Gospel:
Mark 9:38-50
1st Reading: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
2nd
Reading: James 5:13-20
“In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth....God saw everything that God
had made, and indeed, it was very good.” God blessed them, animals
of every kind and humankind, as well. Each received God's spirit, as
it moved over the waters and called them forth. Each was created
good to be a blessing to one another.
When I think of the
whole of this Earth, and how each plant and animal is balanced with
all the other ones, how each environment is uniquely suited for
specific species, the symbiotic relationships between plants and
animals, how they help each other out, it just boggles my mind.
Plants provide shelter and food. Animals carry the seeds and provide
fertilizer. Insects break up the waste to ensure that roots of
plants have access to what they need. And then there is the
geography of the land, how the water evaporates and the clouds are
pushed higher in the sky where they make rain or snow and how the
snow accumulates and then melts to provide moisture through all the
seasons in a steady supply for the life of all the plants and
animals, including humans. What an amazing world we live in! No
matter how much we study and try to understand all the
interrelationships and how everything works together, we will never
know all the ways that each plant or insect or animal or mountain or
stream is a blessing, or even how we are blessed by them. We will
never fully know the fullness of the Spirit and power of God in each
of its manifestations, in each of God's creatures.
The Earth has, at
times, been called an organism, because no one living being could
exist on its own, not even the cockroach. Each relies on the other
as a living, breathing, system of interrelated parts.
“Would that all
the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his
spirit on them!” Well, folks, God did put God's spirit on all
people, and not only that, on all Creation and blessed them. Why
don't we know it and see it? I think, at times, we do. A new baby
is born, and we know it. But a baby is innocent and helpless. It
can't argue with you. It is easy to love a baby. Somehow, when
people grow up, it seems easier to find fault with them and write
them off or deny their Spirit.
There might be a
couple of reasons we don't see the Spirit so easily in others. One
is that the world is always telling us that some have Spirit and some
don't. The world tells us that folks have spirit and value if they
are young, wealthy, hip, and clean. Another reason we don't see the
Spirit in ourselves or others is that we see ourselves differently if
we think of ourselves that way. If we have God's Spirit, then we
have responsibility.
That's where the
Israelites are, this morning. They don't see they have Spirit, or
power to do anything about the situation they are in, so they are
complaining and blaming others for their predicament. We always
laugh when we read this lesson, because it is so familiar. We can
hear ourselves whining like that. We can hear our friends, kids, and
family whining like that. “I'm sick of this food! This is
disgusting! I want melon!” They blame Moses. Moses blames God.
Pretty soon everyone is mad at everyone else.
Instead, God
reminds people that they do have the Spirit, that Moses isn't the
only one with gifts, and they are all capable and responsible for the
welfare of the people. The reading actually cuts out the part where
God gets mad and basically promises, “You want meat? I'll give you
meat! You'll have meat until you can't stand another bite.” But
just like when a mother gets frustrated and shouts at an ungrateful
child, God comes around to be level-headed again and remembers that
punishment doesn't work very well, it is the empowering of the child,
whether he is 3 or however old Moses is, that is going to help. It
is the encouraging of the sharing of the load, the sharing of the
Spirit that is going to help, to inspire the imagination.
All the people
could think about was the past. Oh, there were some good meals to be
had in Egypt. But is that all there is of life? You eat three meals
a day, but when you live in slavery, that is a barrier to the Spirit.
The people needed to be free. They needed to be free of Pharaoh and
that oppression, but they were also in Wilderness School, as Dan
Erlander likes to call it, in his book “Manna and Mercy.” The
people were learning what it meant to be free, to recognize the
Spirit in each of them, to work together in community, to handle
things as mature adults, and to take responsibility for their part.
So God appointed 70
elders and God reminded them, they have the gift of prophecy. God
gathered them around and asked them to tap into their dreams for the
future. What were their hopes for their new land? What would it be
like there? How would it be to live in freedom? I doubt it was very
hard for those elders to go there. They just needed to be reminded
to let their hopes and imaginations work. Then their anxiety and
living in the past melted away, for that moment, and the community
was able to move forward. But it wasn't just the 70 official elders
that were accessing their hopes and dreams. Here come Eldad and
Medad. Can't you just imagine these identical twin hoodlums—the
rhyming names just add another level of humor to this story! Moses
says, “I'll take all the help I can get! Are there any more
Eldad's and Medad's out there? Find your Spirit! It is in there!
Find your hope, your creativity and share it with the community! It
isn't food we're in short supply of, it is imagination.”
And God is saying
that to each of us, today. You have the Spirit. It was promised in
your baptism and it is still there, no less effective than that
blessed day. And you know what, I am going out on a limb to say that
even those who aren't baptized have that Spirit, too. God created us
each one, breathed God's Spirit into us, and blessed us. Of course
people are out there doing God's work that have nothing to do with
the church, but God is working through them all the same, and maybe
even more effectively than some of us who feel we need permission to
prophesy or dream.
You know that dream
you have. It isn't about something shallow, but it is a bigger dream
about the interconnectedness of all Creation. It is about wholeness.
It is hopeful. I invite you to let God reveal that dream to you. I
invite you to let yourself dream it.
I heard a story
last week that really inspired me. It is about a boy in Malawi in
2002. There was a drought and his family's farm failed. They could
no longer afford to send him to school. I'm sure he felt distressed.
I'm sure he felt like giving up. Like the Israelites, surely he
complained. But God's dream did not go away from him. He did not
lose sight of his goal or what might be possible. Each day, he went
to the library to teach himself. And as he read, he got an idea.
From scraps of wood, bicycle parts, and other parts from the dump and
he made a windmill that his family was able to use to power their
home and appliances. It seemed like he had lost everything, but he
didn't forget God's Spirit was in him. He moved past the despair,
kept the bigger picture in mind, and accomplished something that
helped him and his family. Compared to him, we've had everything
handed to us, but we still experience despair from time to time. Do
we let it deflate us, or do we look to the bigger picture and God's
inspiration to help us make a difference.
So now we come to
the Gospel reading about cutting off hands and feet. Not a favorite
reading for most preachers. This is where I am this week. The
Israelites were in despair, and in their despair they were
particularly shortsighted. All they could think of was the food they
wanted to eat. They would have sold themselves back into slavery,
sold their bodies, their children, their wives and mothers and
fathers back into slavery for some tasty leeks. They would have cut
off their freedom for a cheap price.
The Disciples were
jealous. They had just failed at casting out demons. Now there were
these other guys, who didn't even know them, who hadn't been through
the training that were successful. The Disciples are so
shortsighted. Their own egos are getting in the way.
So Jesus says
something to point out just how shortsighted they are being. It is
absurd, to get their attention. Very similar to when a kid scrapes
his knee and we say, “Shall we amputate?” In that moment the
pain and the wounded pride are all on the kid's mind. But when we
say, “Shall we amputate?” it is a reminder of the greater good of
that leg. In the same way, Jesus says, “Shall we amputate?” If
we start cutting off each other and deciding who is in and who is
out, we start cutting off the body of Christ. Recall the reading,
“The hand can't say to the eye, 'I have no need of you.”
“Whoever is not against us is for us.” We are all one. We can't
afford to cut each other off. Since each carries God's Spirit, we
can't afford to do without each other, just as we can't afford to
live without an appendage. We need each other.
Possibly the other
reason we don't dream is that we're afraid. If I open myself to this
dream, what will it mean for my life? How will it change me? How
will I be different? God is changing us. God is lifting our eyes
from our own troubles and scrapes, to see that we are not alone, to
acknowledge the Spirit in ourselves and others, and to see the bigger
picture of a world thriving in God's living Spirit.
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