Being Salty

Being Salty The Dover Church
September 27, 2009 –17th Sunday after Pentecost Scripture: Mark 9:38-50

Jesus was a Jewish rabbi who preached great sermons. Like any great preacher, Jesus used many rhetorical techniques to engage and enlighten his listeners. This morning’s technique is called hyperbole, deliberate and obvious exaggeration used for effect, e.g. "I could eat a million of these." In the same way that no one could eat a million of anything, Jesus is not actually encouraging us to cut off our hands or pluck out our eyes. He was making a serious point and wanted to grab his listener’s attention and imagination, which is why he used hyperbole. That point, quite simply, is an invitation to discipleship, to be salt for the world. In order to be that salt, we have to take our discipleship seriously and not let ourselves get drawn down side streets or water the whole thing down.
I know that needs a lot of unpacking. I also know it still sounds pretty ominous and perhaps not all that inviting, so let me tell you a hyperbolic yet lighthearted story. The “stumbling blocks” Jesus mentions in our lesson this morning are skandalon in Greek, from which we get our word “scandal,” which brought this scandalous story to mind. The story is true, but I am exaggerating for the sake of making my point. My point, I hope, is not purely entertainment, but something very like what Jesus aims at. I call this one, “Max goes to college.”
It is hard for me to believe, but 28 years ago last month I became a college freshman. I was a bright kid who graduated high school with honors, but my energy and enthusiasm far exceeded my focus and discipline. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do in college (go to school obviously, but beyond that…) and had no vision of life after college (the question of a purpose for my education was not at the front of my mind), but I was determined to do whatever I was going to do at college exuberantly. “LIVE LIFE LARGE – or something like that for a tee-shirt of bumper sticker.
I did actually have two initial goals before leaving for college. I came up with two other goals shortly after my arrival. These four goals shaped my entire undergraduate career. So let’s start with goal number one, the one that was given to me. Before leaving, my parents assured me that I was going to get good grades at college. Those were the days when parents still received a copy of their young scholar’s grades. Those were also the days when professors actually awarded Cs, Ds and Fs, so my mostly A and B performance was not too shabby. Goal #1 – keep parents happy. Apply myself and study hard.
My second goal was completely my own, which gave it a life of its own quite quickly and made it much richer and more exciting than just “getting good grades.” I was going be a collegiate rower. I had rowed in high school and thought collegiate rowing would be great fun. Preceded only by checking into my dorm and buying my textbooks, I went right over to the crew office when I arrived on campus. After I made the team, I would be stroke of the A boat. Then I’d lead us to victory at the New England Championship. Then I’d lead us to victory at the National Championship. Then I’d make varsity. Then I’d try out for the Olympic team, make that, go to Los Angeles and win a gold medal. The Eastern Bloc nations boycotted the games in 1984, so it could happen. Remember, this is hyperbole, but my thinking was pretty grandiose as I remember it.
So those were the goals I brought with me to college: get good enough grades to satisfy my parents and become a rowing super hero. Now we move on to the goals I formulated once I arrived at college.
Most of the members of the rowing team belonged to a fraternity, so I joined too. I know you are never going to believe this, but in that fraternity there were all these parties going on and all those parties involved a lot of beer drinking. I believe the saying goes “When in Rome, do as the Romans?” Goal #3: I was going to drink as much beer as I could get my hands on.
Now my plan was shaping up: get good grades, become a successful intercollegiate, maybe even Olympic, athlete, and drink beer. LIVE LIFE LARGE!
Which leads me to goal #4. As I just said, our fraternity had a lot of parties and, believe it or not, there were all these girls at all those parties. But it wasn’t just at the fraternity. There were girls everywhere, as many girls as there were boys. Thousands of girls everywhere I went, in classes, at the student union, at the dining commons, at the library, and I did not know even one of them on that first day on school. Goal #4: meet girls.
There you have it in a nutshell, 18 year old Max Olmstead’s undergraduate agenda: 1) Get good grades. 2) Row. 3) Drink beer. 4) Meet girls. Not necessarily in that order. To an 18 year old boy, that sounded like a great plan. There was only one problem, however, which some of you might have figured out already. If you haven’t, let me tell you. These four goals are mutually exclusive. Few mortal human beings, even a highly energetic and enthusiastic 18 year old boy, can possibly succeed fully at all of these at the same time, since complete success at any one of them works directly against success at the others. Rigorous and fruitful study butts right up against four hours of strenuous physical exercise every day and the resultant need for sleep. It might go without saying that studying and keg parties do not go well together, even if it didn’t occur to me at 18. A girl sitting across the table at the library was as bad as someone pulling the fire alarm. Drinking beer and getting up at 5 in the morning for practice obviously work at cross purposes. And finally, beer and physical exhaustion do not make a suave and debonair ladies’ man. I never remember Cary Grant yawning over his beer in any of his movies.
Looking back, I had a lot of fun, made some good friends, have a lot of fond memories, and did learn a thing or two, but I never experienced the rewards that a total commitment to any of these goals had to offer. I did not experience the fullness which a total commitment brings….except the beer drinking. That I got quite good at. Hyperbole aside, I never experienced as an undergraduate the thrilling insights and achievement which comes from rigorous academic discipline and excellence. I did well at rowing, but I never reached the heights of athletic performance. And as for girls, well let’s just say that my aspirations far outstripped both my competence and self-confidence.
“Be salt,” Jesus said. “Do you want to be my disciple? Then be my disciple, be my disciple all the way so that you will experience the fullness which a total commitment brings.”
“Be salt,” Jesus said. “Why salt?” we might ask. Because salt can never be anything but what it is. Salt can never be pepper, or tapioca for that matter. So what does that have to do with us? As disciples, we are called by Christ to be the Church in this place. All too often, we allow ourselves as a church to go off on tangents, forget what the main thing is, are embarrassed about what that main thing is – relationship with God and the ministries and missions which grow out of that relationship. Being the church is not rocket science. I am living proof of that.
“Be salt,” Jesus said. “Why salt?” we might ask. Because salt can never be just a little salty. It either is salt, or it isn’t. Discipleship is like all the other great adventures of life, none of which you can be in just a little. Like being pregnant. You can never be a little pregnant. You either are or you are not. You can be only a few weeks pregnant, but you are still pregnant. Or being in love. You cannot be a little in love. You either are in love or you are not. Anything but a “YES” amounts to a “NO.” If you tell me you’re a little in love, then I’ll tell you that you’re either in something else or you’re kidding yourself and already have one foot out the door. And not to equate love and death, but it’s same with being dead. I have yet to meet anyone who is a little dead. I have met a lot of people who are a little alive. But everyone I know has been alive all the way up until they died and then well… they were dead.
And the same goes for being a disciple of Jesus. We may be just starting out. We may be struggling, full or questions and doubts, but we are either in or we are not. It’s our choice. And what are we “in” to? Jesus invites us into the greatest adventure of life, an encounter with the living God. We come together as disciples to “experience God in life transforming ways, and to incarnate the Christian faith in our lives and in the life of our congregation and its members.” Because we are engaged in the movement of human transformation, of healing, of new life and change, the fullness of our life in Christ becomes inescapably obvious to our surrounding community. What’s going on there? What are those folks on to? And just like that, we are salting our world.
The choice is ours. God in Jesus Christ does not force anyone’s hand. We can be a church that looks a lot like Max going to college, running this way and that, trying this and that, getting pretty good at a few things but never as good as we might be because we dissipate our energy and commitment elsewhere. Or we can dive right in head or feet first, into the fullness of God’s steadfast love and righteousness, the abundant life promised us by Jesus. I can tell you from personal experience that this adventure is way better than getting good grades, rowing, beer, girls or boys, work, or anything else. It is certainly way more than we have come to expect from church. Believe me, I have tried being other kinds of church. I have been parts of other kinds of churches, and none of them come close to that transformative experience Jesus invites us to. I do not know you well enough yet to know what you expect from church, but that is the adventure I am on and that is the adventure I would like to share with you folks.