Sunday: The 17th Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Mark 10:38-50
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

We've just started our program year and are trying our best to welcome all seekers. Jesus might want to simmer down a bit. The whole "it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea" is not really that welcoming. Chopping off hands and feet and gouging out eyes? Not really that hospitable. We claim that our vision here at St. Paul & the Redeemer is to model the radical hospitality of Jesus. I understand how the first story of our reading fits in, when Jesus allows someone who is not part of the disciples in group to carry on. But how about these harsh words? Jesus is for accomplishing something. He might have a little pluralism in him, but no relativism. God loves everybody. Full stop. Jesus wants his followers to respond to that by promoting community that is not arranged by status. He wants his followers to be on the side of the little ones, the powerless ones. So he speaks plainly, perhaps the way he spoke to his disciples when they got in the way of the exorcist. Jesus didn't mince words advocating radical hospitality. The unnamed exorcist is the only praiseworthy one in this selection. It makes you think. Jesus is about bringing the kingdom of God near. Maybe Jesus needs exorcists.

Demon possession was a big problem in the 1st Century. They needed exorcists. Jewish writings of the time, in the words of one scholar, "[spoke] of demons, fallen angels, and Satanic powers which enslave, afflict, tyrannize, maim, and kill. [Stories] about the triumph of the righteous [offered] daily encouragement for those who [felt] at the mercy of chaotic forces threatening to sweep them away." [1] Jesus owed some of his wild popularity to his skills as an exorcist. The very 1st miracle in Mark is Jesus expelling an unclean spirit from a disruptive man. Then there is the naked wild-eyed Gerasene demoniac from whom Jesus expelled enough demons to drown a herd full of pigs. Quoting again, "[Jesus'] power to command the demons established Jesus' credentials as Messiah, offering hope and consolation to a people oppressed and promising relief from mysterious, destructive powers." [2] In the first story of our reading this morning relief is offered as demons are being thrown out.

The issue is that the exorcist is not one of the disciples. "Teacher," the disciples shout, "we have someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us." He was not following us. Once again the disciples have put themselves in the center of the world. They don't say "he is not following you Jesus," but rather, "he was not following us." By worrying about who is in the club the disciples are becoming stumbling blocks to those helping the little ones, the powerless ones. Jesus is promoting the coming Kingdom of God in which the naked will be clothed, the oppressed will be free, the blind will see. Don't get in the way of that, disciples. These two stories in our reading are put together because they are both about not getting in the way of the coming kingdom. Jesus is promoting a vision of community that is not arranged by status. Jesus is promoting a community where people seek to love all that is true and noble, just and pure, lovable and gracious, excellent and admirable. The message to us? Don't get in the way of that. Don't be a stumbling block. Actually that is too weak. Don't just get out of the way, join our unnamed, unwanted hero and become an exorcist. That would model the radical hospitality of Jesus.

Need an example? In a brilliant sermon Brian Blount tells the story of Isabella Baumfree, a former slave who fought her way into polite, white, feminist company. "She is the kind of exorcist every Christian exorcist ought to be." She was trying to exorcise racism, slavery and sexism from the land. "Everywhere she went she was told she was an outsider who didn't belong." She certainly would not have qualified as "one of us." But she was on the side of the little ones, the powerless ones. You know Sojourner Truth's sermon, "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?" She knew that God loved everyone and she responded by exorcising the demons of her day.[3]

Oh, Jesus still needs exorcists. It is a key part of modeling the radical hospitality of Jesus. There are plenty of demons. Representative Steve King from Iowa, a state I am usually proud to claim as my own, recently said that gay marriage is the first step towards socialism. We need an exorcist. In Chicago only about half of entering freshmen will graduate from high school. We need an exorcist. Gender roles continue to be so hardened in our country that my son was the only boy in his first ballet class. We need an exorcist. And where we already have willing exorcists we need to remove the stumbling blocks from their path. Does our ordination process merely weed out those who aren't following us? Does the red tape of our city make it nearly impossible to start a small business? Does our way of recruiting and rewarding teachers make it difficult for excellent ones to flourish? We need to get out of their way just as the disciples had to get out of the way of the other exorcist.

Jesus was not a cuddly figure. He was bringing the kingdom of God near. A kingdom based on the reality that God loves everyone. Jesus didn't think kindly on those who furthered communities that were set up on a different premise. And Jesus didn't care if you were one of us. He cared if you were on the side of the little ones, the powerless one. If not, better to have the millstone. The radical hospitality of Jesus means being on the side of the little ones, the powerless ones, and exorcising their demons.

Notes:
[1]Calvin J. Roetzel, The World That Shaped the New Testament (Atlanta: John Knox Press:1985), p. 96.
[2] Roetzel, 104.
[3] Blount's Sermon: http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/the-exorcist