Grace, mercy and peace through Jesus Christ who wants us to be at peace with each other. Amen.

Mark 9:38-50 "Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." ³⁹ "Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, ⁴⁰ for whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward. ⁴² "And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. ^{44 45} And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. ^{46 47} And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where "'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' ⁴⁹ Everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other."

How many of you are frequent users of the saltshaker? Are any of you the kind of people who orders McDonald’s French fries, which are already loaded with salt, and then takes a little salt packet and adds even more? It may taste good now, but you have to watch your salt intake. Some of you may have high blood pressure and so the doctor has told you to watch how much sodium you take in. Maybe they have placed you on a low sodium diet.

Salt isn’t just used as a seasoning; it’s also used as a preservative. Before electricity, in order to preserve meat, you might salt it. Some of you may remember salted bacon, corned beef, jerky, or kippered herring. The salt would act as a preservative and keep the meat from spoiling.

Today’s Gospel reading talks about salt in that way – as a preservative. Today, Jesus tells you, "Do not go on a low sodium diet." He wants us to be well-seasoned and well-preserved disciples. We do that in three different ways. We keep salt in our diets by working together with our fellow disciples. Only when the gospel is on our lips and in our hearts will we not be negative and defensive toward our fellow believers. We keep salt in our diets by finding the sin in our life. Salt in an open wound stings, so our sin stings and even kills eternally. We keep salt in our diets by being filled with God’s Word. Only the Word of God can lead us to a well-balanced, positive, productive life that seasons our speech with the gospel and preserves our life from sin.

In a small country church, there was a major dispute about where the pies should be placed in the kitchen prior to the Ladies Aid serving them for the annual turkey supper. One woman actually left the church because several new members had convinced the rest of the women that it would be easier and more efficient to put the pies on the counter beside the sink, closer to the dining area, instead of on the counter next the refrigerator farther back in the kitchen. "It’s not the right way to do it," she said. "We’ve never done it that way before, and I’m not going to start doing it that way now. I won’t have any part of it. Those new people are going to ruin this church. They don’t know anything. They aren’t even from around here."

That sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? But doesn’t it also sound a tad familiar?

John said to Jesus, "Teacher we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us." Why did the disciples stop the man driving out demons? He wasn’t doing anything wrong, and he wasn’t misusing Jesus’ name. They told him to stop, simply because the man wasn’t one of them.

It’s much like the story of Joshua in our Old Testament lesson for today. When he heard that other people were prophesying besides Moses, he was panicked about it and said, "Moses, my lord, stop them!" (Numbers 11:26) Even though there was nothing wrong with what they were doing, he wanted them to stop – because he wanted Moses to have all of the prophesying power.

Have you ever witnessed this kind of jealousy? Have you ever taken part in this kind of jealousy among God’s children? Do you ever argue with or complain about another child of God? Let me give you some examples: Maybe there are tensions between Epiphany and First Evan or between older members and newer members or between members with children in our school versus those who don’t have children in the school. Maybe there are members who attend a voters meeting who didn’t like the way something was decided so they threaten to leave the church and take their money elsewhere. (I’ve heard those very words.) A big temptation for parents is to live vicariously through their children’s athletic or education abilities. So they will badmouth the coach if their child doesn’t receive a lot of playing time or accuse the teacher of poor teaching if their student is struggling in school. And we end up forgetting that we are all on the same team!

Before we know it, we are getting into arguments over who should chase demons and how they should be chased. And meanwhile the devil is just laughing.

So how did Jesus respond? "Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward." What was Jesus mainly concerned about? His name. As long as they were doing miracles in His name, they couldn’t turn around and degrade Jesus reputation. So as long as it was glorifying his name, there was no reason to stop them. Ultimately, God would give rewards for even giving someone a cup of water in His name. So don’t worry about who is chasing out demons, as long as it’s being done in Jesus’ name.

I think our WLS children playing in the soccer and volleyball tournaments this weekend may serve as a lesson for us. They may not like the kids from Friedens or Trinity or another school very much during the game. They may spike it on each other, take them down hard on the soccer field, even talk a little trash, but afterwards, they will hang out with each other over a soda and popcorn at Shoreland. Why? Because they realize that though they are different school teams, they are ultimately on the same team – Jesus’ team.

The point is to keep salt in our diets by working together with our fellow disciples.

Now, this was just a dash of salt that Jesus put on their pride. But Jesus was just getting started. He continued to really dump it on. He was pouring salt on an open wound in order to expose the danger of that open wound. He said, "And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. ⁴⁵ And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. ⁴⁷ And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where "'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' ⁴⁹ Everyone will be salted with fire."

Jesus is very serious that we should not cause a young believer to sin. If we cause a young Christian to sin, it would be better to be thrown into the sea with a large stone tied around our neck than to suffer an eternity in hell for the sin we caused. He says that if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Now, our hand or foot or eye doesn’t cause us to sin. The sin is in our heart. Jesus is saying that it is better to get rid of the sin, than to suffer an eternity in the torments of hell.

A young boy named Ed was growing up on a farm with his parents in Ohio. His family discovered they had some rats in the barn, so they put out some traps. One night they baited them with cheese, and set them out around the barn. The next morning young Ed went out to see if they had caught anything. The first traps he examined were empty. When he came to the last trap, he saw something strange. The trap had been sprung, and while there was no rat in it, he noticed that it did hold the severed leg of a rat. He ran to tell his parents about this unexpected finding.

"What happened?" Ed asked his dad. His dad replied that the trap had caught the rat by the leg. The rat knew that its life was at risk, so it chewed off its own leg to escape. "Why would it do that?" Ed asked. "That's the way rats are," his father said. "Better to go on living with only three legs, than to die with all four." Ed just stood there for a while, marveling at the courage it took for the rat to choose to survive by chewing its leg off and leaving it behind. 

I wonder whether we would have the courage to do what the rat did. Not that we are willing to gnaw off a body part, but are you willing to surrender a hand or a leg, a grudge or bitterness, an obsession or addiction, since your eternal life is at stake? Anything that leads us away from God needs to be dealt with. You may need to turn off the TV, throw away a magazine or CD, break off a friendship, stop talking to a family member, pull your child out of athletics, maybe even change your job, if any of those things are pulling you away from God. It is much better to be lacking those things and in heaven than having them in hell.

What a loving Savior we have. In love he warns us about the deadly consequences of sin. If a hand or foot or eye is badly infected, the surgeon may remove that body part in order to save the person’s life. Jesus is that surgeon is wants to carefully cut the sin out of your life in order to save your soul. In love he doesn’t want you ending up in hell where the fire cannot be quenched and the worms and maggots feasting on rotting flesh don’t die. Jesus has rescued you from that. In love he has reserved a room for you in the mansions of heaven where sin and suffering and Satan cannot touch you. Jesus left heaven to be born as a baby. During his ministry he didn’t own his own home. He allowed himself to be betrayed into the hands of evil men. He permitted himself to die on an excruciating cross. Jesus gave up everything for you – all for your salvation. Now he is teaching you to give up whatever may cause you to sin – all for your salvation.

Jesus concludes his lesson to the disciples by saying, "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other." In Matthew, Jesus calls his disciples the "salt of the earth." Here the salt is something inside of the disciples. The powerful word of God in their hearts and minds is the salt that will preserve them in the faith. While they have the salt now, they must be aware of the possibility of losing it. Physically, salt might lose its saltiness through a chemical reaction. Believers can lose their spiritual "saltiness" if they stop using God’s Word to preserve them in faith and guide them in Christian living.

If we are going to be well-seasoned disciples, we will need to be full of salt. We receive this salt in God’s Means of Grace – in his Gospel in Word and Sacraments. We receive this gracious and good salt every time we hear God’s Word in church and school and when we come to the Lord’s Table for Holy Communion. When our hearts are filled with the salt of the Gospel, we can put aside our jealousies and bitterness toward each other. When our actions are controlled by the same salt, we will live at peace with each other and with others who speak the name of Jesus. Filled with the salt of God’s Word, we will enjoy the peace of God together and work together since we are all on the same team. When our souls are preserved with this salt, we are willing to get rid of any sin that may infect our lives and threaten us with the horrors of hell.

The doctors may have put you on a low sodium diet. Your spiritual physician, Jesus, gives you a very different directive. He tells you not to go on a low sodium diet. Feast regularly on the banquet of God’s nourishing Word. Work together. Get rid of your sin. And be filled with his Word. As Jesus recommends, "Have salt in yourselves." Amen.