Leading Like Jesus: Teamwork

Scripture: Mark 9:38-50

Mark 9:38–50 NRSV

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 deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. “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.”

Teams

The first team was family. Glossing over God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which might be even closer than family, we, as humans, were created in God's image, to be family.

Now, when we think about family, we often think about it as what separates us from other people around us. Family shares last names, homes, and many other things. We teach our children who is family and who is not, and that has been the case throughout most of history. However, up until the last few centuries, there was a push to get more people into your family. Before the industrial revolution, when agriculture was the main staple of the economy, the strength of a family was measured by the number of people in it. Big families had more power and more ability to succeed in life than small families. The amount of money or property they owned was far less important. They wanted to get more people in their families because that would allow them to make more, buy more, own more, and eventually rule over greater areas.

Those tribes that we read about, warring over property, the Jebusites, Moabites, Philistines, Hatfields, and McCoy's, were not just random people who decided to become political powers together. They were rival families trying to grow strong and thrive. Yes, some of that strength came from having their own children. Jacob had 13 children, which made them a strong family. However, they needed 13 spouses to stay strong. Where would they get those spouses? Other families. In those days of prearranged marriages, parents were always on the lookout for spouses for their children, not so they could send their kids away finally, but so they could invite new people into their families.

Pioneering churches were the same, back in the days when this church was first established. Pastors rode circuits and were often only at any given church 4 times a year. It was the local church members who were the family that held everyone together. What kept those churches from dying away in the weeks and sometimes months without the pastor there? The church people. They not only cared for one another but also taught each other, raised up new disciples... they were constantly on the lookout for people they wanted to bring into the family. They not only wanted to get everyone in town saved (something that God does, not us), they wanted to make their church family strong by inviting in everyone they could get. To our forefathers and foremothers, it was not about getting more dollars in the plates or people in the seats, it was recognizing that we needed other people if our family was going to have a future. They recognized the potential in others and the need in themselves for family relationships. They knew they were made to be doing life and growing in their faith together.

Support

It sounds so easy to just say that we are more than the sum of our parts when we are together, working as a team. But trouble starts when some of those parts are not thinking of me and mine in the way they live and serve. The word is selfishness, but that word sounds too silly to use. Adam and Eve tried to do life on their own and brought sin into the world. Cain couldn't be bothered to be on the same team as his brother Abel and committed the first murder. Jacob and Esau fought over who would be the one in charge from the day they were born. Selfishness is there at the root of most of our bad decisions.

So we are not surprised to hear that the disciples, struggling with their own insecurity, were complaining about outsiders doing God's work. As they took more responsibility in this ministry Jesus was slowly handing over to them, they found themselves competing with not just one, but four other religious and political factions in their own nation, and they were trying to show everyone what made Jesus different than the Jewish conservatives, the Jewish liberals, the Jewish moderates, and those who had sold out to the Romans, because, Jesus was different than all of them. It was not easy keeping up with all that. Can you imagine how frustrated they would have been to hear about other people preaching and teaching about Jesus and His kingdom? What if those other people were spreading misinformation? What if they were doing it all wrong?

To top it all off, Jesus told them that they were all going to be persecuted soon, starting with Jesus Himself. This investment they had made was no longer a good business model, which was infuriating Judas, and it was no longer a movement, which was frustrating Peter. The twelve disciples had pulled together, overcome their differences, and managed to work as a team, but to what end? Where was this going?

So Jesus turns to them and says, "If they are not against us, they are for us."

Well, Jesus, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like if they are not for us, they are against us. There is a world of difference between those two perspectives. You see, Jesus didn't view people through the eyes of their own political factions or religious viewpoints. He viewed them according to their relationship with Him and with each other. His twelve disciples could not do all the work themselves. Their job was to handle getting the church started in Israel, and they would need outside help even for that. There would be a Paul, a Timothy, a Titus, and many others that would handle the rest of the world. They couldn't see the success of the whole ministry of Jesus if they could not focus on doing their own part faithfully. And to do that, they needed to quit worrying about the other people, doing other jobs for Jesus. They will get their reward and you will get yours.

Jesus formed and led His team to be held accountable for their own work and to trust Jesus that He is handling those Samaritan women, those Blind Barts, and all those people who are sharing what Jesus did to transform their lives with their own communities. We, like the twelve disciples, get ourselves into trouble when we focus so much on managing a ministry that we fail to see and share how Jesus is working in and through ourselves and our team members. The twelve disciples had enough problems within their own ranks that needed to be handled before they began tackling issues outside of their ranks."

Stumblingblocks

Jesus asks us to turn our eyes inward, to focus on pruning and patching up ourselves and our teams before we criticize others. This is more than the ""pull the plank out of your own eye before picking at specks of dust in the eyes of those around you."" It is more akin to judging fruit around us and recognizing that if we are surrounded by a lot of bad fruit, chances are good that some of that bad fruit came from us.

Jesus turns the hypercritical disciples’ eyes back upon themselves. The unnamed person, with which they have a problem, is able to cast demons out of people in Jesus' name, while they, themselves found themselves incapable of doing that work just a few verses earlier in chapter 9. Their worldly motive: Jealousy is a far greater threat to the ministry than the work of one person. So Jesus gives them a worldly prescription, following in line with the common-sense punishments of the day. If your eye causes you to sin, don't wait for the world to come and judge you, take it out yourself. If your hand tempts you to steal, remove it. If your foot leads you into sin, cut it off. Oh, be careful little feet where you go...

Last Sunday was National "Talk Like a Pirate" Day and I'm sorry we missed celebrating it together. However, if we all practiced the words of Jesus here literally, we would all look like pirates, walking around with hook hands, peg legs, and eye patches. The point is not how much we can cut out of our life, it is recognizing the true source of our struggles. It is far easier to find those problems outside of us, rather than inside of us, whether that means inside our team, our family, or ourselves.

Trial by Fire

The other part of our trouble is that when we get pruning shears in our hands, everything begins to look like a stray branch that we need to cut off in the name of Jesus. We need to recognize that Jesus gives us more than one tool to work our garden of disciples we are growing. We use pruning shears, but we also use watering cans. We use digging tools to help prepare the ground and seeds to plant. All of these tools are necessary for the harvest. None of them make good fruit grow on their own, and even together, it is only God's grace that provides the end result. We have our part and God has His part.

And the world has its part too. Jesus promises that our faith will be tested by fire. That which is not of God won't last. The dross will burn away from the silver, the chaff will be separated from the wheat, and we won't have to do that ourselves. Jesus could have cut Judas Iscariot off or any of the other disciples, but He didn't. The world did its work of testing their faith. Many failed. Some got back up and tried again. You might notice though, that the ones who persevered were the ones that faced that trial together. Testing and trials do not come to us individually, it affects us all.

I think Jesus spent so much time toward the end of His ministry, just with His disciples, because He was trying to move them from just being a team to becoming a family. Meanwhile, the devil was doing everything He could to break them up. The devil was whispering in their ears, "Think about yourselves." While Jesus was trying to show them that their family needed to be more than 12 men to survive, let alone do the work He was about to give them. They would indeed be salted by fire, undergo incredible tests of faith, and it would change them forever.

In fact, I think it is not a coincidence that it was flames of fire that would sit above their heads a year later as they proclaimed the gospel in every language in the area. That moment they dared to step outside and face the fear of people who were everything but Christians... the moment they did not fear the flame but chose to be the light and salt of the world themselves, was the moment they really started acting like a team, like a family. And it is no coincidence that this was the very day their family grew from 11 (having lost one) to 2,000, and nearly 7,000 by the end of the week. They had no building, no budget, no marketing plan, no calendar prepared. All they had was a testimony of what it was like being with Jesus daily and a love and care for each other as His family.

Some of us are still learning to let go and not be the person that has to do the work ourselves. We are learning that we need teams around us so that we can do the work more faithfully. Some of you lead well and delegate the work to your teams, but Jesus is challenging you today to think about how to make your team into a family that watches over their flock and each other together. There are a few of you who got excited about the pruning shears and are really good with them, but don't know how to use the watering can well. There are a few of you that are afraid to use the pruning shears ever. God has brought us all together and our faith is being tested daily, together.

But our family is not complete. We have been the 11 disciples, huddling together, trying to keep it together ourselves, trying to figure out how to do God's work here in Nicholasville. Meanwhile, God has 7,000 people out there that we could bring into not only God's family, but our family... if we can learn to be family together ourselves. In the end, it won't matter how much money we have, how much land we possess, or how much power we think we have. God will hold us accountable to whether we were fruitful and multiplied His family, and the story of our church will be shaped by the faithfulness of our God-gifted service, and our willingness to work together, as a team, as a family, with the God-gifted service of those who are not part of our family... yet.