“Owing—and showing--respect to others”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, September 29, 2024
Mark 9: 38-50 (Forward, p. 62) CEV p. 1039
In the Baptismal service of the Canadian Book of Alternative Services there is a baptismal covenant, posed as a way of inviting everyone present to renew their own baptismal covenants. One of its clauses states: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being” (BAS p. 159).
Today’s Scripture passage from Mark picks up on this idea of showing respect, in three ways or dimensions. The first is one that most surely has a wide application these days. It concerns belonging, belonging to a certain in-group or association, or not belonging. The disciples were concerned about their own little group, and others, outsiders, who were ‘borrowing’ their methods and agenda. They wanted to put a stop to this. But Jesus didn’t go along with them in this attempted protectionism. He said that as long as these others were working in harmony with He and His disciples, they should be allowed to continue. After all, they were working toward the same goal. And should we think that this only applies back then, we should look around us to our terribly divided and totally partisan political scene or the unhappy state of church union or the ‘silos’ that sometimes exist even between helping agencies. The territorialism of the early disciples is nothing new to us today, I’m sorry to say.
The second dimension of showing respect has to do with those that we tend to overlook within our society—and, sad to say, even within the church. It might be the youth or very young, or teenagers or twenty or thirty somethings, or young married or young families. Or it may be those that are older, especially those who are shut-in and of less mobility, especially those ‘stuck’ at home. (Those in nursing homes tend to get regular care and attention, but what about those in their own homes.) Or, it may be expressed in those in our society that are especially vulnerable, our unemployed or homeless or socially challenged. Jesus tells us that we need to make our utmost effort in caring for such as these.
And then there is the third dimension of showing respect. This time Jesus is focusing on us. He is talking about the things, totally innocent things perhaps, that can cause our downfall or our destruction. They can be things that we own or handle (thus His words about our hands), or places we go (hence His reference to our feet), or things we view or read (thus His mention of our eyes), but whatever they might be, we need to deal with them decisively and eliminate them from our lives. Nothing less than our own eternal existence is at stake.
We may think that showing respect to others, or to ourselves, is a relatively minor matter, but to Jesus it certainly is not. And so, it would be important to us as well.
Forward notes: “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” (verse 50)
“Trying to please everybody is like serving food without seasoning. You might make this decision out of worry that since you don’t know everyone’s dietary preferences, serving a bland dish is the safest alternative. But true chefs don’t dare take this approach. If you can’t take a little heat in your food, mind where you eat.
“I get the impression that Jesus is more interested in expressive behavior, even if it borders on ‘emotional’ or becomes ‘salty.’ I have a mixed relationship with my emotions. I was taught as a child to keep my composure in public and that bottling up feelings was normal, good practice even. The message was clear: pretend.
“Thank goodness Jesus invites us to be more honest and express our emotions. It’s a risk to be vulnerable with others, but I can’t have my tastebuds be more adventurous than my heart.”
Moving Forward: “Do you need some ‘salt’ and seasoning in your life? How might you take a first step in expressing your emotions?”
A concluding note: The various images of ‘salt’ in the New Testament are hard to get a handle on, but one thing we can be pretty sure about is that they don’t apply to ‘salty’ language, language that expresses our emotions regardless of the outcomes of doing so. I frankly think that had social media been present at the time of Jesus the way it is today, He would have included lips (our word) along with feet and hands and eyes, for much damage is done these days by people carelessly expressing their emotions on some Face Book page. Salty language that gets our emotions off our chests and inflames the emotions of still others certainly does not respect anyone and just increases the problem exponentially.