“Enter Life”

“Enter Life”

Psalm 19:7-14   Mark 9:38-50

September 29, 2024, Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Pastor Andy Kennaly

Sandpoint, Idaho

The Revised Common Lectionary is a helpful guide that lists these types of scripture passages. The intention is a broad view of the Bible over a three-year span, Year A, B, and C. The lectionary cycle follows seasons of the church year, like Christmas and Easter, Pentecost and other high and holy days with special themes.

As I come up on 30 years of ordained ministry this October, that pencils out to about 10 times through the lectionary’s three-year cycle. This means I have the potential to be an expert. I should know by now what most of these passages are about and be able to preach it so others can learn and be inspired in their faith. Better yet, I should be able to practice what I preach, to embody the lessons and be an example.

But sometimes preaching the lectionary involves rather obscure passages, strange thoughts, weird concepts, and the ideas about God, Jesus, life in the faith, church tradition, or whatever the topic may be can get lost in the shuffle.

Here we are looking at Jesus speaking about cutting off your limbs and sinking in the sea. We could quote all sorts of commentaries, study various in-depth lessons about metaphors and hyperboles and how these verses are not intended literally. Yet even though they are not meant literally, there are some who can’t think critically enough to parse that out, so sometimes people suffer oppression from the church rather than liberation.

When it comes to the lectionary, when I feel bored or burdened, and scriptures like these seem overwhelming or daunting or often misused, I pull back and slow down. I take a few deep breaths, then as I read, I look for what words stand out or shimmer. That’s how I titled this sermon. The words Enter Life stood out. As much as this passage has strange stuff in it that seem barbaric, there’s the counter, the main point that has to do with relationship, focus, and how to live well, to enter life as God intends.

Other words and phrases, like “one who does a deed of power” or “water to drink” or “have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another;” these don’t come across quite so jarring as those other verses. These help us resonate with life.

I also like to look at verbs, like in Psalm 19 where verbs involve reviving, making, rejoicing, enlightening, enduring, keeping, detect, clear, keep, and let. Verbs help communicate tone and intention.

And of course, as a beekeeper, I especially like that central part of this passage from Psalm 19, the part that says the ordinances of God are “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.”

Here we have honeycomb, something the Bible equates with one of the most important things, on par with much fine gold, and people today don’t want it. People don’t know what to do with honeycomb. I’ve noticed this because this year I harvested honeycomb, which is capped honey still in the comb, and I when I offer to sell it, people look at me with a confused expression and ask, “What do I do with it?”

Honeybees develop glands on their back for only a few days during their life. These glands secrete a substance. Other bees clean that off. After a few days, those glands degenerate and it’s up to younger generations to develop. This is the source of beeswax.

Honeybees use wax to make hexagon-shaped cylinders, or cells, that they fill with honey. When the honey reaches a certain threshold of sweetness, they put a cap over the top made of a layer of wax. The beekeeper can cut those capped cells out of the hive and take the honey. Modern methods involve spinning the honey, using centrifuge technique to separate the honey from those wax cells of comb. But historically, people just crushed the wax, then the honey dripped out, like the Psalmist picks up on in mentioning “the drippings of the honeycomb.”

Honeycomb used to be the only way to get pure honey. People didn’t like to buy liquid honey because unscrupulous dealers would water it down to stretch their profits. Honey with too much water in it won’t store well, it ferments. The only way you could tell if your honey was pure and fully concentrated with proper moisture content like the bees made it was to buy comb honey that still had the wax caps over those hexagon cells, capped honeycomb.

Now there are laws that protect consumers from watered down honey, but it’s shifted so far toward preference for the convenience of liquid honey that people don’t know what to do with comb honey that involves wax. There are lots of things to do, from crushing it to eating it, using it as a garnish, or making candles, lip balm, fabric coating, or other items.

While I could go on about beekeeping, let’s mention a main point, that honey doesn’t just happen. It involves seasons, growth of flowers that have nectar flow, bees that visit millions of flowers to make honey. They take the nectar and store it in their gut, fly back to the hive and mix it with enzymes as they give it to other bees inside the hive. They all work together on this honey to get it into the cells of wax, then fan over it with their wings so the air removes the extra moisture and it stays in those cells without running out. Then they cap it for storage, and it can be that way for a very long time.

Notice this is highly relational, between bees, other species, and cycles of Earth systems. There are times when food is plentiful, and reserves are built up, and times of dearth, when preserves of honey are needed to maintain life. This is the example on par with fine gold. The Psalmist uses honey to illustrate the importance of God’s law, decrees, precepts, commandments, and ordinances, all of which give glimpses and attempt to express the importance of relationship to experience the unexplainable fullness of divine Presence.

Relationship is a deciding factor, the constant truth, the saving grace, the basis and expression of faith, which helps us to enter life. We are not born in isolation. We are a social species. All of Earth’s systems are interrelated. The quality and depth of relationships determines the quality and depth of life that we experience, not only as individuals but as community, as creatures in God’s creation.

The passage from Mark is not about one eyed, one handed, limping people. The lines about plucking eyes and cutting off limbs are not literal, but within them are some essential, enthusiastic, and eternal lessons which serve both as warning and encouragement.

Notice the lessons are self-directed. We are called to examine ourselves, not to judge others. We don’t cut off anybody’s anything, but by focusing on our own spiritual health, on maintaining our own saltiness that Jesus talks about, this is how we can be at peace with one another. We find peace within ourselves. If that is real peace, then peace with one another comes from that.

It comes so much so that we are encouraged, for example, to share a drink of water in the name of Jesus. We can love because God loves us and faith has a way of bubbling out, and how that comes across is on us to monitor. But we are warned, for example, not to cause someone young in the faith to stumble. It’s on us to figure that out, with God’s help.

Unity with God and one another and all there is in God’s creation seen and unseen, is at the root of living a Kingdom life in integrated ways. Jesus says, “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.”

To bear the name of Christ, we are encouraged and equipped to hear Jesus’ words of welcome and inclusion. May we take seriously our calling to be the salt of the Earth. May God help us to live a Kingdom life first, to follow Christ, not so much to be shielded from troubles of the world, but to be encouraged as light shines through anyway.

Divine Presence brings life, encourages faith, and provides peace. As we seek love that casts out fear, may we slow down and notice what shimmers and shines to help us receive and share the gift of open minds and hearts. May we enter life to season this world with grace in Christ’s name, and claim the blessing of peace which is sweeter than drippings of honey from the comb. And as we live out in active ways the mysteries of God, may we share light and life and love, In Christ’s Name, who is glorified, now and always. Amen.