Christ Episcopal Church
September 27, 2015
21 Proper B
One summer when I was a chaplain for 4th and 5th grade camp at Procter, we had a cooking activity with the campers. Two groups of campers made chocolate chips cookies from an almost identical recipe. The only difference between the two recipes was that one recipe included a very small amount of salt-probably 1/4 of a teaspoon, and the other recipe left out the salt altogether. We wanted the campers to see that leaving out the very smallest ingredient made a big difference in the quality of the cookies. And our point was made. The campers who used the recipe that included the salt had beautiful, delicious, chewy cookies. The campers who had the recipe without salt produced flat, sort of beautiful, less flavorful cookies. Leaving out just 1/4 teaspoon of salt made a big difference.
Jesus is rather angry with his disciples this morning when he compares them with salt that has lost its saltiness. The disciples have run to Jesus tattling on someone who was casting out demons in Jesus' name without being an actual follower of Jesus. These are the same disciples who had tried without success to cast a demon out of a young boy just a few verses earlier. They are the same disciples who were just arguing last week over who was the greatest among them. I think the disciples might be a tad bit jealous of the other person's success. Jesus has harsh words for the disciples and anyone who would put a stumbling block in front of someone else. Jesus closes his admonition with the words "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." How does Jesus get from the disciples' envy of anther person's success to talking about salt?
Jesus is not the only person who is angry this morning. King Ahasuerus is furious. The story of Esther is a great story, full of humor and plot twists, suspense and intrique, along with no small amount of violence and other scenes that would disqualify the story for a PG rating, which a sermon must have. So, the PG version of the story goes something like this. Persian King Ahasuerus has had his wife, Queen Vashti, banished for disobedience. Esther is the orphaned Jewish niece of Mordecai, chief minister of the King. Esther becomes the new queen without the King ever knowing she is Jewish. Esther's uncle, Mordecai, discovers a plot to kill the king so Mordecai tells Esther, who tells the king, incurring the King's favor. Haman is the King's prime minister, and custom requires that everyone bow to the Prime Minister. Mordecai refuses, as he is Jewish and will not bow to any human being. So Haman plots to kill not only Mordecai, but all the Jews in Persia. Esther finds out about the plot, so when we hear the King ask Esther this morning for her request, even up to ½ his kingdom, she is ready.
Esther asks the King to spare her people and reminds him of the dangers to himself should the entire Jewish people be killed. When the King hears of the plan to kill all the Jewish people, he is outraged and asks who is responsible for this plot. The answer is Haman, his very own Prime Minister. Haman is hanged on the very gallows Haman had prepared for Mordecai, a gallows that is 75 feet tall, and we are told that the anger of the king abated. Then we hear that the Jewish people celebrate the feast of Purim each year to remember the days in which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and their mourning was turned into gladness. So that's the PG version of the story.
What is really interesting about the book of Esther is that nowhere in the story is God, the Torah, prayer, or worship mentioned. Nowhere. Not one mention. The deliverance of the Jewish people in Persia is due strictly and simply to the cunning and conniving of Esther, with some help from Mordecai. God is nowhere to be found. The pairing of this story with Psalm 124 in the lectionary makes it clear that, in Hebrew thought, God gets the credit for delivering God's people every time they are delivered, which is why Esther is included in the Hebrew scriptures despite the seeming lack of direct intervention by God.
The reading from James tells us that the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up, and their sins will be forgiven. We are admonished to pray for each other so that we may be healed. The reading from James describes the direct action of God through the actions of the faithful. So, in our readings this morning, we have an example of a successful exorcism by someone who was not following Jesus and the disciples, the deliverance of the Jews through the trickery of Esther without mention of God, and the admonition to Christians to pray for one another and the assurance that God will work through those prayers. We have three very different examples of the way God works in the world.
So, when we hear Jesus admonish the disciples for having lost their saltiness, I wonder if what they have lost is the ability to see God at work through all people. I wonder if what brings salt to our lives of faith is the ability to look beyond the places and ways we believe God works to see God's work at all times and in all places. In his address to Congress last Thursday, Pope Francis lifted up four Americans for special mention: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Two of these people were Roman Catholics, two were not. Abraham Lincoln, whatever his personal faith might have been, did not belong to a church, nor did he attend. And yet, because of their concern for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, or peace, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church held these four people up, not only as American heros, but as people through whom God worked to bring about justice and peace.
Jesus admonished the disciples because they could only see God at work in the very specific places where they wanted to look. They had lost their saltiness, their ability to see God at work in all sorts and conditions of people and places. Jesus tells them, and us, to have salt in ourselves and be at peace with one another. It turns out, a little salt makes a big difference. Perhaps Jesus is telling us that only when we can see God at work in all people, even those with whom we do not agree or understand, can there be real peace.
Amen.
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