Lessons in Welcoming (2)

Mark 9:33–50 ESV

And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Scripture: Mark 9:33-50

Sermon: Lessons in Welcoming

Last year in Corsica, I preached through the Gospel of Mark, and while it’s the shortest gospel, it took a while. A few things stuck out to me as we went through it. One, we have to remember not every word or action of Jesus, his disciples, the crowds who followed, or the religious leaders are contained in Mark or any of the Gospels. Believing that the Holy Spirit guided the authors of the Bible, what’s been recorded teaches us—the audience—what is necessary for salvation. Salvation includes our justification, our being made right with God through Christ, and our sanctification, God’s call for his people with the Holy Spirit’s help to be and to live set apart.

That said, the progression of Mark, the storyline, what Jesus’ teaches seems to get deeper and deeper the farther you get into the book. So, just as we look for children to mature over time, that spiritual milk and solid food or meat analogy, that seems to be how Jesus was with his disciples. By the time you get to chapter 9, the disciples had likely spent close to 3 years with Jesus, and there’s a series of challenging teachings.  Most of us are probably familiar with this passage, but familiarity doesn’t necessarily mean we fully understand or live it. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, imagine someone were to take a poll of churches, and not just in the CRC, not just in the U.S. and Canada, but a worldwide survey of Christian congregations asking just one question, “Do you want your church to be a place and a people who is thought of as welcoming?”  If that one question survey were conducted, I think that we’d find well over 80%, hopefully even over 90% of churches and Christians, would say, “Yes! We want that!” 

What does that actually mean, though? What does that look like? At the most basic level, it probably means we want to be a place where those who are believers as well as those who are just looking at or seeking the Christian faith would feel welcome to come at any time. They are welcome to attend and participate in Sunday services, in programs, in other church functions, and join with members in fellowship. We also want to be thought of as people who are approachable—that another person is able and would like to spend time with us. They wouldn’t be afraid of us or assume they will be instantly condemned and turned away. 

If we dig deeper, though, for a church to be welcoming, and hopefully this is who and what each of our churches are pursuing, it means we welcome people who are affiliated with the CRC or of other Reformed or Presbyterian backgrounds, and we invite anyone who might be completely unfamiliar and have to ask questions about our beliefs and practices. Hopefully it means we welcome adults and young people, singles, couples, widows and widowers, foster kids and families to be loved and nurtured. We welcome the lifelong Wisconsinite and lifelong American citizen, as well as the stranger, the foreigner, the immigrant. We welcome the rich and the poor without favoritism. We welcome the ideal role model of a person as well as the drug addict or the former prisoner or the prostitute. We welcome the white and brown and black and any other color, race, or ethnicity man or woman, girl or boy. We welcome all these different people to know the Lord and journey to him with us just as we hope that they would welcome us. 

It’s not necessarily easy or comfortable, but that is what it looks like to be truly welcoming. If we go to the Greek word in verse 37, dechomai, which the NIV has translated welcome, it means, “To accept the presence of a person with friendliness.” To put that in today’s terms, we would open our homes, open our hearts, open our lives in a caring way. Maybe you think that someone would fit better at the church down the street or one town over.  “They know how to better deal with a certain kind people.” But for you and me to be welcoming is to allow people into our lives and meet them in theirs. It’s to say, “I am glad you’re here. How can I serve you? How can I teach you and show you the love of Christ? And how might I be served by and see Christ in you?” That’s a broad challenge for us to think about who we are, how we act, and how we minister when it comes to being a church, a body of believers, both together and for our community. That we would be looking inside and wanting to welcome one another but also looking outside. 

As Jesus turned his attention to his disciples, we don’t see the word “welcome” used outside of verse 37, but it’s a fitting term if we can see it used in various ways. We’ll take the passage in the sections divided in the NIV. So, in verses 33 through 37, we find Jesus welcomes his followers to seek what is most important. As they were traveling, the disciples were talking amongst themselves. On this day, they were arguing about who was the greatest. We’re not told if this was, “Who’s the greatest person of all time?” Is it Moses or Elijah or Abraham or David?” or if it was of them, the 12, “Who is the greatest of us?” Jesus invited them to share that dispute with him, but when they didn’t he offered the corrective, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all. Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”   

In Mark 10 verses 35 through 45, James and John ask if Jesus would give them the rights or the guarantees to sit at his left and right in his kingdom, the positions of authority and glory. Jesus gave a similar message to all the disciples there, that lording authority over others is not the way of his kingdom or his disciples, but they must be servants, just as he was here to serve. A similar message is said about children, earlier in Mark 10 verse 13 through 16, when Jesus rebuked his disciples. “Let the little children come to [him], and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

It’s important for us to see that Jesus didn’t leave the disciples to just think about things that the world generally cared about. Whoever the scope of their argument was, Jesus knew his disciples’ pride. He knew their competition to think better of themselves or to one up each other. These were normal men, normal people seeking to be considered or trying to attribute who was the best, the greatest, most important, most recognized, simply for the sake of bragging. 

But in the kingdom mindset, the Christian faith perspective, salvation is and must always be the most important thing in anyone’s life. In the spectrum of history and eternity, recognition awards are ultimately pointless. The apostle Paul gets at this in Romans 9 verses 3 and 4, “For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.” He’d give up every reward for himself, if it meant others could have the most important thing. When we seek after our own glory in school, in business, in our communities, in our nation, just so that people can look at and praise us—we’ve missed the point.

The life of the servant is completely different. The servant knows his or her status, and acts accordingly. We can know our salvation through faith, and so we should act accordingly. If we turn to the Heidelberg Catechism, question 90 asks, “What is the rising-to-life of the new self?” The answer, “Wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to live according to the will of God by doing every kind of good work.” “What are good works?” asks question 91. “Only those which are done out of true faith, conform to God’s law, and are done for God’s glory; and not those based on our own opinion or human tradition.” We could come up with long lists of praiseworthy deeds and activities—that if you do these, you will be lifted up among your peers. And yet what is truly good is that which is done in obedience to God and what is done for his glory—not our fame, not our glory. We are welcomed and called to seek what is most important.

That’s our first point, we move on now to the second section, verses 38 through 41. Jesus welcomes his followers to welcome his followers. That’s not a typo on the PowerPoint or an accidental repeat, that is intended. Jesus welcomes his followers to welcome his followers. John, one of the inner circle of the 12, talks about how someone outside of the 12, maybe even outside of the 70 that Luke 10 talks about, was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. He felt like that shouldn’t be happening, and he stopped this person. In his mind, only the closest of disciples, those who Jesus has directly told, should be doing such things. Yet Jesus responds, “Don’t stop him…For whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”

 Jesus and others in Scripture give clear warnings about false teachers, those who claim to come knowing Christ and yet do not. In Matthew 7, Jesus teaches how not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” or who claims to have prophesied or driven out demons or performed miracles in his name are going to enter heaven. However, our carefulness ought not lead us to isolate ourselves from others who are a part of the true church.

One of the things I hope is true for people in our churches is that we would be good at welcoming other followers of Jesus. Some of the ways that can be done are getting together with local churches for worship; teaming up to serve other people; area pastors can get together and work together. As individuals, we can foster relationships with neighbors, co-workers, and friends of other churches. We don’t agree on everything theologically, even though we might not know the differences, but let’s not have fake or surface-y relationships. We’re not to be in competition; we’re not to be afraid of others saying, “We follow Christ,” and automatically try to stop them. 

And yet Jesus’ words do continue to remain a challenge for us in our local congregations today. “For whoever is not against us is for us.” Part of our fallen nature is to be constant critiques of those closest to us. Every church I’ve ever been in since I was a little boy, I can say for myself and others I know, that we look for flaws in each other. We look for something to complain about, and even be mad or unsatisfied about—whether it’s the pastor or another member or a family. We find ourselves saying, “Why does so-and-so do feel the need to do that? That’s not what we do,” or “Why is he or she trying to change this-or-that? We know how to do things. Our way is fine.” 

When a brother or sister Christian tries to do something different or add something new, we must ask ourselves, is this person or this difference between them and us something that they are truly and intentionally working against us and against Christ and against his mission, or is this person and what they are doing trying to help support and further grow the true cause of Christ? If it is not against those things, then should we be so hesitant or unwilling to give whatever it is a try? Again, Jesus says, “Do not stop him. No one who does [this] in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me.” Jesus welcomes his followers to welcome his followers.

Now we move on to the third section in verses 42 through 50, and our final point this morning.  Jesus welcomes sinners, who leave sin behind. This whole section could be considered one of the scariest sayings of Jesus for followers and non-believers alike, but especially verses 43 through 48: “‘If your [hand or foot or eye] causes you to sin, [cut it off or pluck it out]. It is better for you to enter [life or the kingdom of God] [maimed, crippled, or with one eye] than to [go or be thrown into] hell, where the fire never goes out, where “their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched.”’” If we wonder if Jesus or God cares if people sin or not, we have our answer. We can include verse 42 as well, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.” 

Then we hear of hell—Jesus intends it to be understood as a real place, a place of fire and torment. Not everyone is welcomed into heaven. The quotation of verse 48, and if you noticed, there were no verses 44 or 46, but according to the footnotes, those verses are only in some manuscripts and read the same as verse 48, brings us back to Isaiah 66:24, the final words of that book. It’s speaking of the new heavens and the new earth and what believers can look forward to. Then this, “‘And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” 

Is Jesus seriously asking us to start cutting off parts of our bodies that cause us to sin, especially if we want to avoid hell? If we would say, which I think we do, that Christians still sin after coming to faith, should more of us be without limbs? The theologians who have put together the ESV Study Bible write this note about verses 43 to 48, “Jesus uses hyperbole (intentional overstatement) to show the seriousness of sin and the fact that nothing, even things of greatest importance to humans such as a hand, foot, or eye, can be more important than God…Of course, Jesus does not mean that people should literally cut off those body parts, for the literal removal of them cannot remove the root of sin in the heart. Jesus’ words serve as a sober warning concerning the severity of sin, which can lead to hell and fire that is not quenched.” 

I pray that interpretation is true, and I believe it is. Brothers and sisters, I desire for us not just to know these words are in the Bible, that Jesus talked about sin and hell in serious and severe ways. But you and I are also being welcomed to put sin in the past. Hell is the punishment, the consequence for those who have sinned and who also do not put their hope in the Lord, who do not trust in the mercy of Jesus. Heaven is not something that you or I or anyone else have earned; it is wholly a gift of God for us. It is the greatest mercy received only on God’s grace. 

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 11 verse 22, “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.” He goes on in the next chapter to say, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,” the pattern of sin and selfishness and idolatry, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

The call of our Christian faith is a call to welcome others to know the Lord, and to experience and participate in his church. To be welcoming is to be and do much more than just hanging a welcome sign up on our doors. It is to love and be loved. But we cannot truly fulfill those things, unless we ourselves are answering God’s welcoming call to repentance that comes with faith. So, let us give up our sin, let us hate it and run from it, and let us turn to Christ, welcomed by him. By God’s grace, be transformed that you may live daily and always in God’s will. Amen.