Scandal!

Scripture:       Numbers 11:4-30,   James 5:1-20     Mark 9:38-49

 

While I have a fairly solid record of non-pastoral employment, there have been some stretches in my past when I was between jobs.  When these happened, I was fairly energetic about sending out resumes and grabbing temp work and such – but occasionally I’d take a break and turn on daytime TV.  And oh, what an interesting world awaited me. Of course, there were the soap operas.  I turned on General Hospital and learned who Luke and Laura were, and in preparing for this sermon I checked Wikipedia, and lo and behold, it would appear those characters are still on the show, 35 years later.  I turned on the Peoples Court, and while Judge Wapner is now long gone from that show, the Peoples Court lives on with other judges, and has given birth to edgier, more confrontational TV court shows such as Judge Judy.  Frankly, if I had occasion to go to small claims court or traffic court, I’d rather not have my business broadcast on national television, but whatever.  And then there are the scandal shows –Povich, Springer.  Enough said.  Daytime TV, which could be used to educate, to enlighten, to ennoble, to lift people up, instead exists mostly to tell us that somehow, somewhere, no matter who we are, or to what depths we’ve sunk in our lives, there’s somebody somewhere whose life is a bigger mess than ours, and they’re willing to go on national TV to tell the world all about it.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus was speaking about scandal, though the word doesn’t appear in our English text.  Jesus speaks about stumbling blocks, things that cause us or others to stumble in our faith; he says, “"If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”  The Greek word translated here as “put a stumbling block before” is “skandalizo” – and, yes, it’s the Greek word from which we get our word “scandal”.  So the text could be read, “If any of you does something to scandalize one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better that you had a millstone put around your neck and were thrown into the sea.”

The church is supposed to be a place in which faith is nurtured, not destroyed – because once someone loses their faith, it’s very hard for that person to regain faith, to regain trust.  As we grow in Christian maturity, our faith becomes more durable, and we can maintain our faith in God while also realizing that the church is made up of human beings who make mistakes, sometimes really bad mistakes, and who even sometimes do really awful things on purpose. But we have to come to maturity first, and if our faith is derailed early on, we’ll never reach that place of maturity. Many of the most vocal atheists, who express the most contempt for religious faith and the people who hold religious faith, may initially put forward very learned arguments for their position, but if we ask enough questions, we may find out that their childhood faith was demolished by someone they’d trusted – a nasty Sunday school teacher who embarrassed them in front of others, a priest or pastor who did something to hurt the families under his or her care, or a congregation which through their unloving behavior threatened rather than nourished their faith.  How many people who could have been effective evangelists for the good news of Jesus have instead become vocal opponents, because they couldn’t get past the limitations and the sins and the crimes of those who minister in Christ’s name.

What are the things that cause scandal?  Of course, the clergy abuse scandals have destroyed the faith of many – and while we may like to think it’s mostly a Catholic thing, it isn’t. Believe me, it isn’t. The UCC congregation of which I was a member in college, suffered greatly when a pastor who had served the church after I’d left college – who had by all accounts done good ministry in that congregation - had driven across state lines to engage in unlawful conduct with a minor, and been arrested.  The church was a strong, resilient congregation, and they’ve long since rebounded….but I happened to be on campus for an alumni event the weekend the announcement about the pastor was made, and I still remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, though I hadn’t been active in that congregation in more than ten years. How could something like that happen in a place where I’d always felt safe.  In fact, in the United Church of Christ and most mainline Protestant churches, clergy have to go through psychological/ vocational testing so that there is a level of assurance that the pastor doesn’t have issues with behavior or personality or mental health that would tear apart a congregation and destroy the faith of its members. United Church of Christ clergy in this area have to undergo what is called boundary training, to remind us that there are boundaries, involving but not limited to sexual behavior, that clergy should not cross with congregants. We have to do this every three years.  And Pennsylvania has recently mandated that not only clergy, but all volunteers who work with children, have to undergo periodic background checks.  It’s also recommended that where volunteers work with children, there should be two adults in the room at all times.  And yes, these are procedures that, as small as we are, we will need to implement here at Emanuel as well.  This is a case in which the church was unwilling to hold itself accountable, and so the state has stepped in.  Jesus said that, if a hand or foot causes us scandal, we should cut it off.  Nowadays, a better metaphor might be something like an infection or a tumor – it needs to be cut out immediately, lest it spread.  We in the church – mostly we the clergy - were unwilling to do that, and so the infection of clergy abuse spread, and it was left for the state to step in to cut out the infection, as often happens using a meat cleaver instead of a scalpel.  And so a burden has been placed on all of us, the innocent carrying a burden along with the guilty.

Sometimes we in the church have faulty vision, being unable to see ourselves as others see us.  Sometimes we are scandalized by things that those outside of the community don’t understand, and sometimes those outside the community are scandalized by things at which we don’t bat an eye.  In our Gospel reading, the disciples are apparently scandalized that someone outside their group was casting out demons in the name of Jesus.  “Hey, Jesus, there’s this guy casting out demons in your name, and he doesn’t have the secret handshake or the secret decoder ring or anything – so we tried to stop him.”  And Jesus tells the disciples not to do that – where the disciples saw a threat, Jesus saw a potential ally: “One who does a deed of power in my name will not later be able to speak evil against me. Whoever is not against us is for us.  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 their reward.”  And we can easily be scandalized by people who don’t follow our behaviors – those who have tattoos, those who drink, smoke, and chew, and date girls or guys who also do, who even may not get to church all that often, if at all – but who care about the poor, who care about those in prison, and in general share many of the priorities of the Gospel.  For us, sometimes the packaging of those outside the church gets in the way so much that we can’t be blessed by the gifts inside.

On the other hand, what are the things that cause people outside the church to lose faith, to laugh at the church?  Mostly it’s when we proclaim Jesus but don’t act like Jesus.  Many, perhaps most outside the church, at least in this country, have some acquaintance with the stories of Jesus as told in the Gospels.  They have heard of a Jesus who welcomed and ate with sinners, even notorious sinners, heard of a Jesus who divided loaves and fish to feed the multitudes free of charge, who healed the sick free of charge, even those with disfiguring, contagious diseases such as leprosy, a Jesus who preached about food for the hungry and recovery of sight for the blind, liberation for the captive and release for the prisoner – that would mean “letting people out of jail”; in short, a Jesus who loved and cared for the poor and marginalized, cared for those who were struggling.  Those outside the church know those stories, and they love them.  So they come to church, and find well-dressed people inside lovely buildings who don’t welcome sinners, who don’t care for the poor and the sick and instead cater to the wealthy, and who want to lock up more and more and more and more people in prison and throw away the key – and support politicians who want to write these priorities into law.  And there is what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”….like the old Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong”…..these church people say they follow the Jesus of the Gospels, but they’re nothing at all like the Jesus of the Gospels, not even the tiniest bit. They say they follow Jesus, but they’re not “Jesusy” – or as we’d say, Christlike. And then we respond to them by twisting some of Paul’s teachings to get ourselves off the hook, saying “Well, we’re justified by faith through grace, so we don’t actually have to act the slightest bit like Jesus, or do any of the things Jesus did, we just have to believe in Jesus and pray to Jesus.”  That’s a distorted, twisted view of Paul’s teachings – it’s what German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace”- but far too many Christians think that’s the real thing.  And then we wonder why people walk away from the church in disgust.  Jesus himself spoke harshly of those who say, “Lord, Lord,” but don’t do what Jesus taught.  Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”  One of the reasons that Pope Francis is popular in a way that Pope Benedict never was, is that in Pope Francis, Christians and non-Christians alike see some measure of similarity between the words and actions of Francis and those of Jesus.  Of course, the tremendous wealth of the Roman Catholic church is itself a scandal to many – just as is the lesser but still over-the-top wealth of some Protestant churches and megachurches – but Francis has said that, if churches are unwilling to help the poor, they should be taxed.  So he’s even taking on that issue to some extent.  (Fortunately or unfortunately, Emanuel Church cannot be accused of sitting on top of vast reserves of wealth while the poor starve.)

Of course, nobody’s perfect.  Of course, when we mess up, there’s grace.  But people inside and outside the church do hear what we say and see what we do.  Our lives have more impact than we know.  Let’s make that impact for good.

After his words on scandals and dismemberment – and please, don’t literally go home and try to cut off your hand or foot; Jesus was speaking figuratively, so please don’t try this at home…..Jesus has some odd sayings about salt….especially that last saying, “Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”  That’s a saying common in Jesus time, but that hasn’t passed down to us.  Of course, salt is used as seasoning and preservative, and we as Christians are to be the salt of the earth – and so if we lose our saltiness, our distinctiveness, we’re of little use.  But salt was also used in sacrifices, and in covenants – part of concluding a covenant or agreement would involve eating food that had been salted – and so to “have salt among yourselves” meant to live in covenant with one another, to live in right relationship with one another, to be on good enough terms with one another that you can sit down to eat together without throwing things at one another.  And relationship is the key.  In America, we value our glorious individuality, but in the church, the emphasis is on “we” not “me”.  We are the body of Christ, not the dismembered limbs of Christ, and we need to behave in ways that build up and do not destroy the body.  It is usually when we’re pursuing our own agenda that we cause scandal, and so remembering that we are in relationship with others and that our behavior affects others may help us to avoid causing scandal.

May God grant that we have salt among ourselves, that we live not as individuals responsible only to ourselves, but as members of the community of faith, the body of Christ.  May our words and actions glorify God and strengthen the faith of all who come our way. Amen.