“On The Way To Inclusive Love”

Mark 9:38-50

Jesus and the disciples are ON THE WAY.

Those are the three little words that tie together this series of passages we are taking a look at over several Sundays. And they are important words because they direct our attention to the fact that Jesus is ON THE WAY to the Cross where the ultimate act of God’s love for the world will be carried out. And that means the disciples are ON THE WAY too – to the true meaning of what is required to be a follower of Christ. And as they travel ON THE WAY, Jesus teaches us all what it means to be a Christian.

Two Sundays ago, this whole message was framed by Jesus’ teaching that we must be willing to sacrifice everything we are and have for the sake of the Gospel, right up to the point of laying down our own lives if that’s what it takes.

“If anyone would come after me, he or she must deny themselves, lift up their cross, and follow me. For whoever would save their life will lose it, and whosoever loses their life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel will find it.”

I still remember the story of young Cassie Bernall, the Columbine High School student who – at the point of a gun – was asked if she believed in God.

What many people don’t know about Cassie is that she had gone to school that day very excited about sharing with her friends a passage she had found and underlined in a book. The passage said, “If a man hasn’t found something he’s willing to die for, he isn’t fit to live.” The person who spoke those words was Martin Luther King, Jr.

So the young man asked her if she believed in God. Cassie, knowing where the question was leading, said, “Yes.” And the tragically troubled young man on the other end of the gun pulled the trigger.

But he did not end Cassie’s life. Not really. For we have a promise from Jesus that “those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel will find it.” And not only did the young man not really end Cassie’s life, but he didn’t end Cassie’s testimony either – for even today, when young people read and hear about her courageous faith, many find themselves so deeply touched and inspired that they come to faith in Christ themselves. You know, if you ever want to share a really great Christian story with the young people in your life, the book is called, “She Said Yes!”.

The story of the Christian Faith is the story of people who said, “Yes!” to laying down their lives for the sake of the Gospel.

On February 3^rd, 1943, the troop transport ship Dorchester was steaming toward England. Aboard were almost 1,000 American soldiers and crew. At 12:55 AM, on that fateful day, the periscope of a German submarine broke the surface. As the troops on board the Dorchester slept, a torpedo silently raced toward the ship’s starboard side. It exploded just below the water line. Many were killed instantly. And the ship started to sink.

Aboard the Dorchester that night were four Chaplains – Lt. George Fox, a Methodist; Lt. Alexander Goode, a Jewish rabbi; Lt. John Washington, a Catholic priest; and Lt. Clark Poling, a minister of the Reformed Church.. As the ship went down, these four stood on the deck, handing out life jackets. When the life jackets ran out, they gave away their own.

Many of the 230 men who survived that night preserved the story of the Chaplains’ heroism. They say that the last time they saw the four men – two Protestants, a Catholic, and a Jew - they were huddled together on the deck, arms entwined in prayer.

Our faith is about people who trust in a God whose Love is so great that that they are willing to give up everything and anything to bring that Love to others.

For most of us, it will never be a matter of affirming our faith under the point of a gun, or giving up a life jacket as a ship sinks in the cold Atlantic. More often, it will be something like laying down your hurt pride to forgive, or giving generously of yourself to help, or sacrificing your time to serve, or laying down your own opinion to take up God’s will. It might even be – as I shared last week in the Parable of George – something as simple as giving up your seat at church to welcome a newcomer.

True discipleship calls us to let go of our own lives in order to take up the life of Christ in us.

And in today’s reading, ON THE WAY with Christ, we face a challenge in that department that, on the surface, seems pretty simple, but that turns out to be much deeper than we think.

The disciples are ticked off. John says, “Lord, while we were gassing up the Church Bus over at the Weigel’s in Vonore, we ran into a fella who was running around casting demons out of people. He was carryin’ on, and even usin’ your name to give himself credibility. Imagine that? Why, he reminded us of that Jehovah’s Witness who got together with a Unitarian and now go around door-to-door with absolutely nothin’ to say! Why, Lord, he’s not one of US! No tellin’ what he’s really up to. So we told him in no uncertain terms to cut it out!”

Now, let me just pause for a moment here to point something out about today’s text. The next part of today’s passage is about Jesus warning the disciples to not put stumbling blocks in front of little ones – that it’s better to hang a millstone around your neck and go jump in the lake than to mess up a little one who believes. And for many of us, that means, “Woe to the person who messes up the faith of a little child!”

And that’s a nice thought and is certainly true. The only problem is: that’s not what this next part of the passage is about.

It’s not about tripping up the faith of little kids.

It’s about tripping up the faith of people like that strange guy over in the Weigel’s parking lot!

The “little ones who believe” that Jesus is talking about here are those who are new to faith. Doesn’t matter how old they are. They are people of all ages, and genders, and cultures, and religions who have been drawn by the grace of God to take up the gift of faith. And Jesus is concerned about the propensity we “mature Christians” have for taking the wind out of their sails just because their faith right now does not quite look and feel and sound like ours.

Our grandson Ryan was being babysat one day by the husband of one of his mother’s friends. At one point during the day, Ryan went out into the kitchen, right by the cabinet where all the canned goods are kept. Then Ryan started saying, “Peas!” Over and over and over again, he said, “Peas!”

Well, this fellow wasn’t sure that he ought to be giving Ryan any peas, so he called up Melissa – our daughter-in-law – at her place of business. He asked her if it was okay to give the baby peas.

Melissa laughed and said, “He’s not saying ‘peas”- he’s saying, ‘PLEASE!’ He just wants to get into the cabinet!”

The disciples thought the man at Weigel’s was saying something about peas…but all along he was saying something else altogether different.

He was saying, “I believe.”

But because he wasn’t saying it the way the disciples said it, they told him to cut it out.

And did you catch Jesus’ response? Jesus says to them, “If you’re going to trip up people who are just starting out on this faith journey because they aren’t as polished and refined as you obviously sophisticated, completely developed and perfect numskulls are, you may as well just go and check into Motel Hell – they’ll leave a light on for ya.”

You know, some of the strongest words Jesus ever spoke – even invoking the possibility of hell - were directed at people who trip up the budding faith of those who are searching for God.

You see, ON THE WAY to true discipleship, we discover that followers of Jesus are to open their arms with encouraging love to people of all sorts who are seekers after the Truth. In other words, we have to die to our own narrowmindedness.

Dallas Willard has it right when he says that Jesus knows something about the world that most of us don’t. It is a world that – despite all its faithlessness and darkness – is nonetheless soaked with the Love of God. We live in a God-drenched world in which the Lord pours out grace upon all creation. It knows no borders, no limits. It does not distinguish between people, nations or even religions. God’s grace flows into our world like a flood that cannot be stopped.

And all over this world, people – without being able to help themselves - respond to this grace. It’s like those flowers in your garden at home – beaten down by the storms of life in the morning - but in the afternoon when the sun comes out, those flowers lift up their heads and start pointing heavenward. All over the world this happens, and what the Bible calls this response to God’s grace is…FAITH!

Trouble is, it doesn’t always look very Presbyterian! Or Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Congregational, Catholic, Episcopal… In fact, it doesn’t always look all that Christian!

When our family started into church many years ago, my father was not really a committed Christian. To my dad, faith was a good thing to have, and the church was okay – so long as it didn’t interfere too much in peoples’ lives. I think my dad knew that faith was important to my mother even if it wasn’t all that important to him, and if he knew what was good for him…. Some of you had parents like that too! So he tolerated going to church with the rest of us.

I’m not sure that my dad really listened to sermons. He didn’t go to Sunday School. He was definitely not a student of the Bible.

But one day our Pastor needed someone to coach the church basketball team. Now THAT was something my dad liked. He loved working with kids and showing them how to excel. So he volunteered to become the church basketball coach. And over the course of many years, my dad led those teams to many championships. He really was a good coach! But even more importantly, as my father pursued that interest, he was drawn more and more deeply into the church, and more and more into the proximity of Jesus. And one day…my dad received Christ as his Lord and Savior.

I’m just so glad there wasn’t one of those disciples back in that church who preached that coaching basketball has no more to do with following Christ than trying to cast demons out of people in the Weigel’s parking lot.

“Don’t discourage people like that!” Jesus says. “No one who does a good thing in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us!”

So you and I have to give up our antagonistic view of the world around us. We’ve got to die to our sin of defining faith in our own terms. And we’ve got to learn to identify and embrace the faith that manifests itself in the lives of others. We have to got to get ON THE WAY toward practicing a faith that’s as inclusive as the love of God.

I’m happy to report to you that more than half the people in my Bible study class say they’ve never studied the Bible before. So why have they come? Well, because one has questions they need answered – another experienced a tragedy he’s trying to figure out – someone else is just curious about what’s in this book she’s not opened since she was a little kid – I think I’ve got at least one closet atheist who wants to disprove it all - and then there are at least ten people there because their wives made them come.

Whether they know it or not, each one is responding to the gift of God’s grace touching their lives. Oh, faith pops up in many ways, and blessed are the people who can see it, embrace it, engage it and help it grow – even in the Weigel’s parking lot!!