Today in the Spirit: Proper 21B
The readings in Proper 21B come around Mark’s recording of Jesus’ final teachings to his disciples in Galilee prior to his departure for Jerusalem. The appointed Gospel reading out of Mark 9:38-48 begins with our Lord’s response to John, who had reported the twelve attempted to stop a man from casting out demons in Jesus’ name because he was not following us (38). To this, Jesus replies, “Do not stop him…For the one who is not against us is for us” (39,40). The reading then goes to Mark’s insertion of the dramatic teaching of our Lord, likely given on various occasions throughout his years of ministry, “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” (43).
The assigned OT reading from Numbers 11:4-6,10-17,24-29 narrates the circumstances causing Moses to complain bitterly to YHWH about the troubles he is experiencing leading the people of Israel. The LORD responds by pouring out his Holy Spirit on seventy elders who can help Moses share the burden of leadership. Two of them, Eldad and Medad, failed to turn up at an assigned meeting to be anointed for leadership but received the Spirit to prophesy anyway. In much the same way John complains to Jesus in the Gospel reading, Joshua entreats Moses to stop them. And Moses, with a similar openness to Jesus in the Gospel reading, responds, ”Would that all the Lord‘s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (29).
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The assigned Psalm 19:[1-6]7-14 is a song of praise extolling the Lord’s perfection seen in both nature and his revealed word. On this Sunday, the church requires vv. 7-14 (also assigned on Lent 3B), perhaps to emphasize, alongside the OT and Gospel reading, that the virtues of the word of God transcend the human messenger delivering it.
In the last of the Year B series of readings in James, the church assigns James 4:7-12[13-5:6], containing many of the best-known passages in the epistle. Against the lackluster spirituality he has observed in the church, James urges the saints to submit to God, to place their plans under the will of God, and for the rich to stop trusting their wealth and living in luxury at the expense of the poor. The assigned Collect is a plea for “pardon and peace” and repentance to serve God in this world “with a quiet mind,” surely a fitting petition before we hear readings about servants of God who are stressed about not seeing things go their way in God’s community. Holy Spirit, that we might be counted in the end not “dead” as we deserve, but alive in Christ.
The Collect
O merciful Lord, grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
I Will Come Down and Talk with You There (Numbers 11:4-6,10-17,24-29)
10 Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased. 11 Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.” 16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. 17 And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone (10-17).27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”
Numbers 11:27-29
Notice the radical change in Moses’ attitude as this passage progresses. At the outset, frantic with frustration, he bitterly complains to the LORD: “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness” (14-15). He is so angry with the people that he would just as soon die to get away from their complaining. By the end, however, once YHWH has arranged to take the burden off his shoulders alone and to provide meat (18), Moses regains compassion for the people, so much so that he wishes “all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them” (29).
Now, though we live in the age of the Spirit being poured out on all believers, anyone with discipleship responsibilities will recognize in themselves the same mood swings as Moses from wanting to give up completely out of frustration with others to praying for fullness in their lives with God. It is the comfort of God on Moses that leads him, and all of us in ministry, to still waters.
That Moses is still talking to YHWH is his saving grace. He puts himself in a position to hear the word of God, and God responds. In a precious commentary on a passage in Ezekiel 34, Augustine of Hippo writes of our access to the comfort of God from the Scriptures this way: “Feed there that you may feed in safety. Whatever you hear from that source, you should savor. Whatever is foreign to it, reject. Hear the voice of the shepherd, lest you wander about in the mist. Gather at the mountains of holy Scripture. There are the things that will delight your hearts; there, you will find nothing poisonous, nothing hostile; there, the pastures are most plentiful. There, you will be healthy sheep; you will feed safely on the mountain of Israel.”
Today, brothers and sisters in ministry, in the Spirit who ushers us to the compassionate face of Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, take every opportunity to sit under God’s word and receive the comfort to quench the frustration that burns.
By Them Your Servant Is Taught (Psalm 19:[1-6]7-14)
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; *
Psalm 19:9-14, BCP New Coverdale
the testimony of the LORD is sure, and gives wisdom to the simple.
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, and rejoice the heart; *
the commandment of the Lord is pure, and gives light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, and endures for ever; *
the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; *
sweeter also than honey, than the drippings from the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant taught, *
and in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can tell how often he offends? *
O cleanse me from my secret faults.
13 Keep your servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion
over me; *
so shall I be undefiled, and innocent of great offense.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always
acceptable in your sight, *
O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Commentators often divide the second part of this psalm on the virtues of the law of the LORD (7-14) into two parts: admiration over the qualities of God’s revealed word (7-11) and prayer for the servant’s acceptance of that word (12-14). I see the transition from admiration to acceptance (obedience) beginning at v. 9. Here, the subject of the first line is not the law of God but the human response to it: The fear of the LORD is clean, and endures for ever. From this point, we receive a two-part reflection on human response to the word of God: it is, on the one hand, to be desired more than anything; and moreover (Heb. gal, also, given for emphasis), it is to be kept (again obeyed).
The transition in the poetry marks the all-important transition the human heart must make from the word of God as enchanting and insightful to the word of God as worthy to obey. One of the many enduring phrases of the late Alf Stanway, a missionary bishop in Tanzania and the first dean of Trinity Anglican Seminary, is, “Truth is captured by obedience. To be moved by the word will mean little without surrendering ourselves to following it.
Today, Holy Spirit, overhearing the psalmist’s prayer that his meditation on the word be acceptable in [God’s] sight, move me likewise beyond enchantment to the desire for obedience.
Let Your Laughter Be Turned to Mourning (James 4:7-12[13-5:6])
4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. 5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
James 4:7-5:6
There is debate as to whether James’s letter is addressed to Christian Jews only or to all Jews in the Dispersion (1:1). Clearly, as a prominent elder in the church of Jerusalem, James would have had the authority to address Christian Jews everywhere. However, as a respected Jewish leader in Jerusalem, he might also have carried considerable weight in influencing the scattered Jewish community as a whole, perhaps in much the same way an OT prophet would have done in earlier times.
Devotionally, as Christians, we do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which hard sayings of James apply to us or not. “Well, I’m not in conflict with my neighbor, so the part about slandering my brother does not apply.” Or, “I am not rich, so let me just skim past the part about living in luxury and self-indulgence.” Whomever James was addressing in any given part of the letter, as followers of Christ, we do well to allow the Holy Spirit to inventory our spiritual health and to speak a command to repent and change as necessary.
Today, in the Spirit, hearing James’ call for Christians to put away the laughter that comes from too light a consideration of the Lord’s call on their lives, I resolve to attend to the important matters he addresses in this passage.
Do Not Stop Him (Mark 9:38-48)
38 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.” 39 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. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 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.
Mark 9:38-41
In this exchange between Jesus and John, it is not clear if the exorcist casting out demons in [Jesus’] name was a true believer sincerely carrying out Christian ministry or a non-believer opportunistically using Jesus’ name to find success (see Mt. 7:22, Ac. 19:13 to find evidence of the latter actually happening). So, is John’s objection one of pride of position (“he’s not one of our elite group”) or legitimate principle (“he’s not acting out of faith”)? Either way, Jesus would have the twelve look at the larger picture (perhaps similarly as we find Paul doing in Phil. 1:15-18). He makes three points separated by the conjunction for: 1) for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me (foolishly not recognizing what side the bread is buttered on); 2) for the one who is not against us is for us (no harm done if the good news gets out there); and 3) 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 (small acts from Christians count as much as big ones).
Devotionally, this passage helps us gain some perspective in our own observations of the gospel movement going on around us today. Clearly, we should not support any ministry performed in Jesus’ name that does not arise from faith in him. Commentator William Lane writes, “It is necessary to affirm that the name of Jesus discloses its authentic power only when a man joins Jesus in faith and obedience to the will of God.” Nor, however, should we lose sleep over everything spiritually faulty going on around us. Our Lord sits on the throne unmoved by his name being taken in vain and in his sovereignty, will turn deception, unintended or purposeful, to his gain as he sees fit. We stand against falsehood in ministry as we are led to do so, but not out of any sense, as with John, of vanity in our own Christian association.
Today, Holy Spirit, give me clear discernment to know when you would have me stand against false ministry and when to leave it in your hands to do with it as you will.
Today in the Spirit
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