Are You Salty?

Mark 9:38-50
Length: 20:42

This is a message given on September 27, 2009 at the Bowdertown United Methodist Church.

Our scripture reading this morning continues with the theme we saw last week. That is of humility and being like children.

After Jesus’ teaching about humility, John’s conscience was obviously bothered by something he had done or witnessed. So John speaks up and explains they had caught someone casting out demons in the name of Jesus and they tried to prevent the man from doing that because he was not a part of their group.

Apparently Jewish exorcisms were relatively common. This man was using the name of Jesus to cast out demons. This isn’t surprising because Jewish exorcists used the names of powerful historical people to perform their rituals.

The surprising thing here is the fact that using Jesus’ name worked! This tells us that the unnamed exorcist was not a fraud, but was a true believe in Jesus Christ. John and the other disciples opposed this man because they didn’t know him. He wasn’t openly and officially a member of their group.

Jesus ordered them not to hinder the exorcist. “Anyone who is sincerely working for me, in my name, is not going to quickly and easily turn from me.”

There is no neutral ground with Jesus. Those who are not against Him are on His side, but by the same token, those who are not with Him are against Him. Jesus considers acts of kindness done to His followers as if you were doing that act of kindness to Jesus himself.

The point of this passage is not really about denominations as we know them today, however, the application is there. Just because we aren’t Lutherans or Catholics doesn’t me we should try to shut those churches down.

Just because someone doesn’t follow all the rules of the United Methodist Book of Discipline doesn’t mean they aren’t a follower of Christ. Allegiance to Jesus is essential to fellowship. It is a call to cooperate with others to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.

The Catholics claim Peter as their founding father. That is great. The Baptists claim John the Baptist is their founding father, therefore, that makes them better. Well you know what?

As you saw in our Scripture last week, we shouldn’t be having discussions about which one of us is better. We are all followers of Jesus Christ right? Then let us all humble ourselves and serve God.

Back to our Scripture, Jesus moves from discussing children to discussing discipleship. God takes care of His children as a father cares for his children. Anyone who messes with your child is going to be in trouble, right? God feels the same way about us.

Anyone who tries to trick or trip up a Christian is going to be in a lot of trouble. Jesus said it would be better if a millstone was hung around his neck and cast into the sea. A millstone was a huge stone that was used to grind grain.

This would be a horrifying death. The person would sink to the bottom of the sea real quick and there would be no chance of escape or survival. Even this type of death would be better than what will happen to you if you lead a believer into sin.

Now living in this world today, we cannot possible avoid all temptation to sin. But we cannot avoid the personal responsibility when we are the cause of another person to stumble. We also cannot avoid the responsibility of our own sin. We cannot say the devil made me do it.

Jesus then talks about body parts that “cause” you to sin and removing them. Normally and most often I take a literal view of what the Bible says. This is one of those cases where we are to interpret what Jesus is saying figuratively.

No amount of self-mutilation can deal with sin, it is a matter of the heart. Jesus is simply emphasizing the seriousness of sin and the need to deal with it appropriately, drastically, and immediately. This is simply a call to repentance, a change of life.

Jesus also gives us a very vivid description of Hell here. Gehenna, which is the name of a valley south of Jerusalem, had a garbage dump where a fire was constantly burning. The smell was no doubt repulsive and the heat would have been intense. This became a picture of God’s eternal place of punishment.

Finally, in verse 49, we see a difficult statement from Jesus. “For everyone will be salted with fire.” Verse 50 tells us salt is good, but verse 48 tells us fire is bad! So which is it?

Salt was an essential ingredient in early days before refrigeration. It preserved food. Today, we pretty much just use salt to increase our blood pressure!

There have been many different interpretations about this saying. The way I understand it is you can either suffer with and for Jesus now or you will suffer later and eternally if you aren’t walking with Him.

We know that believers will suffer while working for Jesus in this world and we are purified through that suffering and persecution. When Jesus says to have salt in yourself He is saying that the work of the Word of God and the Spirit of God in your life will produce Godliness and will enable you to act as a preservative in the world.

So what do we get out of Jesus’ teachings this morning?

For one thing, we share a common faith with other Christians, no matter what denomination. And since we share the common faith we also share a common goal. That is to live and proclaim the Word of God.

Correct theology is important, but should not be an excuse to avoid doing what we are supposed to be doing for God. People who are on Jesus’ side have the same goal and our personal differences should not interfere with that divine mandate.

Finally, Jesus used extremely distributing language to stress the importance of removing sin from our lives. Painful discipline is always required of true and faithful followers of Jesus Christ. It might require us to give up a job, a relationship, or a habit that is pulling us away from God. Nothing should stand in the way of our faith.

As salt makes a difference in the way food tastes, we too should make a difference in the lives of those people that we come into contact with. When we lose that desire to salt the earth with the Gospel, then we become useless to God.

Think about how you can make a difference this week. Think about how you can be salt to this world.

Closing Prayer

Lord, help make us the salt of the earth. Help us to make a difference in our surroundings. Help us to reach out to others in faith to minister to the world. Most importantly, help us to recognize and remove the sin from our lives. Help us to truly be salty people. AMEN