Church today. But like you, he will become a type of pastor, just the same.
You will have a new professional leader soon enough. But even if you do not, that doesn’t really matter. A pastor has a special job to do, but in the end, she or he is just like everyone else, a member of the Body of Christ, a disciple called to do God’s work, a sinner in need of redeeming. In your baptism, you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, and called to follow Jesus, just like every pastor there ever was. There is not a person in this room [or online] who cannot and does not proclaim the Good News in their words and work and life.
And looking around, I think you’re in good hands: The hands of God, and of each other. Amen.
2 replies on “Endings and Beginnings”
I have wrestled with these sacraments, Aaron. I appreciate how your message affirmed these acts as sacred! I truly wish we held marriage as a covenant relationship made before God- binding and blessed!
When Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law the state marriage act where couples may now apply for the legal status of “married” I grieved. What was a meassure meant to eliminate the controversy stemming from same sex marriage openned the door instead to marriage without counseling or the need of a church or community of faith.
Marriage is definitely a holy thing, Margaret! And, as I say, I believe, with the Lutheran tradition (or at least with my Lutheranism professor!) that it’s tied up in the sacrament of Baptism. We should treat it as the holy thing it is—and recognize, too, that as we live it out, it’s a very human thing, in need of God’s holiness to make it the joyful thing it can be!
I do think it’s important to remember that not everyone who marries is Christian or even part of a religious tradition. I think of my time in Malaysia, where the predominant faith is Islam. If the government there were to tell its citizens that, unless they get married by an Imam in a Masjid, they aren’t really “married” as far as the law is concerned… that would be a problem, I think. (That isn’t the case; Malaysia has legally-protected religious freedom just as we do, at least to a pretty significant extent.) The same is true here. Telling people that they can get married, legally, without being forced to do it in a church is important.
Luther, evidently, thought something of the kind. If you read through his letters, you’ll see that people often asked him for help in their marriages, whether because of trouble with the medieval Roman tradition’s rules, or just because life with someone is complicated and challenging. When writing back, he almost consistently says that he thinks the Church has no real business getting involved in their marriage. It’s a civil matter. Personally, I think in that way, he pushed too hard against the Sacrament of Marriage, denouncing it without also proclaiming the “sacramentality” of marriage. And luckily, he usually also erred on the side of pastoral care-giving as well!
I do hope it would be equally important for people who DO have a faith tradition to place marriage within that context. And as you say, that of course isn’t the case! I have, once or twice, presided over a wedding that I thought was ill-advised, simply because I knew the couple would get married with or without the Church, and I wanted to be a resource for them later if things got difficult. That’s a very frustrating position to be in. The good news is that most people of real faith—all across the theological and social spectrum—still DO want to be intentional about naming and claiming God’s place in their lives and in their family. And of course they do. Because in the end, if it’s connected to Baptism, then it’s really not about what they do; it’s about God naming and claiming them in this new familial vocation!!!