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.” (Mark 9:43)
“You’re good, Father!” said John the toll booth guy at the Burlington/Bristol Bridge.
“Say what?” I asked.
“You’re good. The guy ahead of you paid your toll for you. Have a nice day.”
Cool, I thought. It’s starting out to be a pretty good morning. And what a generous thing for some stranger to pay the $4 it costs for me to cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.i I wonder why they did it? Were they just in the mood to do a good deed, or did they look in their rearview mirror, see my clergy collar, and figure they’d do a kindness for one who bears the name of Christ? I guess they won’t be losing their reward!
Martin Luther would say that anything we do in Christ’s name for anyone else is a priestly act. A priest is, historically, anyone who makes the intercession between human beings and God. Anyone whose words or deeds do Christ’s work is, essentially, a priest. You don’t need a seminary degree or a stole around your neck. And all of us are called to some kind of priestly vocation.
In both our gospel and Hebrew Scripture lessons assigned for Pentecost 18 in the Revised Common Lectionary (Mark 9:38-50 and Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29) we read stories of folks who may not have been officially sanctioned but were carrying out priestly duties. In Mark, the apostle John gets his shorts in a bunch because some folks are performing exorcisms in the name of Jesus but they’re not officially Jesus’ disciples. “Casting out demons” as the text says (v. 38), could be taken literally, but it could also be a reference to prayers for healing since our early Christian ancestors believed that sickness was caused by demons. Jesus orders John not to stop these guys. After all, it would be like telling someone not to give a bleeding accident victim first aid unless you’re wearing a paramedic’s badge.
The Lectionary pairs this passage with a story form the exodus journey. The children of Israel—as they were wont to do—had been griping and whining about the crappy food in the desert and a host of other petty grievances. This was really getting on Moses’ nerves, and he starts to complain to God that his workload in caring for these ungrateful crybabies is getting to be too much for him. God then suggests that Moses delegate some responsibility to a church council. Moses gathers seventy elders, and God anoints them with some of Moses’ spirit. Two other guys, Eldad and Medad (who clearly didn’t get the memo they were supposed to report to the tent of meeting like the other seventy dudes), also got dosed with some spirt. They begin to prophesy, even though they’re not on the church council. This ruffles the feathers of Moses’ right-hand guy, Joshua, who doesn’t like to get his prophecy from anyone but the main man. He tells Moses to stop these two unsanctioned prophets, but Moses lets them go on. He’s probably just glad that someone is talking about the word of God and not bellyaching about having to eat manna at every meal.
It’s a sad commentary on Christians that we believe we all have a priestly vocation but we constantly try to keep others from exercising that vocation. We just love to throw rocks in their way. It’s not just the Jim Bakkers or the Jimmy Swaggarts or the pedophile priests whose hypocrisy turns people off from the faith. It’s been all the rest of us who have tried to narrowly define what the priestly mission is and limit who has the right to do it. Over the millennia we’ve told gifted ambassadors of the Word, “No. You can’t be a priest.” We’ve barred the door because someone is a woman, or LGBTQ, or not the right race, or not educated enough. We’ve thrown so many stumbling blocks in the way of ministry that we’ve begun to trip over our own feet.
My own particular stumbling block is denominational loyalty. I know Lutheranism is the way God speaks to me, but I sometimes forget that it might not be the only way God is speaking. If giving a cup of water in the name of Jesus is a sign of God’s presence, than God is certainly present with our Seventh Day Adventist brothers and sisters who have just given out 100,000 bottles of water to victims of the August 14th earthquake in Haiti.
It’s so easy to limit God’s spirit in our own selves. Over the years I’ve spent in parish ministry I’ve heard people complain when a lay music leader gave a theological explanation of a new worship song. A grumbling member told me it should be the pastor’s job to explain doctrine. He didn’t trust it coming from anyone else. Similarly, there are those who believe only the pastor should do home visitations, or pray at a committee meeting, or lead a Bible study. Lay people just aren’t good enough. Some have even feared their own priestly vocation and doubted their ability to share their faith with their own children.
In the gospel lesson Jesus gets pretty graphic in his description of what it means to discourage others in their faith. I always say that my job as a Christian is to find the way of Christ in other people and then be that way of Christ for other people. We should be on our guard against limiting the Holy Spirit’s inspiration in others or in ourselves.
This week someone crossing the Burlington/Bristol Bridge might’ve thought they were doing a priest a favor. I wonder if they knew they were the priest.
God’s peace, my priestly friend.
i Interestingly, there is no toll if you cross from west to east. It’s free to go to New Jersey, but you have to pay to get out.
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