Lines in the sand
Commentary
Note: Originally published in 2003.
I don't know for a certainty that this story is in fact the origin of the saying, but with family roots in Texas you will understand why I was taught at a young age that it was. During the final hours of the siege of the Alamo, Colonel William B. Travis assembled the men under his command. General Santa Anna was flying the red flag of "no quarter," announcing that no prisoners would be taken, that every rebel would be killed when the mission-turned-fortress was taken by the Mexican army. Colonel Travis drew his sword, and with it etched a line in the sand of the Alamo's courtyard. Only those willing to face certain death if they failed were called to cross the line and join him for the final battle. After a tense moment of silence, Colonel James Bowie, bedridden from a wound sustained in an early skirmish of the siege, asked for men to carry his cot across, for, as he reportedly said, "Gentlemen, I appear to be on the wrong side of the line."
Drawing a line in the sand. Ever since the fall of the Alamo that expression has conveyed the necessity of making a choice regarding with whom one would stand and one's absolute commitment to that choice. "A line in the sand" clearly marks who is to be included because they support us, and who is to be excluded because they are against us. And it underscores our resolve to maintain that distinction.
The call of the gospel is a challenge to each of us to determine on which side we wish to take our stand. But should the church join with Colonel Travis in drawing lines in the sand?
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
The first lesson for this Sunday marks the only appearance of the book of Esther in the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. As with the solitary inclusion from Jonah on Epiphany 3 during this same cycle, the committee has selected a reading from the dramatic climax of the narrative. In order to preach the climax, one must in fact preach the story of the entire book and not just the assigned lesson (which makes little sense separated from its literary context). Also as was the case with Jonah, the sad thing is that the story is told with such literary skill through all the plots many twists and turns that it is something of a shame that only a single Sunday is available when it might easily have been serialized over a period of a few weeks.
But with all the juicy tidbits in this story (a king given his comeuppance by his queen, a beauty pageant, palace intrigue, petty jealousies turned murderously violent - this story has it all!), how is the preacher to decide what to leave, as it were, on the cutting room floor? One must choose some theme for the sermon and base selection of plot elements for inclusion on whether they advance that theme. Those parts of the story that don't highlight the theme must be (regrettably) left aside. So what theme is to be chosen? Certainly one might choose, in our post-Holocaust setting when other genocides have been launched and even continue, to highlight the deliverance of God's people from those who would destroy them. Yet the violence of the Jewish response toward their enemies (well over 75,000 killed; 9:11-16) raises its own moral questions. Perhaps it is better to focus on the traditional debate concerning Esther among both Jewish and Christian interpreters regarding the absence of God from the narrative.
God is never directly mentioned in the book of Esther, and one can find only meager evidence for even the most thickly veiled reference to the divine presence. About the most blatant reference (and it is far from obvious) is Mordecai's statement that should Esther not assist in his plan then "deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter ... Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this" (4:14). This lack was of course "remedied" in the Greek version of this book that is filled out with revelatory dreams from God, prayers by Mordecai and Esther, and even decrees by the Persian king that make reference to the universal provenance of the God of the Jews.
Within the passage assigned by the lectionary, the telling detail in this regard is the presence of the gallows constructed at Haman's own house that becomes the fitting judgment for his murderous designs for Mordecai and his people. Poetic justice here becomes the hidden hand of divine justice. God need not miraculously intervene in the world to bring judgment, but simply step back and leave us to face the consequence of the evil we have unleashed in it.
There are, of course, other details in the story that, with a little creativity and 20-20 hindsight, can be characterized as the guiding hand of divine providence. One preaching strategy, then, might be to draw out these details asking, "Is it God, or just a coincidence?" Having established the pattern, then it could be reversed as we look at our lives and ask, "Is it a coincidence, or is it God?"
James 5:13-20
James concludes his letter with a discussion of the communal aspects of the Christian life. The life of faith is not exclusively personal and private, but primarily a responsibility we share with one another for prayer, praise, and mutual accountability. Our responsibility to one another in "suffering" and sickness is prayer, and in happiness is "songs of praise" (vv. 13-14). In these ways we demonstrate our recognition of complete dependence upon God in times of both suffering and joy. James' specific remarks about prayers for healing and confession make it clear that even prayers for the most personal and private aspects of life appropriately belong in the communal life of the church.
Although oil was widely used for medicinal purposes in the ancient world (cf. Luke 10:32-33), James casts the practice in religious terms by directing that the anointing be done by the elders of the community. Most likely he associated this religious symbolism with the priests in ancient Israel who anointed people and things with oil to set them apart to God (e.g., Exodus 40:9-15; cf. Luke 4:18-19; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22). The anointing of the sick would then symbolize their being set apart for God's special care. But if this rite of Christian prayer symbolizes that one has been set apart to God's special care, the question immediately arises in our minds as to why God does not heal everyone for whom such prayer is offered.
This question is only exacerbated by James's allusion to Elijah. If "Elijah was a human being like us," then why were his prayers answered in so spectacular a fashion though our prayers for healing so often seem to go unanswered? Some have sought to affix blame for such unanswered prayers by impugning the "righteousness" either of the sick person or of those who pray on her or his behalf. James's assertion was not about affixing blame, however, but about his trust in God's goodness. Just as God answered Elijah's prayers and so enabled him to fulfill his prophetic mission, so God will answer the prayers of believers as they perform their mission in behalf of others, fulfilling their responsibilities within the community.
To the degree that James offers any explanation as to why some prayers for healing do not result in physical restoration, it is that the elders are "to pray ... in the name of the Lord" (v. 14). The invocation of "the name of the Lord" is both an appeal to the power and authority of God, and a recognition that our desires - even in prayer - must be conformed to God's will (cf. 4:3). James might also challenge our opinion that prayers for healing often are not answered. James asserts, "The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up" (5:15). The words "save" and "raise" are loaded with theological connotations in the New Testament. To be "saved" is for God to grant total and complete wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. To be "raised up" is to have God resurrect body, soul, and spirit to a new kind of existence - eternal life in union with the Divine. Physical life is not the only life, or even the most important life (v. 20). God's goodness in raising us to eternal life is an answer to "the prayer of faith" that completely trusts in God's goodness to save us, to make us whole in more than just our bodies.
Our responsibility toward others does not end, however, with praying for them in times of trouble and rejoicing with them for God's goodness. James insisted that if we see anyone who "wanders from the truth," it is God's will that they be "brought back" (v. 19), because "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us" (4:5) when God "gave us birth by the word of truth" (1:18). Restoration cannot be accomplished by being harsh or judgmental, but only by once again convincing them of God's goodness so that they will trust God (cf. 4:7-12).
James concludes the letter with a promise to those who fulfill this responsibility for the spiritual lives of others: "Whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins" (v. 20, NRSV margin). The antecedent of the pronoun "his" that modifies the word "soul" is ambiguous. Is it the soul of the one "who brings back a sinner" or the soul of the sinner that is saved from death? Most translators and interpreters resolve the ambiguity by concluding that it is the sinner's soul that is saved. But it is also possible that "his soul" refers to "whoever brings back a sinner." By performing this work one not only "will save his [or her own] soul from death," but will "cover the multitude of sins" that have been committed by both these members of the community. Both of these meanings are possible because James believed that it was by performing such "works" that are consistent with God's will that Christians are "blessed" (1:22-25) and that their "faith" is able to save them from spiritual death (2:14, 26).
Mark 9:38-50
Jesus' disciples were drawing lines in the sand. John had proudly announced to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." Jesus' fame and reputation were spreading, and there were people who, in the disciples' eyes, were trying to freeload on the bandwagon. If they would not recognize the disciples' authority and greatness by following them, then those freeloaders must be stopped. It was time to draw a line in the sand; those who crossed it to follow the disciples would be for Jesus, and those who would not cross would clearly be against him.
Now, if John had actually taken a staff and drawn a line in the sand, I think we can conclude from what Jesus said in response that he would have taken his sandaled foot and rubbed it right out of the dirt. "Do not stop him ... Whoever is not against us is for us." Jesus stands John's logic completely on its head. It is not, as our aphorism so clearly states it, that "whoever is not for us is against us," but rather, "whoever is not against us is for us." If anyone is drawing lines in the sand to mark off exclusion and opposition, it better not be the disciples. And just how much evidence is required to demonstrate that someone is not against Jesus and his followers? Well, if knowing that "you bear the name of Christ" - in our modern terms, the simple knowledge that you are a Christian - if that is not enough to keep someone from withholding from you the simplest hospitality of providing a cup of water, then that person is not "against us" and so must be considered "for us."
Yet, Jesus concedes the sad and painful truth: There really are those who will draw lines of opposition in the sand against the reign of God in Christ. They "put a stumbling block" before those who want to follow Christ in an effort to destroy their faith. They demonstrate in obvious ways that they are in fact against what God is doing in the world; they openly oppose the work of the community in spreading the gospel of God's grace. Such people pose a mortal threat to the eternal life of the body of Christ. Like a gangrenous hand or foot, they must be amputated, cut off from the community of believers before the poison can spread, dragging everyone with them into the eternal death of the fires of Gehenna. Yet so great is Jesus' desire that there should be no lines of exclusion in the sand that he presents even these necessary separations as the painful cutting away of what should be essential parts of the body. Even the loss of those who flagrantly oppose the Divine is viewed as injuring, indeed maiming, the community.
Jesus concluded his correction of his disciples with several, frankly somewhat strange, metaphors about salt. Given the context of what has come before, these figures of speech seem to call upon the common use of salt as a preservative agent. Such a desire to preserve and maintain the purity of the community, Jesus says, is good. "But if the salt has lost its saltiness," if the desire to preserve the community has become something else, namely a desire to exclude those who will not follow us, then how can it fulfill its preservative function? We must be ever careful that our attempts to preserve the church according to our standards of inclusion do not cause others to stumble. For if our attempts at preservation exclude those who are not against us, then we ourselves become people whose actions so endanger the community that they must be cut off.
Application
The challenge placed before us by our gospel lesson is to ask ourselves if there are people who are not opposed to Christ, who may indeed align themselves through faith with Christ's cause, that we would stop because they do not follow us, because they do not agree with our understanding of what it means to be Christian. We may even have convinced ourselves that they must be excluded because they threaten the purity of the body of Christ. Yet Christ's words to John are now Christ's words to us: "Do not stop them; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us."
As this material is being written, the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire has elected an openly gay man to serve as its bishop. It remains to be seen whether the other bishops and diosecan representatives to the General Convention will consent to his ordination as bishop. What is certain is that the controversy that is sure to ensue will be but the latest skirmish in a more than two-decades-long battle over the ordination of gays and lesbians within mainline denominations. Might this exchange between Jesus and his disciples suggest to us that there is another way of looking at this division within the church that doesn't turn on the issue of sexual practices?
Such inclusion does not mean anything goes; it does not deny that there are those against the community of faith. It merely says that when it comes to those who declare their faith in Christ and encourage others to do the same, "Let others draw the lines in the sand."
An Alternative Application
James 5:13-20. There are rumblings in the political landscape of our nation about the emergence of a new understanding of our social commitments to one another that would seek to mediate the extremes of both liberalism and conservatism. This new approach has been labeled "communitarianism" by the sociologist Amitai Etzioni. It confronts the excesses of liberalism by insisting that there are no unlimited rights and that all rights carry with them incumbent responsibilities. It rejects the notion held by some conservatives that anyone can be completely self-reliant and resolve all problems by a sheer act of will and determination. Communitarianism emphasizes that all people within the society must assume responsibility for their own acts, while at the same time sharing in the responsibility of assuring the well-being of society as a whole.
The need for such balance between the personal and the communal, between the private and the public, between rights and responsibilities is not limited, however, to the political realm. These same notions of shared responsibility and accountability that were the very basis for the notion of "community" within the Jewish and Christian religious traditions are also in need of renewed emphasis within the church. As the influence of the "me-generation" has been felt in the church, we have come to see the church as a place primarily for finding personal spiritual fulfillment. We tend to ask what either the church as an institution or Christian faith as a belief system can offer us to fulfill our potential. We are less willing to consider the responsibilities that come along with membership within the church. Like Cain, we insist that we are not our sisters' and brothers' keepers; we have enough on our hands looking out for ourselves. But James insists that we will never succeed by looking out for ourselves alone. Our hope lies in the shared responsibility of community.
Christians have a mutual responsibility for one another in the community of the church. There can be no "Lone Rangers" or even "Dynamic Duos"; we all share responsibility for each other. We can summarize his final words to us by paraphrasing the famous line by John F. Kennedy. We should not ask what God and the church can do for us, but rather ask what we can do in the church that will accomplish God's will in the world. Having had our wills conformed to God's will, the time has come for us to assume our responsibilities for the community of God's people.
So what will it be? Whatever desire God has placed in your heart, take on the responsibility to meet that need. Your own blessing as well as the spiritual well-being of others depends on it.
Psalm 124
Psalm 124 takes us deep into the thorny issue of claiming to have God on our side. The matter came up repeatedly during the recent war with Iraq. Prayers were offered from both sides of the conflict petitioning God's help in defeating "our" enemy and protecting "our" troops.
There is a slightly different nuance in this Psalm. For one thing, instead of seeking God's favor in some pending conflict, the matter is already resolved and the psalmist is giving thanks for God's protection. Israel had suffered attack from some enemy and had prevailed against them. The psalmist interpreted this outcome as God's saving power at work. Despite this minor variation, the theme is clear. Israel prevailed because God was on their side.
This is a predictable response for a person or community of faith. When good fortune comes our way or, as in this case, salvation, it is our natural tendency to give God the credit. There is not any necessary sense of privileged position, but rather a general acknowledgement of thanks for a blessing that has touched our lives.
Claiming to have God on our side, however, does become a problem when we begin to take action based on the assumption. Once we assume a position of divine prerogative, the designations "us" and "them" can become severely problematic. If "we" are the Lord's and the Lord is on our side, then "they" are not only our enemy, but also the enemy of God. The gospel offers us a different perspective on this issue (cf. Mark 9:38-50). Jesus turns conventional wisdom on its head by telling us, "Whoever is not against us is for us."
We want to be able to say with the psalmist, "It was the Lord who was on our side." Sensing God's presence in times of trouble, acknowledging God's goodness in times of blessing, these are appropriate expressions of faith.
What we don't want to say, however, and probably cannot honestly say is that "it was the Lord who was on our side exclusively." Once we make this claim, the hope of bridging the distance that exists between us as human beings all but disappears. In the absolute claim of God's exclusive patronage, fellowship dies.
The tendency to divide the world into "us" and "them" is rooted deeply in our innate insecurity and fear. Hopefully, the love of God can set us free from that fear and suspicion and allow us to see what Jesus saw - that "those who are not against us are for us." Of course, in the full realization of God's intent for us, all reference to "us" and "them" vanishes. In its place is offered an ideal vision of human community that might sound something like this: "We found each other as we gathered together on the Lord's side. It was there that we discovered that the Lord was for all of us equally."
I don't know for a certainty that this story is in fact the origin of the saying, but with family roots in Texas you will understand why I was taught at a young age that it was. During the final hours of the siege of the Alamo, Colonel William B. Travis assembled the men under his command. General Santa Anna was flying the red flag of "no quarter," announcing that no prisoners would be taken, that every rebel would be killed when the mission-turned-fortress was taken by the Mexican army. Colonel Travis drew his sword, and with it etched a line in the sand of the Alamo's courtyard. Only those willing to face certain death if they failed were called to cross the line and join him for the final battle. After a tense moment of silence, Colonel James Bowie, bedridden from a wound sustained in an early skirmish of the siege, asked for men to carry his cot across, for, as he reportedly said, "Gentlemen, I appear to be on the wrong side of the line."
Drawing a line in the sand. Ever since the fall of the Alamo that expression has conveyed the necessity of making a choice regarding with whom one would stand and one's absolute commitment to that choice. "A line in the sand" clearly marks who is to be included because they support us, and who is to be excluded because they are against us. And it underscores our resolve to maintain that distinction.
The call of the gospel is a challenge to each of us to determine on which side we wish to take our stand. But should the church join with Colonel Travis in drawing lines in the sand?
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
The first lesson for this Sunday marks the only appearance of the book of Esther in the three-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary. As with the solitary inclusion from Jonah on Epiphany 3 during this same cycle, the committee has selected a reading from the dramatic climax of the narrative. In order to preach the climax, one must in fact preach the story of the entire book and not just the assigned lesson (which makes little sense separated from its literary context). Also as was the case with Jonah, the sad thing is that the story is told with such literary skill through all the plots many twists and turns that it is something of a shame that only a single Sunday is available when it might easily have been serialized over a period of a few weeks.
But with all the juicy tidbits in this story (a king given his comeuppance by his queen, a beauty pageant, palace intrigue, petty jealousies turned murderously violent - this story has it all!), how is the preacher to decide what to leave, as it were, on the cutting room floor? One must choose some theme for the sermon and base selection of plot elements for inclusion on whether they advance that theme. Those parts of the story that don't highlight the theme must be (regrettably) left aside. So what theme is to be chosen? Certainly one might choose, in our post-Holocaust setting when other genocides have been launched and even continue, to highlight the deliverance of God's people from those who would destroy them. Yet the violence of the Jewish response toward their enemies (well over 75,000 killed; 9:11-16) raises its own moral questions. Perhaps it is better to focus on the traditional debate concerning Esther among both Jewish and Christian interpreters regarding the absence of God from the narrative.
God is never directly mentioned in the book of Esther, and one can find only meager evidence for even the most thickly veiled reference to the divine presence. About the most blatant reference (and it is far from obvious) is Mordecai's statement that should Esther not assist in his plan then "deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter ... Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this" (4:14). This lack was of course "remedied" in the Greek version of this book that is filled out with revelatory dreams from God, prayers by Mordecai and Esther, and even decrees by the Persian king that make reference to the universal provenance of the God of the Jews.
Within the passage assigned by the lectionary, the telling detail in this regard is the presence of the gallows constructed at Haman's own house that becomes the fitting judgment for his murderous designs for Mordecai and his people. Poetic justice here becomes the hidden hand of divine justice. God need not miraculously intervene in the world to bring judgment, but simply step back and leave us to face the consequence of the evil we have unleashed in it.
There are, of course, other details in the story that, with a little creativity and 20-20 hindsight, can be characterized as the guiding hand of divine providence. One preaching strategy, then, might be to draw out these details asking, "Is it God, or just a coincidence?" Having established the pattern, then it could be reversed as we look at our lives and ask, "Is it a coincidence, or is it God?"
James 5:13-20
James concludes his letter with a discussion of the communal aspects of the Christian life. The life of faith is not exclusively personal and private, but primarily a responsibility we share with one another for prayer, praise, and mutual accountability. Our responsibility to one another in "suffering" and sickness is prayer, and in happiness is "songs of praise" (vv. 13-14). In these ways we demonstrate our recognition of complete dependence upon God in times of both suffering and joy. James' specific remarks about prayers for healing and confession make it clear that even prayers for the most personal and private aspects of life appropriately belong in the communal life of the church.
Although oil was widely used for medicinal purposes in the ancient world (cf. Luke 10:32-33), James casts the practice in religious terms by directing that the anointing be done by the elders of the community. Most likely he associated this religious symbolism with the priests in ancient Israel who anointed people and things with oil to set them apart to God (e.g., Exodus 40:9-15; cf. Luke 4:18-19; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22). The anointing of the sick would then symbolize their being set apart for God's special care. But if this rite of Christian prayer symbolizes that one has been set apart to God's special care, the question immediately arises in our minds as to why God does not heal everyone for whom such prayer is offered.
This question is only exacerbated by James's allusion to Elijah. If "Elijah was a human being like us," then why were his prayers answered in so spectacular a fashion though our prayers for healing so often seem to go unanswered? Some have sought to affix blame for such unanswered prayers by impugning the "righteousness" either of the sick person or of those who pray on her or his behalf. James's assertion was not about affixing blame, however, but about his trust in God's goodness. Just as God answered Elijah's prayers and so enabled him to fulfill his prophetic mission, so God will answer the prayers of believers as they perform their mission in behalf of others, fulfilling their responsibilities within the community.
To the degree that James offers any explanation as to why some prayers for healing do not result in physical restoration, it is that the elders are "to pray ... in the name of the Lord" (v. 14). The invocation of "the name of the Lord" is both an appeal to the power and authority of God, and a recognition that our desires - even in prayer - must be conformed to God's will (cf. 4:3). James might also challenge our opinion that prayers for healing often are not answered. James asserts, "The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up" (5:15). The words "save" and "raise" are loaded with theological connotations in the New Testament. To be "saved" is for God to grant total and complete wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. To be "raised up" is to have God resurrect body, soul, and spirit to a new kind of existence - eternal life in union with the Divine. Physical life is not the only life, or even the most important life (v. 20). God's goodness in raising us to eternal life is an answer to "the prayer of faith" that completely trusts in God's goodness to save us, to make us whole in more than just our bodies.
Our responsibility toward others does not end, however, with praying for them in times of trouble and rejoicing with them for God's goodness. James insisted that if we see anyone who "wanders from the truth," it is God's will that they be "brought back" (v. 19), because "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us" (4:5) when God "gave us birth by the word of truth" (1:18). Restoration cannot be accomplished by being harsh or judgmental, but only by once again convincing them of God's goodness so that they will trust God (cf. 4:7-12).
James concludes the letter with a promise to those who fulfill this responsibility for the spiritual lives of others: "Whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins" (v. 20, NRSV margin). The antecedent of the pronoun "his" that modifies the word "soul" is ambiguous. Is it the soul of the one "who brings back a sinner" or the soul of the sinner that is saved from death? Most translators and interpreters resolve the ambiguity by concluding that it is the sinner's soul that is saved. But it is also possible that "his soul" refers to "whoever brings back a sinner." By performing this work one not only "will save his [or her own] soul from death," but will "cover the multitude of sins" that have been committed by both these members of the community. Both of these meanings are possible because James believed that it was by performing such "works" that are consistent with God's will that Christians are "blessed" (1:22-25) and that their "faith" is able to save them from spiritual death (2:14, 26).
Mark 9:38-50
Jesus' disciples were drawing lines in the sand. John had proudly announced to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." Jesus' fame and reputation were spreading, and there were people who, in the disciples' eyes, were trying to freeload on the bandwagon. If they would not recognize the disciples' authority and greatness by following them, then those freeloaders must be stopped. It was time to draw a line in the sand; those who crossed it to follow the disciples would be for Jesus, and those who would not cross would clearly be against him.
Now, if John had actually taken a staff and drawn a line in the sand, I think we can conclude from what Jesus said in response that he would have taken his sandaled foot and rubbed it right out of the dirt. "Do not stop him ... Whoever is not against us is for us." Jesus stands John's logic completely on its head. It is not, as our aphorism so clearly states it, that "whoever is not for us is against us," but rather, "whoever is not against us is for us." If anyone is drawing lines in the sand to mark off exclusion and opposition, it better not be the disciples. And just how much evidence is required to demonstrate that someone is not against Jesus and his followers? Well, if knowing that "you bear the name of Christ" - in our modern terms, the simple knowledge that you are a Christian - if that is not enough to keep someone from withholding from you the simplest hospitality of providing a cup of water, then that person is not "against us" and so must be considered "for us."
Yet, Jesus concedes the sad and painful truth: There really are those who will draw lines of opposition in the sand against the reign of God in Christ. They "put a stumbling block" before those who want to follow Christ in an effort to destroy their faith. They demonstrate in obvious ways that they are in fact against what God is doing in the world; they openly oppose the work of the community in spreading the gospel of God's grace. Such people pose a mortal threat to the eternal life of the body of Christ. Like a gangrenous hand or foot, they must be amputated, cut off from the community of believers before the poison can spread, dragging everyone with them into the eternal death of the fires of Gehenna. Yet so great is Jesus' desire that there should be no lines of exclusion in the sand that he presents even these necessary separations as the painful cutting away of what should be essential parts of the body. Even the loss of those who flagrantly oppose the Divine is viewed as injuring, indeed maiming, the community.
Jesus concluded his correction of his disciples with several, frankly somewhat strange, metaphors about salt. Given the context of what has come before, these figures of speech seem to call upon the common use of salt as a preservative agent. Such a desire to preserve and maintain the purity of the community, Jesus says, is good. "But if the salt has lost its saltiness," if the desire to preserve the community has become something else, namely a desire to exclude those who will not follow us, then how can it fulfill its preservative function? We must be ever careful that our attempts to preserve the church according to our standards of inclusion do not cause others to stumble. For if our attempts at preservation exclude those who are not against us, then we ourselves become people whose actions so endanger the community that they must be cut off.
Application
The challenge placed before us by our gospel lesson is to ask ourselves if there are people who are not opposed to Christ, who may indeed align themselves through faith with Christ's cause, that we would stop because they do not follow us, because they do not agree with our understanding of what it means to be Christian. We may even have convinced ourselves that they must be excluded because they threaten the purity of the body of Christ. Yet Christ's words to John are now Christ's words to us: "Do not stop them; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us."
As this material is being written, the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire has elected an openly gay man to serve as its bishop. It remains to be seen whether the other bishops and diosecan representatives to the General Convention will consent to his ordination as bishop. What is certain is that the controversy that is sure to ensue will be but the latest skirmish in a more than two-decades-long battle over the ordination of gays and lesbians within mainline denominations. Might this exchange between Jesus and his disciples suggest to us that there is another way of looking at this division within the church that doesn't turn on the issue of sexual practices?
Such inclusion does not mean anything goes; it does not deny that there are those against the community of faith. It merely says that when it comes to those who declare their faith in Christ and encourage others to do the same, "Let others draw the lines in the sand."
An Alternative Application
James 5:13-20. There are rumblings in the political landscape of our nation about the emergence of a new understanding of our social commitments to one another that would seek to mediate the extremes of both liberalism and conservatism. This new approach has been labeled "communitarianism" by the sociologist Amitai Etzioni. It confronts the excesses of liberalism by insisting that there are no unlimited rights and that all rights carry with them incumbent responsibilities. It rejects the notion held by some conservatives that anyone can be completely self-reliant and resolve all problems by a sheer act of will and determination. Communitarianism emphasizes that all people within the society must assume responsibility for their own acts, while at the same time sharing in the responsibility of assuring the well-being of society as a whole.
The need for such balance between the personal and the communal, between the private and the public, between rights and responsibilities is not limited, however, to the political realm. These same notions of shared responsibility and accountability that were the very basis for the notion of "community" within the Jewish and Christian religious traditions are also in need of renewed emphasis within the church. As the influence of the "me-generation" has been felt in the church, we have come to see the church as a place primarily for finding personal spiritual fulfillment. We tend to ask what either the church as an institution or Christian faith as a belief system can offer us to fulfill our potential. We are less willing to consider the responsibilities that come along with membership within the church. Like Cain, we insist that we are not our sisters' and brothers' keepers; we have enough on our hands looking out for ourselves. But James insists that we will never succeed by looking out for ourselves alone. Our hope lies in the shared responsibility of community.
Christians have a mutual responsibility for one another in the community of the church. There can be no "Lone Rangers" or even "Dynamic Duos"; we all share responsibility for each other. We can summarize his final words to us by paraphrasing the famous line by John F. Kennedy. We should not ask what God and the church can do for us, but rather ask what we can do in the church that will accomplish God's will in the world. Having had our wills conformed to God's will, the time has come for us to assume our responsibilities for the community of God's people.
So what will it be? Whatever desire God has placed in your heart, take on the responsibility to meet that need. Your own blessing as well as the spiritual well-being of others depends on it.
Psalm 124
Psalm 124 takes us deep into the thorny issue of claiming to have God on our side. The matter came up repeatedly during the recent war with Iraq. Prayers were offered from both sides of the conflict petitioning God's help in defeating "our" enemy and protecting "our" troops.
There is a slightly different nuance in this Psalm. For one thing, instead of seeking God's favor in some pending conflict, the matter is already resolved and the psalmist is giving thanks for God's protection. Israel had suffered attack from some enemy and had prevailed against them. The psalmist interpreted this outcome as God's saving power at work. Despite this minor variation, the theme is clear. Israel prevailed because God was on their side.
This is a predictable response for a person or community of faith. When good fortune comes our way or, as in this case, salvation, it is our natural tendency to give God the credit. There is not any necessary sense of privileged position, but rather a general acknowledgement of thanks for a blessing that has touched our lives.
Claiming to have God on our side, however, does become a problem when we begin to take action based on the assumption. Once we assume a position of divine prerogative, the designations "us" and "them" can become severely problematic. If "we" are the Lord's and the Lord is on our side, then "they" are not only our enemy, but also the enemy of God. The gospel offers us a different perspective on this issue (cf. Mark 9:38-50). Jesus turns conventional wisdom on its head by telling us, "Whoever is not against us is for us."
We want to be able to say with the psalmist, "It was the Lord who was on our side." Sensing God's presence in times of trouble, acknowledging God's goodness in times of blessing, these are appropriate expressions of faith.
What we don't want to say, however, and probably cannot honestly say is that "it was the Lord who was on our side exclusively." Once we make this claim, the hope of bridging the distance that exists between us as human beings all but disappears. In the absolute claim of God's exclusive patronage, fellowship dies.
The tendency to divide the world into "us" and "them" is rooted deeply in our innate insecurity and fear. Hopefully, the love of God can set us free from that fear and suspicion and allow us to see what Jesus saw - that "those who are not against us are for us." Of course, in the full realization of God's intent for us, all reference to "us" and "them" vanishes. In its place is offered an ideal vision of human community that might sound something like this: "We found each other as we gathered together on the Lord's side. It was there that we discovered that the Lord was for all of us equally."
