Salt, Fire, and Peace
30 September 2012
Proper 21B
Homily preached at Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. spoken Mass, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of
flesh. Amen
When
Elena and I were raising our four kids, often one or another would come to us indignant,
complaining about a sibling, with the outraged and sometimes tearful demand, “Punish him.”
In today’s Gospel, the disciples come to Jesus and say, “Look at that guy there! He is not one of us, but he uses your name. We told him to stop but he won’t. You make him stop. Punish him.”
In today’s Gospel, the disciples come to Jesus and say, “Look at that guy there! He is not one of us, but he uses your name. We told him to stop but he won’t. You make him stop. Punish him.”
They have
just failed to drive out an evil spirit from a boy afflicted since childhood
(Mark 9: 14-28) and this interloper seems to be succeeding just fine. They
want to be sole proprietors of Jesus’ franchise, to defend their market niche and
brand integrity.
Jesus
replies, “Don't stop him. Just using my name might bring him closer to
the kingdom. Whoever is not against
us is for us.”
From
the evidence in the New Testament, Jesus’ followers did not all agree. Matthew
and Luke portray Jesus as actually saying the opposite: “whoever is not with me is against me” (Matt 12:30; Luke 11:23). Luke, to
his credit, also preserves (9:49-50) what
Mark has here, almost certainly Jesus’ position: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Matthew just drops it.
Mark’s
Jesus adds that even a simple kindness like giving someone a sip of water
advances the kingdom. And petty nastiness, sticking out your leg to trip up any
of Jesus’ “little ones” will lead to worse things than being drowned in the
ocean.
Mark
takes this as a warning to keep Jesus’
own over-zealous followers from running roughshod over people like the
unnamed healer. Matthew puts the “tripping people up” saying in a separate
context, as a curse against non-believers who persecute Jesus’ followers (Matt.
18:6).
Jesus then
adds (Mark 9:42-28) one of most macabre “hard sayings” of Jesus: pluck out your eye, cut off your hand or foot,
if these cause you to sin. The image is
so grotesque that Matthew (18:8-9), who normally follows Mark when he uses his material,
reduces Mark's seven verses to two, while gentle Saint Luke omits it altogether
(17:1-4).
Origen
This is not a pronouncement of
ethical law. Even though Matthew seems to understand it this
way by placing it in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount (5:27-37), this
saying, when read as law, it is really, really sick. Taken literally, it
actually led third century Church father Origen to cut off body parts that had
gotten in the way of his efforts at chastity. As a result, Origen—one of the age’s best
preachers and scholars of scripture—was never named a saint or a doctor of the
Church. In fact, one of the first canons of the Council of Nicea was to ban
such self-mutilators from the priesthood.
Mark’s placement of this saying in
this story gives its most likely meaning on the lips of the historical Jesus. This answer about cutting members off is
indeed cutting: sarcastic
(“flesh-eating”) and overstated irony. If you want to call for punishment, just
remember that everyone deserves it. “Bad
people?” says Jesus, “You want me to punish them, to cut them off? Well, if
it’s punishment you want, it’s punishment you’ll get. Cut those people off? How about cutting off some
of your own body parts?” This is a vivid
way of saying, “As you forgive others, so shall you be forgiven.”
Jesus then says, “For everyone will
be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can
you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
These are powerful images: salt and fire.
Both connect to the idea of change and stability. Salt and fire were seen as things that prevented
or slowed the great agents for transformation and decay in the world around
us: leavening, fermentation, and
rotting.
Any of us who have made bread know
how amazing yeast is. If you don’t add the right amount and give it adequate
time and sugar, your bread will come out inedible. Adding salt for a tastier bread slows down
the yeast; if you add too much salt, it kills the yeast altogether. Baking with fire stops the fermenting dough
turns it to bread.
The whole thing was mysterious to the early Hebrews, like the mysterious
difference between a living animal and a dead carcass, that so quickly would
turn bad and rot.
This wonder
at change versus stability, decay or life, fermentation or preservation, lies behind
many details in the Law of Moses. No
yeast is allowed during the Passover—God’s covenant time should not be
corrupted by change. Wine, fermented though it is, has reached a stasis and the
alcohol in it preserves it from further rapid decay. It is used at Passover,
making hearts glad and being an important part of celebration.
Animals to be sacrificed had to be killed quickly in ways that of themselves delayed the process of decay. Salt, that great preservative and inhibitor of decay, is added to all meat sacrifices. They are to be put into the fire almost immediately, and the parts of the sacrifice that are not to be burnt up wholly are to be eaten by the priests and Levites quickly after the rite.
Animals to be sacrificed had to be killed quickly in ways that of themselves delayed the process of decay. Salt, that great preservative and inhibitor of decay, is added to all meat sacrifices. They are to be put into the fire almost immediately, and the parts of the sacrifice that are not to be burnt up wholly are to be eaten by the priests and Levites quickly after the rite.
Fire
itself—able to change things totally by reducing them to ashes—is also seen as
purifying, since it seemed mysteriously to inhibit change and decay after it
had touched an object. (We know now that
this has to do with inhibiting microbes, but Louis Pasteur had not yet been
born.)
But
for people around Jesus, fire meant purification either through radical change
(things burnt to ashes) or through its ability, like salt, to preserve against
fermentation and rot.
Salt
too was seen as purifying, a symbol of steadiness and unchanging stability. Sharing
salt at table was the ultimate sign of friendship and hospitality. Sharing it
often marked covenants and promises. Jesus said that those welcoming the Kingdom
were the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13), that would make life tasty and
pleasant, preserve it from overall rottenness, and be a sign of God’s
steadiness.
The ancient Jews realized that not all change was decay. They liked their leavened bread and wine. It was in this spirit that Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a little lump of yeast in a large mass of flour dough—only a little bit would make the whole loaf rise (Matt. 13:33; Luke 13:20-21). But leaven for Jesus could be bad also, as when he told his followers to beware of the “leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (Mark 8:15).
The ancient Jews realized that not all change was decay. They liked their leavened bread and wine. It was in this spirit that Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a little lump of yeast in a large mass of flour dough—only a little bit would make the whole loaf rise (Matt. 13:33; Luke 13:20-21). But leaven for Jesus could be bad also, as when he told his followers to beware of the “leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (Mark 8:15).
The great garbage dump just outside
of ancient Jerusalem’s city walls in the Valley of Hinnom (in Aramaic,
Geihenna) was marked by the continually burning fires there for reducing to
ashes and disinfecting the foul detritus of the city. These fires became of
symbol for the purifying burning of the Day of Judgment or the eternal
punishments of the damned.
Gehenna is the Greek word translated as “hell” in today's Gospel.
The quotation in today's Gospel from second Isaiah about "their worm never
dies, their fires never cease" is used by Jesus to describe the state of
those who refuse God's call. It is vivid image of continued corruption and
rottenness despite ongoing purification and disinfection.
So when Jesus in Mark says, “Everyone will be salted with fire, therefore live in peace,” he is saying this: We need to live in peace with each other, and not constantly go about seeking the punishment or correction of others who may seem to differ from us or not meet the standard we think God has set. And why? Because purification is a serious business that must touch us all, and eventually will touch all of each of us, regardless of who we are or what group we now appear to belong to. Purification will come to all, either through preservation or destruction, either through saving change for the good or damning change for the bad.
Jesus’ demand that we accept marginal believers or even possible competitors is rooted in his understanding of God.
God is not a mere tribal deity, not a petty partisan. God makes the sun rise on ands sends the clouds to rain on both the righteous and the wicked (Matt. 5:45). He is Israel’s God, to be sure, but only so that Israel can be a city on a hill, a light on a candlestick, salt to give flavor to and preserve the world (Matt. 5:14-16). God is not just for Jews, not just for Jesus’ authorized franchise-holders, but for all. Because we are all in God’s hand, we must accept diversity.
That ultimately is what the parable of the wheat and the weeds is all about—don’t worry about which plants are good or bad, because if you pull up the bad you’ll surely kill good ones as well. Wait until the harvest comes, and God will sort it out (Matt. 13: 24-30).
So when Jesus in Mark says, “Everyone will be salted with fire, therefore live in peace,” he is saying this: We need to live in peace with each other, and not constantly go about seeking the punishment or correction of others who may seem to differ from us or not meet the standard we think God has set. And why? Because purification is a serious business that must touch us all, and eventually will touch all of each of us, regardless of who we are or what group we now appear to belong to. Purification will come to all, either through preservation or destruction, either through saving change for the good or damning change for the bad.
Jesus’ demand that we accept marginal believers or even possible competitors is rooted in his understanding of God.
God is not a mere tribal deity, not a petty partisan. God makes the sun rise on ands sends the clouds to rain on both the righteous and the wicked (Matt. 5:45). He is Israel’s God, to be sure, but only so that Israel can be a city on a hill, a light on a candlestick, salt to give flavor to and preserve the world (Matt. 5:14-16). God is not just for Jews, not just for Jesus’ authorized franchise-holders, but for all. Because we are all in God’s hand, we must accept diversity.
That ultimately is what the parable of the wheat and the weeds is all about—don’t worry about which plants are good or bad, because if you pull up the bad you’ll surely kill good ones as well. Wait until the harvest comes, and God will sort it out (Matt. 13: 24-30).
Jesus urges solidarity among all
God’s creatures. That’s why even unbelievers’ offers of glasses of water build
the Kingdom. That’s why Jesus here says the strange exorcist is one of his own
“little ones” in need of protection from being tripped up.
Living in peace doesn’t mean making
nice, papering over evil, or thickening our conscience with an amoral
detachment. Ask any marriage or family counselor, any labor mediator, or any
mediator or negotiator in international or inter-ethnic conflict. They’ll all
tell you that truly seeking peace is not easy, and not harmonious. It is not a
false “let’s all just get along.” It is
about honestly addressing real problems. It is about doing so in a spirit of shared
endeavor, of mutual effort to let shared desires and aspirations force us to
listen carefully to the other party.
Jesus continues today to call us to
be good yeast leavening, bright fires enlightening, and salt enriching and
preserving, the world. He does not call
us to demonize, exclude, or ostracize.
God himself will bring this world right. We all will be rubbed through and through with God’s salt. We all will be put through God’s fire. And because of this, we must live humbly and simply, praying for each other, including our enemies, and seek to help each other, work for justice, and live in peace.
In the name of God, Amen
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