17th Sunday after Pentecost [Pr.21] September 27, 2009 “Series B”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God the Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, you sent your Son into our world to seek the lost and to save those who dwell in a land of darkness and despair. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, stir in us compassion and concern for those who think that they are beyond hope and your saving grace. Protect and keep us from the snares of condemnation, and restore us in a sense of value and potential for our lives and for the growth of your kingdom. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Way too many years ago to remember the source of this illustration, I remember someone telling this story: “Did you ever feel like a frog? Frogs feel slow, low, ugly, puffy and drooped. I know. One told me. The frog feeling comes when you want to be bright but you feel dull. You want to share but you are selfish. You want to be thankful, but you feel resentment. You want to be big, but you feel small. You want to care, but you are indifferent.
I think that at one time or another, each of us have found ourselves on the lily-pad floating down the river of life, frightened and disgusted, but too frog like to do anything but budge from our security and risk getting involved.
We know the fairy tale. Once upon a time there was a prince who looked like a frog. A wicked witch had cast a spell on him. Only a kiss from a beautiful maiden could save him from his curse. But since when do beautiful maidens kiss frogs? So there he sat – an unkissed prince in the form of a frog. But miracles do happen. One day a beautiful maiden grabbed him up and gave him a kiss. Crash! Boom! Zap! And there he was, a beautiful prince. And he and the maiden lived happily ever after.
Well, you may be wandering, what does this have to do with our lessons for this morning? It is a two-fold answer. First, as Christians, we are to not be frog like, and ignore what goes on around us. And secondly, we are to kiss the frogs in our midst.
First, let me address what it means to be like a frog, content to flow down the river on a lily pad. As I was reading various commentaries for this sermon, I happened to hear my neighbor, who had gone out to get her mail, yelling at what looked like a puppy. The dog was barking and lunging at my neighbor, but at first, I didn’t know if she had gotten a new dog, or if it was just a playful pup. Then it bit her in her leg, and I heard my neighbor scream.
By the time that I decided to go help my neighbor, the owner of the dog came on the scene, and even she had trouble controlling the dog. But finally, she was able to pick the dog up, hand it to her son, and then took a moment to look at the dog bite on my neighbor’s leg, and walked away.
I couldn’t help thinking, that if I had immediately reacted to the screams of my neighbor, I might have been able to control the dog, prevent her from being bit, and saved her a trip to the hospital for tetanus shot.
What makes my delay in acting to this situation worse, is the fact that a half hour later, I saw a police car pull into my neighbor’s driveway. Instead of rushing over to offer my eyewitness testimony, I thought that the police might come and question me about the incident, since I was at home, with the garage door open. But that didn’t happen.
Even though I later went over to my neighbor’s home, and told them that I had seen the incident and would be willing to testify on their behalf, I felt like a frog floating down the river on a lily pad. I failed to act when I could have made a difference in the situation. It is an incident in my life that I am not proud of.
It is here that a word of explanation may be in order. In our Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus uses hyperbole to convince his disciples of the judgement that might fall upon them for doing something that might cause someone new to their faith in Jesus, to stumble in their faith. He also warns the disciples to beware of their own sinfulness, their own failures to live according to the Word of God that Jesus reveals to them.
This is an ironic twist in the story that Mark puts before us. For it all starts with the disciple John coming to Jesus complaining to him about someone who is not a disciple of Jesus, perhaps not even a person who even met Jesus, casting out a demon in Jesus’ name. “How dare they invoke your name, Lord, when they don’t even know you?”
Well, Jesus dismisses John’s complaint by saying that it is not important. Anyone who does something positive in my name will not long be able to speak against me. But oh how Jesus speaks woes to those who do know him, and do not act according to the will of God. In other words, Jesus was not as concerned about those who pretended to know him, as he was about those who actually knew him. And he wanted his followers to be faithful.
But Luther understood this passage, as well as many other passages of Scripture, to have both a direct and indirect message. Luther understood that sin involved both an active and a non-active aspect. If my actions cause someone to stumble in their faith, I have sinned. But Luther also maintained that if, by my inaction, I have allowed a sin to take place, or failed to prevent an injustice to another person, it is the same sin as if I would have committed it myself.
Thus, at the end of the day, I was left feeling like a frog floating down the river on a lily pad. If I would have acted sooner, could I have stopped that dog from biting my neighbor? I don’t know? If, when seeing the police car pull up to her house, I would have gone over and offered my testimony made a difference? I don’t know. What I do know is the guilt of sin, not of having done something wrong, but of not having done what I could have done if I would have reacted sooner.
Secondly, there is in my opening illustration the miraculous event of the frog being kissed by a young maiden. Of course, I say that this is a miraculous event, because I don’t know of very many males who would even kiss a slimy frog on a dare, let alone a young girl. But then, I have seen at confirmation camp some of our most dainty young ladies, go off mud wamping, and come back so covered in mud and grime that I had a hard time even recognizing them. And the same is with our boys.
Here is the point of the hidden prince in the form of a frog. We can not always tell who is the dainty young woman or seemingly shy young boy that you brought to camp. In the midst of that week, they not only experience adventures that call them out of their normal routines of life, they also experience a week of what it means to live in faith. During that week, I believe that our youth experience a miracle, what it means to live as a disciple of Christ.
But the most important message of this lesson, is the fact that the greatest miracle of all is provided by Jesus himself. I am disappointed that the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which we have in our inserts, have chosen to translate the word that most scholars translate into English as Gehenna, as “hell.” It was the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem, which burned for years and years, which gave off an odor that reeked, not only from the debris that was tossed into it to keep the fire burning, but also the bodies of the homeless who have died. It was an unquenchable fire, because it continued to be fed with the garbage and refuge of the society.
But at the end of his life, Jesus kissed the frog. He overcame his own fear, jumped off the lily pad, and gave his life for you and for me. And where did he die? On a cross placed in the ground called “Golgotha” or “the place of the skull”, another garbage dump like Gehenna.
Although Jesus used hyperbole about cutting off our hands and feet as a response to our sinfulness, it was in the garbage dump that Jesus had his own hand and feet pierced with nails for our redemption. Can we ask for anything more than this, the grace of God who took our place on the cross, for the sins that we commit, and the sins that we omit, by our activities toward those around us.
May God’s Spirit so help us all to be more faithful disciples.
Amen.
