Mark 9:38-50

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone baptizing in your name and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.” Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for whoever does a deed of power in my name will not soon after be able speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us, is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believes in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It would be better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and be thrown into hell with the unquenchable fire. Or if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It would be better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out. It would be better for you to enter the Kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies and their fire is never quenched.

“For all will be salted with fire. And salt is good. But if salt has lost its flavor how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”

This Gospel text has a handful of sermons in it to be honest, but we don’t have time for all of that. So, I’m gonna keep it short and sweet and pick on the stuff in the middle. It’s the stuff that actually gets a lot of attention, but that I’m not sure I’ve ever preached about all that much, except to dismiss the shock-value and fear-factor of it all.

The shock and fear, I mean, of all that stuff about cutting off hands, lopping off feet, and tearing out eyes. This is an excellent example of why we talk about reading the Bible LITERATELY around here instead of reading the Bible LITERALLY, as too many pretend is possible.

I hope we know Jesus well enough to trust that he would never seriously suggest we go about amputating body parts. He’s just using hyperbole, familiar to the people of his day and age, to get their attention. I’m fairly certain, even his most faithful, wannabe followers, didn’t go looking for an axe or a handsaw after this conversation with Jesus that day.

Like Gandhi said once, referring to another bit of Scripture, “an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind,” we’d all be limping around unable to see or to tie our shoes if we obeyed Jesus’ instructions, today, to remove our hands, our feet, and our eyes, like he does.

So he must be up to something else. And I wonder if Jesus is inviting us to a spiritual kind of surgery, instead; something of a Marie Kondo kind of purge. Some of you remember Marie Kondo, right? She’s that Japanese queen of organizing who had her 15 minutes of fame during the pandemic, I think. She’s written books and hosted a Netflix series, teaching a method and a mentality for organizing your home based on whether the things and the stuff you own bring you joy – or are useful, or necessary, or not. She encourages the purging of anything that doesn’t meet those criteria.

Channeling Jesus, Marie Kondo might say, “if those books on the shelf – that you’ll never read again – are just collecting dust, bury them in the backyard.” “If you have old clothes you haven’t worn for more than a year, set them on fire.” “All those craft supplies, baseball cards, that pile of old records – toss them into the sea.”

So what if Jesus did mean that we remove things from our lives that get in the way of our best intentions and our most faithful efforts – and of God’s most loving desire for us in this world?

Again, not body parts, of course, but other things maybe we could or should – and wish we would, more often – do without. … a vice perhaps, like drink, or drug, or food, or porn. Never mind our hands or feet, let’s nip the excess of some of that kind of stuff in the bud.

Or false Gods, perhaps – let’s get rid of those. …the money we think we can’t do without, and that consumes our time and energy and pretends to bring so much more value and security to our lives than is possible.

Or how about our pride and our ego, maybe – what if we left that behind for a change. …whatever it is that convinces us to forget what we heard from Jesus just last week: that the first among us must be last of all and servant of all; that the last will be first and the first will be last; or that we – and our needs or our agenda or our opinion – are not – always or ever – the only way to experience the world around us.

What if we could amputate the fear that keeps us from so much in this world? Fear of asking for help when we need it. Fear of admitting our faults and failures. Fear of saying what needs to be said. Fear of being who God created us to be. And fear of dying before any of the above can happen.

And what about those people that suck more life and goodness from you than anybody should – cut them loose, too; tie a great millstone around their neck and toss those knuckleheads into the sea! I’m kidding, of course. Just delete them from your social media feed, and maybe your social circle, too.

Because, see, the thing about getting rid of that stuff – of purging our lives of things like greed and pride, of ego and idols, of fear and the like – is that it makes room for the opposite. It makes room for the stuff of life and faith, of grace and peace, for us, for others, and for the world.

And I hear loud and clear from Jesus today that none of us, as his followers, should ever be the reason another person stumbles and falls on their way to following him. So let’s find ways to show the love of God separate from the fear that some might use by taking Jesus so literally all of the time. Let’s encourage others to this life of faith, not by force or with fear, but by fascination in how it matters for us.

What do people see in your daily life that looks like love and grace and mercy?

How and where do you experience a peace that’s worth sharing?

What does grace – with no strings attached – look like at your house? In your neighborhood? Your school? Where you work? At this altar?

Because it’s all of this – the grace, mercy, love, and peace we know – that are the salt of our lives and that season the world around us in ways that grow the Kingdom, as God desires.

Amen

Mark 9:30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And Jesus didn’t want anyone to know about it, for he had been teaching the disciples, saying, “The Son of Man must be betrayed into human hands and be killed, and three days after they have killed him, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and they were afraid to ask him.

Then they came to Capernaum. When he had entered the house he said to them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” They were silent because on the way, they had argued about who was greatest. He sat down, called the twelve and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first among you must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a child and put it in the midst of them; and taking it in his arms he said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name, welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes, not me but the one who sent me.”

I have Haiti on the brain these days. Yes, some of it has to do with the terrible, horrible, dangerously racist things being said about the Haitians of Springfield, Ohio. But a lot of it also has to do with the work I do – and that Cross of Grace supports so generously – building houses in Fondwa, Haiti, through Project Rouj.

The work of Project Rouj continues, I need you to know, virtually unhindered by the political instability and gang violence that has done so much damage to the people of Haiti, and brought so much destruction to the city of Port-au-Prince.

Part of the reason Project Rouj is able to continue building houses, as we have for the last six years, is because Fondwa, where we do our work, is a couple hours’ drive from Port-au-Prince – up in the mountains of rural Haiti, and far enough away from the unrest in the capital city. Another reason Project Rouj is able to continue building houses, in spite of the fact that we haven’t been able to travel to the country since 2020, is that it’s our Haitian friends who do the work. Our organization just provides the funds and resources – not the people or the brain-power – for the work we do.

By the end of this year, we will have built 100 homes, since 2018. With anywhere from 4 to 6 to 8 to 10 to 12 people living in a house, we have literally given safe shelter and a bit of generational wealth and stability to hundreds – if not a thousand, or more – Haitian people. (If you want to keep Haitians out of Springfield, Ohio, help us build houses in Fondwa, Haiti. That’s where they’d rather be, anyway.)

And, the money we share – by way of our Building and Outreach Fund – isn’t just about bricks and mortar for buildings, or our own sense of pride and accomplishment, as the white, Christian do-gooders in the world. The money we share is about providing the stable jobs, steady careers, financial security, and very real dignity and joy that lives and grows behind the scenes of every beautiful, red-roofed house that our friends build for their neighbors and live in, themselves.

Now, I’m making no bones about the fact that all of that was basically just a commercial for Project Rouj, to inform or remind you about – and thank you for – and celebrate – the shared investment we make in this meaningful, life-changing, Gospel-centered work.

But because I have Haiti on the brain, Jesus’ stunt with the child in this morning’s Gospel struck a chord and got me thinking differently about this story. I wondered if that child was anything like the kids I know in Haiti, particularly the ones in and around Fondwa, and at the orphanage where we spend a lot of our time when we’re there.

There’s one child for example … a young girl with significant intellectual deficits that will likely never be named or get diagnosed – let alone treated or mitigated in any way – due to the lack of public education, social services, healthcare, and all the rest. (There are no Individual Learning Plans, special classrooms, or teacher’s aides at the school down the hill.) Her family lives between where we stay when we’re there and alongside one of the paths we take to the orphanage. Because of her disabilities – and because of the danger she might be to herself and to others – her parents often tie her to a post or a tree, with a rope around her ankle, in the front yard, to keep her safe while they work.

“Whoever wants to be first among you must be last of all and servant of all.”

There’s another little girl who we’ve watched grow up in the orphanage over the years … she also has some physical and intellectual challenges. She didn’t walk or learn to use the bathroom until she was much older than the average kid. She still doesn’t speak well, as far as I know. After 5 or 6 years of visits, Lindsey Stamper, an Educator and Occupational Therapist, you might remember, joined our team on a trip to Fondwa, and realized that little Nerlie also had a cleft pallet. This explained why, whenever she ate soup or oatmeal or drank anything, equal amounts of it all seemed to stream from her nose as well as whatever made it into her stomach. It’s amazing she never drowned, as a result!

“Whoever welcomes a child such as this in my name, welcomes me…”

And then there’s the orphanage, in general. It can seem like Lord of the Flies down there at times, with kids taking care of kids, and with whatever adults are there to help being far outnumbered by the children. And, in spite of the good care they receive, it’s impossible to keep everything at bay – the ringworm, for example, lice, and respiratory viruses that spread like respiratory viruses do in cramped, hot, humid quarters.

“…and whoever welcomes me welcomes, not me, but the one who sent me.”

See, the reason I wonder about the child Jesus used as an object lesson in this morning’s Gospel – and if that child might have been anything like some of these kids in Haiti – is because I have reason to believe that life among the poor people in Fondwa is a lot more like life was for Jesus and among the peasants in Galilee, than anything we’re used to or familiar with at Cross of Grace, here in New Palestine.

I mean, in Haiti, when the kids aren’t in school – if they can even afford to go to school – they’re just around. They’re doing chores or running or playing or roaming around, up and down the mountainside, in gaggles, with their friends of all ages. They’re parented – without hesitation – by whoever the nearest adult may be. They seem to stay with aunts, uncles, grandparents, or neighbors as life’s circumstances dictate. The people who love them – or their neighbors – are always within earshot, but they’re not hovered over, or micro-managed, or fretted about, the way so many of us have been convinced to parent, it seems, these days.

It’s why it doesn’t surprise me that there happened to be a child around when Jesus needed one that day in Galilee. And when he puts that child in front of the twelve … and when he gathers that child into his lap … I don’t imagine this child was dressed in his or her Sunday best. I wonder if that girl had just freed herself from the rope around her ankle, from that tree up the hill. I wonder if it was a wordless Nerlie with a dirty cloth diaper and oatmeal running from her nose. I wonder if it was a listless little boy with sores on his legs, watery eyes, and a nasty, raspy, cough that sounded like marbles in a blender.

Because these kids and their stories break your heart wide open in surprising, beautiful, humbling, life-giving ways. And I wonder – I believe – that’s exactly how Jesus means for us to receive and to share HIM, and the good news of God’s grace he came to embody.

Because I’ve surprised myself over the years by letting the little girl, who I’d only ever seen tied to a post and wailing, run at me in the woods and grab me around the arms and legs. I’ve used the very shirt I was wearing at the time to wipe snot and soup from the face of little Nerlie, too. And I never balk when the kids at the orphanage – and whatever might come along with them – swarm around, sit on my lap, climb on my back, or play with the hair on my arms, legs, and head. (They are fascinated by hairy white people!)

It’s why the welcome we extend matters. “Whoever welcomes one such as these, in my name, welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me, but the one who sent me.” It can be impractical and awkward. It can be messy. It can be scary. It can be terribly risky and inconvenient, this gracious, Gospel-centered, Christ-like kind of welcome. But it is God’s command to us. It is Jesus' example for us. It is life-giving and life-changing in every direction, and you don’t have to fly to Haiti to accomplish it.

We can start if we stop arguing about who is the greatest, for a minute – the greatest candidate, the greatest party, the greatest nation, the greatest whatever.

And if we notice, instead, that none of them – and not enough of us – are competing to be last of all and servant of all.

So let’s wonder about who or what would be so impractical, so awkward, so messy, scary, risky … so terribly inconvenient for us to welcome. And if we’re not up to that task – of extending such a welcome or of letting such a thing or such a person climb up into your arms, so to speak – let’s say our prayers this morning, let’s sing a song today, let’s keep showing up here…

…so we’re reminded that all are welcome to this table. All are welcome to this water. All are loved by this God we know in Jesus – just like you and me – even, and especially when, we can’t return the favor.

Amen

Spiritual Surgery

Project Welcome