Mark 9:38-50
Proper 21 / Year B
President Ronald Reagan kept a plague on
his desk in the Oval Office with this inscription on it: “There is no limit to
amount of good a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the
credit.” This quote, whose original
source may have been Ralph Waldo Emerson, has inspired presidents, generals,
and titans of industry. The second rector
I served as an assistant, who didn’t have a jealous bone in his body, embodied
this wisdom. He delighted in every
accomplishment made by a person on his staff.
Surely you have known people like this in your life.
I appreciated his approach and did not take
it for granted because the first priest I served was the exact opposite. I came to realize if I did something
well-received by the parish on a Sunday I was going to be taken to the woodshed
over another matter by the following Wednesday.
It is such an interesting (and perplexing) mindset: What lifts you up
diminishes me and in order for me to be built up you must be torn down. John the Baptist famously said of his role,
“I must decrease that Jesus might increase.”
Well, this was the reverse of that: “I can only increase if you
decrease.” Sadly, I suspect each of us
has had to deal with a person or two who operated in life like this.
More and more, it seems to me our national
political debate is about who should get the credit for something that goes
well and who should take the blame for something that does not. If that plaque on Reagan’s desk was right, does
it follow there is a limited amount of good you can do if you constantly argue
about who deserves the credit? At the
very least I think explains in part the gridlock paralyzing our country’s
elected officials.
Two of this morning’s readings remind us
this dynamic neither is new nor unique.
Our first reading finds Moses overwhelmed by the task of meeting the
needs of the people as they languished in the wilderness. God instructs him to select seventy
individuals – elders and leaders of the people – and have them gather in the
tent used for worship. In this setting
God takes some of the spirit placed on Moses and transfers it to the larger
group, which they manifest initially through the act of prophecy.
All is well and good until two people not a
part of the seventy – Eldad and Medad – begin to prophecy out in the camp. Who do you think is going to get the
‘credit’: those officially ‘sanctioned’ who did their prophecy in the privacy
of the tent or the two upstarts carrying on in public? “Moses, stop them!” His response: “Why are you jealous for
me. I wish all God’s people were
prophets.” Moses does not feel
diminished as Eldad and Medad are celebrated because he recognizes everyone
benefits from the fruit of their ministry… and isn’t this the goal. There is no limit to the amount of good a
person can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.
A similar dynamic plays itself out in the
Gospel reading when the disciple John (who is a part of Jesus’ close inner
circle) alerts his master someone outside their group is invoking his name to
cast out demons. “We tried to stop him,”
John reports, “because he was not following us.” Jesus, in no uncertain terms, rebukes John
for trying to hinder a person seeking to do good. And then, in his teaching on this matter,
Jesus concludes by saying “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one
another.”
At least one scholar calls this the most
‘enigmatic’ of Jesus’ expressions, but, given the context, I think it makes
perfect sense. Salt had many purposes in
ancient Palestine. Its most important involved
its ability to draw out the blood in meat, thereby preserving the meat for an
extended period of time. When Jesus
says, “Have salt in yourselves,” he is saying have confidence in yourself,
recognize your purpose, and value your contribution. Know who you are, believe in what you do, and
understand you add something significant to the greater whole. No one else’s success can change this. Have salt in yourself. You are necessary and what you contribute is
enough.
And when you have this kind of salt in
yourself you can be at peace with one another because their success will not
threaten you and how you see yourself.
You can celebrate the achievements of others without being threatened or
jealous. You will be grateful every time
the community is blessed – even and especially if you are not the source of its
blessing – because your ultimate goal and highest good is to have the community
be blessed and you know you can’t do it alone.
I think one of the real strengths of St.
Paul’s is how so many people contribute to who we are what we do and no one is
competing for the credit. Each of you
has salt in yourself and is at peace with everyone else. Again, don’t underestimate the value of this
because I have served in parishes where the desire for credit was immense and
the need to assign blame almost unbearable. Still, there is no telling how much good a parish
do and how far it can go when its members don’t care who gets the credit.
