Proper 21
Numbers 11:4-6,10-16, 24-29; Mark 9:38-41, 42-50
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I.
The problem is: rabble, others, and outsiders have come into Israel and the church.
Numbers 11:4-6 describes how the craving and weeping begins with the rabble and spreads to Israel. They had it better as slaves in Egypt:
“We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
And in Mark 9:38 we are told of a stranger who casts out demons using Jesus’ name.
As an outsider, does he have that privilege?
II.
Both passages are talking about God’s works and how God works.
After the transfiguration, during which the remaining disciples were unable to cast out a demon (a “dumb spirit”) from a boy, Jesus returns from the mountain and casts the demon out (Mark 9:14-29).
They’ve also just argued who among the disciples is the greatest (Mark 9:38-37).
The key point is that God works in His own way.
In John 3:8 we read:
The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.
The disciples forbid the man from using Jesus’ name to exorcise demons.
In Mark 9:38 the disciples say:
Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.
“Us” — the same disciples who had no power to cast out the demon from the boy and who were arguing about who was the greatest.
Jesus tells them not to forbid the man. He explains that His name works to convert men to His side in the fight against the Devil.
Jesus says in Mark 9:39-40:
Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us.
Compare this to Numbers 11:26:
Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested upon them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp.
Not everyone thinks this is good.
Numbers 11:27 tells us:
And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
Joshua agrees this is not good.
Numbers 11:28:
And Joshua the son of Nun, the minister of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, forbid them.”
Moses replies in a manner similar to Jesus.
Numbers 11:29:
Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!
From this point on, the disciples know that they are in league with all who claim the name of Christ to wage war against the powers of darkness.
Mark 9:41:
For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.
Covid ruined the expression “We’re all in this together” but in the early church it was true.
The name of Jesus Christ — just even saying that Jesus is the Christ — gave the church a sense of unity.
Only later would exclusive hierarchies — the kind Jesus warned against — emerge.
Matthew 20:25-27:
But Jesus called [his disciples] to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave….”
Those hierarchies, have they helped the church?
Congregational churches have eschewed ecclesial hierarchy, such as dioceses and bishops, but I know congregations well enough to know that pecking orders emerge in all of them.
This is not to say there is no biblical order for the church. There is, and Numbers 11 describes one.
Paul gives us a model New Testament church order in 1 Corinthians 14 and lists the qualifications for elders and deacons in 1 Timothy 3.
But that pecking order, which is often rooted in some ministry (handbell choir, music, Sunday School, outreach to the elderly, the Christmas bazaar, even where to build the new church!) ends up trying to limit God’s work to the ministry someone just happens to be running, to the pecking order that someone oversees.
It happened to the disciples with their exorcist ministry.
“Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him….”
We know that there’s a biblical order for setting up the church, but we’re also seeing that when those who inhabit that order lose their anointing — you might say, when they lose their “saltness” — the order ceases to matter at all and everyone starts craving after their own lusts and crying out for slavery in Egypt.
“Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!” They’re not doing things right. They’re breaking the order! Stop them!
To which Moses says, Actually, don’t, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!”
Thus illustrating that God will work outside of (and often in spite of) human norms to draw men to Christ.
After all, Mark 9:49 says, “he that is not against us is for us.”
Originally, there was no distinction between the God-given order (the creation) and the anointing (fellowship with God) that came with it.
Genesis 3:8 tells us that God used to walk in the Garden with them in the cool of the evening. That’s how close God had drawn our first parents to Him.
We need to find some way to recover that closeness, to get our saltness back, that anointing Spirit that Moses wished would rest on all the Lord’s people.
That’s what the church is trying to get back, isn’t it?
III.
But a spirit of slavery would rather go back to Egypt.
Numbers 11:25:
Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was upon him and put it upon the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did so no more.
The elders prophesied and then they stop.
Remember: to prophesy here does not mean to predict the future, but to reveal the will of God.
These seventy revealed the will of God as to how Israel was to govern itself — to self-govern itself. (Remember, they were used to being slaves.)
There was to be an eldership.
How many disciples did Jesus commission in Luke 10:1?
Seventy.
The elders of Israel stop being prophets because they were among that generation that God rejected.
Numbers 14:23 says, “none of those who despised me shall see it [the promised land].”
God is constituting Israel to be a self-governing congregation, whose mission is to preach the coming of the Christ to redeem mankind, but He is not using free-born men to set up this republic.
He is using men who would rather go back to Egypt and be slaves.
That is why the Spirit rests on them just once, and they speak prophetic words only once.
The reason churches die is that they try to limit how God works. They try to keep God tied up and bound by their own human understanding of Him.
Mark 9:38:
“Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him.”
The disciples were behaving like conjurors, like pagan magicians, trying to use Jesus’ name as a spell, an incantation.
Jesus’ name has power because of who Jesus is, not because of the man or woman who speaks His name.
In Mark 9:39, Jesus says:
“Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me.”
Why?
Because the mighty work is God’s work.
This other man, the one exorcising demons in Jesus’ name, is simply the means for that time and place, a place for the Spirit to rest in that hour.
Any man thus used by God will soon know God.
IV.
But Jesus brings a Spirit of freedom to His church.
God often works in ways that we do not expect. The temple in the city of Jerusalem was where sacrifice for sins was offered by the priests.
But Hebrews 13:12 tells us that:
Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.
God is free to act how He will, and God’s freedom is not constrained by man’s free-thinking or free-will.
Mark 9:50a:
Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its saltness, how will you season it?
We can only get our salt back if God chooses to make us salty once again.
Mark 9:50b:
“Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
The hallmark of a congregation that is resting in God’s Spirit — a congregation that God can use to draw men and women to Christ — is that its members are at peace with each other.
V.
Once a church gets its salt back it can draw the world to Christ.
How does a church get its salt back?
There are two ways.
First, by confronting the sin within or in its midst.
Mark 9:42:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
The church and her members must daily examine their consciences and confess their sins.
Second, while God is not limited in how He acts, we are limited in how we understand His mighty works.
Specifically, God has left a record of Himself and His work in the written revelation of the Scriptures.
For nearly 200 years many of our most prominent churches have ignored this revelation or explained it away, but Moses says in Deuteronomy 4:2:
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it.
To be sure, preachers may not have added or subtracted literal words from the Bible, but they have added and subtracted from their meaning.
The church that does this will not know peace.
The Spirit, having once rested there, will depart, and their pulpits, having once sounded the truth, will fall silent, and, like the seventy elders, never to be heard from again.
The Bible is a salt mine. Every page is one on which the Spirit rests. We must daily be working in that mine.
The work of the church is simple.
Jesus says in Matthew 11:30:
My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Does scripture tell us that the elders exerted any effort when they prophesied?
No.
The Spirit rested on them (Numbers 11:25).
Why, then, have churches become so exhausted?
It is because we are busy with things God has not asked us to do.
He has not asked us to save the world. His Son will do that.
He has not asked us to change His word, to update it, to make it more contemporary, or acceptable to modern prejudices.
Isaiah 40:8 says:
The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.
In fact, the work God calls the church to is summed up in one verse, in one sentence, written by Paul to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 4:13:
Till I come, attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching.
Done faithfully, done well, that is enough to keep any pastor and his flock busy — all the while resting in the Spirit and at peace with one another — until the Lord returns.
Let us pray:
O God, who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running to obtain thy promises, may be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Preached on October 6, 2024 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
1. Craving and weeping begins with the ____________ and spreads to Israel.
2. Jesus’ ____________ works to convert men to His side in the fight against the Devil.
3. The name of Jesus Christ gave the church a sense of ____________.
4. Congregational pecking orders are often rooted in a ____________.
5. Explain what happens when the members of a church order lose their anointing.
6. One way to describe anointing is “saltness.” Another is ____________ with God.
7. Explain why the Spirit rested on the elders of Israel only once.
8. The reason churches die is that they try to ____________ how God works.
9. Jesus brings a Spirit of ____________ to His church.
10. The hallmark of a congregation that is resting in God’s Spirit is that its members are at ____________ with each other.
11. Explain the two ways a church can get its salt back.
12. Churches are exhausted because they are busy with things God has not ____________ them to do.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) Have you ever been on a team or part of a group where no one got along? What was missing and why do you think that was so? 2) Describe what you think it means to be an adult. What things will you have to start doing when you grow up? What things will you stop doing?
(1) rabble; (2) name; (3) unity; (4) ministry; (5) the order ceases to matter at all and everyone starts craving after his own lusts and crying; (6) fellowship; (7) they had a spirit of slavery; (8) limit; (9) freedom; (10) peace; (11) confess its sin, do not change the meaning of God’s word; (12) asked
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