Evangelistic Preaching Helps for September 24, 2006: The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B

Evangelistic Preaching Helps for September 24, 2006: The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B
by Kwasi Kena

Evangelism Preaching Helps is a monthly online resource designed as an aid to assist in the preparation of sermons with an evangelistic focus. Highly effective evangelistic churches include at least one evangelistic sermon per month.

Periodically, feature articles and sermon series aids will also appear in Evangelistic Preaching Helps. Thank you for your continued use of this resource

Preach to Reach: Welcoming the "Other," Welcoming Christ

Lectionary Readings for September 24, 2006 — The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B

Online texts are available at the Vanderbilt Divinity Library.

• Proverbs 31:10-31
• Psalm 1 (UMH 738)
• James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
• Mark 9:30-37

In the sermon notes section of the September 24, 2006 Lectionary Preaching Helps,Safiyah Fosua provides us with a provocative sermon title for Mark 9:30-37: "Welcoming the 'Other,' Welcoming Christ." This edition of Evangelistic Preaching Helps explores key issues involved with welcoming the "other."

Summary:

This week's passage follows on the heels of two critical failures by the disciples. They had failed to exercise demons (Mark 9:17-18). This failure highlighted their inability to pray (Mark 9:28). Mark 9:30-37 reveals their misconception about greatness. Jesus equated greatness with servanthood. Jesus illustrated this by placing a child among them and instructing them to welcome the child "in his name." Welcoming a child in Jesus' name also welcomed God, who sent Christ.

Overview:

• Jesus taught the disciples as they passed through Galilee.
• Jesus predicted his crucifixion.
• The disciples did not understand him.
• They came to Capernaum, and Jesus asked what they were arguing about.
• Jesus used a child to illustrate true greatness.
• Jesus equated welcoming a child in his name to welcoming God.

Key Preaching/Teaching Points

1. Jesus sat (the formal teaching position) to address his disciples about greatness in the Kingdom (Reign) of God.
   
2. Jesus confronted the prevailing understandings of greatness and introduced the disciples to the values of God's Kingdom (Reign).
   
3. Jesus' use of a child to illustrate greatness was a shock to the disciples. Children in Jesus' day were nonpersons. According to societal expectations, they should not even have been around Jesus and his disciples. Children should have been with the women. To complicate matters, the child may have been a household slave. Thus, it was a tremendous shock for Jesus to declare that receiving a child "in his name" was equal to receiving God!
   
4. This passage lends itself to teaching about Christian hospitality and servanthood. Children were "socially invisible"; today we would call them marginalized. Christ constantly reminded his followers to reach out to the poor and disenfranchised "other."

Key Questions

1. How do we define greatness today? You may want to ask the congregation this question during your sermon. Don't forget to ask the children as well.
   
2. If Jesus sat among us (the formal teaching position), what would he need to teach us about greatness and servanthood today?
   
3. In Jesus' day, children were considered "socially invisible" or "other." Who occupies the category of "other" today? Comb the news media for instances of neglected people in your local community, in the United States, and in the world.
   
4. How does your local church practice "greatness" as Jesus defined it in this passage?
   
5. Where could your local congregation practice Christian hospitality and servanthood to those regarded as "other"?
   
6. What barriers prevent us from welcoming everyone to attend our churches?
   
7. What practical steps can we take to remove those barriers?

Sermon Starters

Welcome: the Odd, the Villain, the Miserable
On the topic of Christian ethics, Karl Barth spoke of radical acceptance of others. He urged Christians, "to think of every human being, even the oddest, most villainous or miserable as one to whom Jesus Christ is Brother and God is Father; and we have to deal with him on this assumption." It is easy to categorize the odd, the villain, and the miserable as "other." Whom do we place in the "other" category? What nagging discomfort alerts us that we're near an "other"? Do their faces cause us to change the television channel quickly? Does their presence cause us to turn abruptly and walk the other way? Does their smell cause us to hold our breath until we pass by them? Do these questions stir up any troubling memories of our reactions to the marginalized? In the midst of our discomfort, imagine Jesus telling us to welcome the ddd, the villain, and the miserable "in his name." Such a welcome wasn't easy for the early disciples, and it's not easy for us either; is it? So what would it take for us to welcome everyone sincerely in Jesus' name?

Discounts Galore

See the word discount and an invisible magnet seems to draw us near. For the savvy shopper, the word means sale and savings, but discount also carries other meanings, such as:

• to leave out of account; disregard.
• To take into account in advance, often so as to diminish the effect of

In Jesus' day, children were disregarded. In effect, they were discounted. Before they said or did anything, before their personalities had an opportunity to shine, their value as people was diminished. No one paid serious attention to them. That's why it's so strange that Jesus chose a child to demonstrate greatness and servanthood to the disciples. If Jesus sat among us today, what discounted people would he stand before us to welcome and to serve?

Provide Opportunities for Response

1. Distribute 3 by 5 index cards or small slips of paper to people as they enter worship. Following the sermon, invite people to pray silently and write down recent instances in which they treated people as "other." Close the period of self reflection with a pastoral prayer to help the congregation acknowledge, confess, and repent for the times that they failed to welcome the "other" and therefore failed to welcome Christ.
   
2. Several weeks before your sermon delivery, search for available video resources on hunger and poverty. Offer a short-term study on hunger and poverty (1-3 sessions). Include hands-on service as part of the study experience. Invite the congregation to participate in the study to raise awareness of and sensitivity toward the marginalized in your community. Make arrangements for volunteers to serve the poor and homeless in your local church or community agency.
   
3. Invite members of the congregation to participate in periodic fasts (subject to medical approval). The fast could be for one meal or more per week or month for a designated timeframe — such as one to two months. Ask those participating in the fast to donate the money that would have been used on meals to a ministry of the church or charity in the community that deals with marginalized people.
   
4. Collect prayer pledges. Invite people to form prayer partnerships — groups of two to three people — who will commit to pray for the marginalized in your communities on a regular basis. People could pledge to pray daily or weekly.

Resources

• Fasting:
  "Offering Christ Today: During Lent, Less Provides More"
  
• Prayer
  "Offering Christ Today: Are You Praying for F.R.A.N.?"
  
• General Commission on Church and Society Resources on Hunger, Poverty and Social Issues:
  • The Economic Community
  • The Social Community
  • The Nurturing Community
    
• Hunger Relief:
  Society of Saint Andrew(an affiliate of the General Commission on United Methodist Men)