Text: Mark 9:38-50 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Another Exorcist
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name,[a] and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “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. 40 For he that is not against us is for us. 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.
Temptations to Sin
42 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[b] it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin,[c] cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go to hell,[d] to the unquenchable fire.[e] 45 And if your foot causes you to sin,[f] cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.[g][h] 47 And if your eye causes you to sin,[i] pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell,[j] 48 where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 49 For every one will be salted with fire.[k] 50 Salt is good; but if the salt has lost its saltness, how will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
Some anonymous pundit once said, “You can divide the world into two groups of people: Those who believe you can divide the world into two groups of people and those who don’t.”
We human beings spend an awful lot of time deciding who’s “in” and who’s “out,” who’s “acceptable” and who isn’t, who “makes the cut” and who doesn’t. Us vs. Them. Our Side vs. Their Side.
We see this everywhere – but I think that maybe the one example that stands out most sharply in my mind is the way the Syrian refugees have been treated. Remember the news report showing that female Hungarian photojournalist tripping the Syrian man carrying a small child? It was … well, sickening. Inexcusable. And most definitely un-Christian –
“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40, KJV) – this goes for bad deeds as well as for good ones.
And why did she do what she did? She tripped that man so he and his child could be retained by the police and kicked out of her country. The fact he and all those thousands of others were just passing through and had no intention of staying in Hungary in the first place didn’t seem to matter. She was in; they were out, and needed to stay that way.
What is it about the human race? We are very, very good at dividing. Uncounted thousands of years ago, our ancestors took up sticks and stones to fight off members of other tribes to protect “our” water hole, or “our” hunting grounds. Then we learned how to till the soil, and so we began living in settlements; and not long thereafter, we learned how to build fences between our fields and walls around our villages – because we never knew who or what might be lurking out there over that hill or in that patch of woods, or who might be waiting, unseen, for the chance to attack us in the night.
Fast forward to today – our villages have expanded to become nations, and the need to protect and be on guard has increased along with that expansion. And don’t get me wrong – every nation needs to safeguard itself, just as every home has locks on its doors. But the point here is that our impulse for dividing ourselves into this or that group is just as strong as it ever was.
Fear plays a big part in dividing us. And that fear takes a lot of different forms; some of those forms aren’t even easily recognizable as fear-based.
If you look at the Christian landscape, for example, you see right away that there are all kinds of churches. St. John’s is one; the UCC in town is another, St. Mary’s, Big River, is yet another. Then there’s Joy Lutheran, St. Paul’s, St. Joseph’s and Torrent. And that’s just the situation here in Prescott. The pattern is repeated in every city, town, and village throughout the world. And each of these churches makes the same claim: That they are part of the universal Christian Church. And yet, we’re all in different buildings, are part of different denominations (except for the UCC church in town, of course). We have divided ourselves into these groups.
Some of the reasons for these divisions are, I think, very good ones. We could spend the rest of the day just talking about them. Nonetheless, it must be positively scandalous in the eyes of God that we, his children, so often and so willfully choose to separate ourselves from each other.
Because, you see, some of the reasons for these divisions aren’t so good, or noble, or even particularly theological. I remember what some Lutheran friends of mine told me back when the ALC (American Lutheran Church), and the LCA (Lutheran Church in American) decided to merge to form what is now the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) – the denomination that Joy Lutheran is part of. They said that, even though both denominations were theologically indistinguishable from each other, the talks regarding their merger had dragged on because, when the merger happened, someone was going to lose his job! Fear of job loss was enough to put a monkey wrench in the gears for a while.
Closer to home, back when the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church were in the courtship that led to the formation of our United Church of Christ, there was all manner of “gloom and doom” talk, particularly on the Congregational side, that basically said that this merger spelled The End Of Civilization As We Know It. I have a book on my shelf from that period written by a minister from the Congregational side – the title is Destiny for Congregationalism. Short answer: There isn’t one. The book is basically a laundry list of all the rotten things that would happen once the merger went through, with a few of the author’s own pet peeves thrown in for good measure.
The major fear that gave this man the willies was the fear that Congregationalists would somehow lose their freedom to worship God in their own ways. Congregationalists were all about freedom. That was their mantra: Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!
I grew up in the Congregational side of the UCC, and absorbed that whole concept – to this day, I find it popping up out of nowhere at times when I least expect it. But, as I got older, and particularly when I was in seminary, I found myself asking “freedom from what to do what?” Congregationalists traditionally are fond of saying that they don’t adhere to any particular creed, because they affirm all Christian creeds, ancient and modern alike. In practice, however, from what I’ve seen and experienced, that essentially means that they don’t follow any of them. Somehow, I don’t think that’s ultimately very beneficial.
But this fear was enough to cause a significant number of Congregational Christian churches to stay out of the merger, so the Congregational part of the Christian church remains divided to this day.
And then we have the Gospel lesson for this morning: “John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.’”
At first glance, I don’t think any of us would associate that statement with fear. But think about it – what is John’s attitude toward that unnamed, unknown man? That guy’s “taking over their turf”! John and the disciples were afraid that they were going to lose the franchise! They don’t know him, and so they have no real authority over him, but they nonetheless do try to invoke Jesus’ authority when they tell him basically to “knock it off.” (Mark does not record, however, whether or not the man actually did stop.)
There’s something else going on here, too. David Lose writes: “Scholars tell us that this particular section reflects some conflicts between early Christian communities. Mark is framing this part of his narrative, in other words, to address some of the problems his folks are having with other Christians. Apparently the early Christian church wasn’t all united in their beliefs, sometimes clashed with each other, and occasionally even berated one another over differences in practice…In other words, Mark was trying to help his congregation answer the question of who they are. Will they, he asks, define themselves over and against other Christians or will they discover their identity in their attempt to follow Jesus, to care for the vulnerable, and to avoid those things that are destructive to self, neighbor, and community.”[1]
The disciples were afraid of losing their particular identity as the followers of Jesus. And they just plain weren’t going to stand for that!
We can just see them, brimming over with righteous indignation, and storming over to the man and telling him in no uncertain terms that this was their preserve, and not his! Then they marched back to Jesus and told him what they had just done.
And they were proud of themselves, too. They no doubt fully expected that Jesus would say something like, “Good job! We can’t have other people taking over our territory!” But they were in for a very rude awakening.
Jesus’ reaction must have been something like, “What? You did what? Why would you do something like THAT? The man was on OUR SIDE!”
“Our side? But … but … who … what?”
Maybe the disciples tried to tell Jesus that they didn’t know who this man was, that they weren’t sure that he was giving people the same message Jesus gave; maybe they tried to make the point that this man was a total unknown quantity. But it just “cut no ice” with Jesus.
“Whoever is not against us is for us,” Jesus said. No one who did a work of power in the name of Jesus would be able to quickly change his tune and then begin to speak evil of him. Anyone who is able to do these works in Jesus’ name has the Spirit working in him. “[N]o one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit” (I Corinthians 12:3).
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” So we read in John 3:8. The disciples could no more stop the Spirit of God from working through that strange man than they could stop a hurricane from blowing.
But there was an even greater issue there than just that. To Jesus, anybody who claimed to be a disciple of his, no matter who they were, no matter whether or not the Twelve knew who they were or not, was precious is his sight and IMPORTANT to him!
You’ve heard me say that there is no such thing as an insignificant act of kindness. Even a small gesture of hospitality, such as offering a cup of water to one of Jesus’ disciples, just because that disciple belonged to him, is the same as a kind act being done to Jesus himself.
In the same way, anything we do for another human being as followers of Christ is as important as if we were doing it for Jesus himself. Because we are.
But here’s a point that we often miss: Receiving an act of kindness from another is just as important as doing one! If we – through modesty, or embarrassment – turn away someone else’s act of kindness toward us, we risk becoming a stumbling block for them.
The disciples felt that this man doing good works in Jesus name was a scandal – the word comes from the Greek “skandalon,” which literally means “stumbling block.” So a “scandal” is something which causes someone to stumble or trip, or cause offense. They thought that the man was causing offense, but, as it turns out they were the ones causing the offense! They were the scandal, not the man!
When the disciples tried to stop a fellow believer from doing good in Jesus’ name, they could have harmed him spiritually. This appears to have been a factor in Jesus’ use of strong words when speaking to the disciples.
And strong words they are! We hear about millstones and being thrown into the sea, we hear about cutting off hands and feet and gouging out eyes. We hear about worms that do not die and fires that can’t be put out.
Jesus is making a point that the disciples cannot ignore: Do everything in your power – first, to NOT be scandalized by others who are working in Jesus’ name, and, second, do your utmost to NOT be a scandal for anyone else!
Words to the wise. Let us, Sisters and Brothers, also do our utmost to live by them!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Lose, David, “Pentecost 18 B: Who Are You?”, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/09/pentecost-18-b-who-are-you/