Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
Sometimes when we read the Bible, we come across parts that are pretty hard to understand. Today's Gospel is one of those parts. Seriously, I'm a member of an internet group of clergy who kick around sermon ideas each week. And when we came up on this one... the fear and trembling was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Or perhaps I should say, "cut it off with a knife" because that's the part that had most of us concerned. Here we have Jesus telling his disciples that if some part of their body is causing them to sin, cut it off! If your hand is causing you to stumble, cut it off! If your foot is causing you to stumble, cut it off! Got a problem with your eye? Tear it out! What in the world is Jesus saying on here?
When we come upon these difficult sayings of the Bible, I think it's important that we go back and look at the context of the story. That's why I reread last week's lesson along with this week's gospel, because they are really two parts of the same story that shouldn't be broken up. Jesus has just told his disciples that he will be betrayed, will suffer and die, and will rise again. And his disciples responded by arguing among themselves about which of them was greatest. So he takes a child, places it right in their midst, and teaches them that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven will be the servant of all. Do you remember that – how the kingdom of God is upside down and backwards? Yes? Well the disciples didn't, because John responds, "but Jesus, we saw a man casting out demons in your name.... and he wasn't even following us."
Us vs. Them. It must have been frustrating for Jesus – no matter how much he taught the disciples, or how much he told them that God loves us all, it still came done to that – Us vs. Them. No matter how much we have – money, food, possessions – or how safe and secure we are – and we are the safest and most secure in the world – sometimes we forget about all that we have, and start drawing lines that include some and exclude others. We draw lines between Us and Them. Now some of the lines we draw are pretty innocent, like the Us's who cheer for Carolina, vs. the Them's who root for Clemson. Or the Us's who grew up in the South vs. the Them's who came here from the North. The Us's who have been in this church for 30 years, vs. the Them's who only started coming a couple of years ago. But some of the lines we draw among ourselves are much more serious, like the Us's who were lucky enough to be born in this country, vs. the Them's who want to immigrate here. Or the Us's who are Christian, vs. the Them's who are something else. Or the Us's who live like we do, vs. the Them's who live another way.
We have all said, "who's the greatest?", or "what about the other guy?", or "he's not one of us!" And imagine how Jesus feels when he hears this. He's trying to teach us about servanthood, and we're arguing about who's gonna take over when he's gone. He wants us to love our neighbor, and we're whining about some another guy who's actually out there helping folks. He came to bring people together, and we're creating walls among ourselves. All this would be bad enough. But what's even worse is that our pettiness blocks the way for other people who might want to follow Jesus. So, in today's Gospel, Jesus gets fed up, and he tells us so.
But the kingdom of god is upside down and backwards; Jesus came to save the world, not condemn it. And so he warns us in the strongest of terms that these lines we draw among us, these lines that include and exclude, are stumbling blocks that will trip us up. Our hands and feet cause us to stumble when we draw lines based on what someone else has or lacks, or on the basis of where they have come from. Our eyes cause us to stumble when we feel the rightness of our cause makes us better than those with another point of view.
It is only we we choose to separate ourselves from Christ, that we are lost. It is only when we draw lines between us, that we find that he is on the other side of the line. And the irony is that these lines we draw not only separate us from each other. They also separate us from Christ. Because no matter where we draw a line between Us and Them, Jesus will always be on the other side of the line. Whenever we exclude someone, Jesus is with Them. Whenever we shun the poor, or those who think and live differently from ourselves, Jesus is on their side of the line. Whenever we think we can claim him as our own, he reminds us that he is with Them.
But the good news is that it works the other way, too. Whenever we are ridiculed and scorned, he stands by us. Whenever we are excluded, he is right there with us. Jesus is the consummate outsider – he claims us all as his own, yet he is not ours to claim. He draws a line that includes us all, yet does not cut anyone out of the circle. And by his sacrifice, by his death on the cross, we have been saved from all of our sins, even our sins of pride and exclusion. In his death and resurrection, Jesus cuts himself off, so that we all are made whole, and we all are included in God's great saving act for the world. No more Us's and Them's. All all are welcome.
"Whoever is not against us, is with us," says the Lord. Jesus brings us all into his circle of friends. He takes all the Us's and Them's and makes us just plain people, and members of his body. We are called to love God and one another. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
Thanks be to God.
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