Hey hey! It’s another Sunday. Which means another sermon. Don’t have too much to say about this one, so check it out after the break!
Mark 9:38-50; James 5:13-20; Psalm 19:7-14; Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29
I really think they need to rename the book of Numbers to something a little more appropriate. How about: “The constant and uninspired whining of the people of Israel as they mill around the desert because of their constant and uninspired whining”? I think that’s a little more appropriate. It’s really no wonder Moses spent the majority of the book angry.
The book of Numbers starts out with a little census of the people of Israel as they get ready to leave their camp around Mount Sinai. They had just received the Ten Commandments, along with the entire book of Leviticus, from God through Moses, teaching them how God wishes them to live. Now the Israelites had already spent a good time complaining. They claimed that God wasn’t giving them any food, so he sent them manna way back in the book of Exodus. But almost immediately after they left, they started complaining about how bad God had treated them. Now, I’m looking at the text, and the only time God ever did anything “bad” was when he was punishing them, kind of like a parent would punish a wayward child. But they complained anyways.
In today’s reading they decided they were tired of manna (which is a little understandable but manna also doesn’t sound that bad, especially considering it was free. It’s like when I was in college I ate those Banquet TV dinners all the time. Those things are absolutely awful, but I didn’t mind too much cause they were $1 each. You’d think the Israelites would have had similar mindset). So all the people gathered around Moses’ tent and starting the whining machine. God wasn’t too happy, and neither was Moses. Moses basically asks God for some help, cause he can’t take the collected complaints of a whole nation on all by himself. So God chooses all the elders of Israel to help Moses to govern the people. It didn’t lessen the people’s whining at all, but it at least took part of the burden off of Moses.
Unfortunately people in general haven’t really improved much since the Israelites were wandering in the desert. We all still seem to have a pretty easy time telling God about this we don’t like. This can be in all kinds of situations, from “God-I-really-wanted-a-pony-for-Christmas-and-you-didn’t-get-me-one-so-I’m-not-talking-to-you-anymore” to “God why did you let this person die?” Now don’t get me wrong, there are right ways to complain to God. The Psalms are full of people complaining to God in good ways. But more often then not our complaints to God come from us thinking we know better than Him.
Thinking we know how to run the universe better than God is really what sin comes down to. Adam and Eve had one simple commandment, “Don’t eat fruit from this one specific tree, but all the other trees are fair game.” But they thought they knew better than God and took a big bite out of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When it really comes down to it, sin is thinking we know how to run things better than God. Yes, it comes out in the way we act, but the core issue is that we don’t trust God that His will for us is better than what we could come up with on our own.
So there’s been this problem of sin for a long time, and Jesus of course spends a lot of time talking about this issue of sin. Our Gospel lesson today and the reading from James’s letter talk about the very same thing, but from two different directions. I’ll start at the Gospel lesson.
This passage is something that is often categorized as a “hard saying of Jesus”. The admonition that “if your hand causes you to sin cut it off” has actually caused people to maim themselves to try and avoid sinning. I really don’t think Jesus means to physically cut off one’s hand if it causes you to wander away from God. It seems more like he’s using an extreme example to emphasize a point: If you’re in a situation that could cause you to sin, to walk your own path and not God’s, then leave the situation. In other words, if there’s a situation where you know you will be tempted to sin, get out of the situation. Recovering alcoholics know this well. It’s just not a good idea for a recovering alcoholic to go to their favorite bar when they first start living sober. In the same way, it’s not the best idea for a recovering sinner, which we all are, still being shaped and molded by the Holy Spirit, to put ourselves in a place where it’s assured that we will sin.
So Jesus is looking at this sin issue from the “thou shalt not” side – don’t cause anyone to sin, and don’t put yourself in a situation where you are likely to sin. James goes at it from the “thou shalt” side. He knows that we’re recovering sin-addicts. He knows we’re going to have moments were we “fall off the wagon”. So he tells us to be proactive if we know people have fallen away from God. He reminds us that “whoever turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins”. He gives us a reason to help people who have “fallen off the wagon” into sinful behavior.
So we have hope when we find ourselves sinning – when we find ourselves thinking we know how to run things better than God. We’re all recovering sinners. But this is nothing new for us Lutherans, Martin himself said: “We are at the same time saints and sinners”. He knows what it is to struggle with the temptations of sin, but at the same time knows that God forgives our sin. Jesus knows exactly what it’s like to be tempted by sin, but has overcome it so that we too can overcome with the power the Holy Spirit, as we are transformed into His likeness by the workings of that same Spirit.
Part of the purpose of coming to church is that it’s like a Sinner’s Anonymous meeting, where forgiven sinners come together to support each other in their struggles against the temptations of the world. God has given us grace that we might resist the power of sin over us. We’re all at the same time saints and sinners, but that’s ok. God still loves us as much when we sin as when we follow. Jesus’ words in the gospel remind us that sin is a serious thing, but God’s forgiveness is a whole lot more serious than sin can ever be.