Pentecost 19 – 2024
Mark 9:38-50
Marian Free
In the name of God who does not discriminate but welcomes all who share God’s vision for humanity. Amen.
According to Dr Mark Williams, stereotyping and determining who belongs and who does not is part of our evolutionary development[1]. Our original ancestors lived in extended family groups, and it was important for them to easily distinguish between friend from foe and to know whom to welcome and whom to exclude. As a consequence the human brain became hard-wired to use forms of discrimination to simplify interactions. Such hard wiring has its problems, but today’s world is much more complex that it still has its uses. Socialising in the modern world is difficult and the world is so complicated that short cuts to help us to group people according to various criteria (like us/not like us, common values/different values and so on) and. enable us to tell quickly and accurately whether or not someone can be trusted. If a person fits the criteria that our sub-group have used to classify “members and friends”, that person can be offered a welcome without any further investigation. If they do not measure up, other criteria will have to be applied in to decide whether they are friend or foe, whether they are welcomed, shunned or chased away. Being a part of a group, family, tribe gives its members a sense of identity, worth and belonging.
What is extraordinary about the Jesus’ movement is that Jesus’ disciples have broken out of their traditional family, religious and cultural groups to follow Jesus. As a consequence, they have had to learn a whole new code of relationships – both with each other and with outsiders. We should not be surprised if they are more protective of the boundaries of this group – it has probably cost them a lot to join and being members has replaced the family and friendship ties which they have given up.
The problem, as we have seen over and over again, is that they just don’t get the new norms. Either they have followed Jesus for all wrong reasons – (a belief that he will overthrow Rome, a desire to have reflected glory from the one who can do such amazing miracles or the status that comes with Jesus’ empowering them to share his mission. OR having followed him for the right reason (Jesus is the anointed sent by God), they are unable to alter their social conditioning such that they really comprehend that that Jesus didn’t come to reinforce the cultural and religious norms of the time, but to challenge and overturn them.
In today’s gospel we have two illustrations of the disciples’ lack of understanding. Jesus and the disciples have been making their way from the Mountain of Transfiguration to Capernaum. During the journey the disciples have been arguing among themselves as to who is the greatest. They are trying to work out the social hierarchy in this new context. (Every other situation in which they find themselves is carefully structured and ordered – from the family to the church to the state.
What the disciples have yet to grasp is that Jesus has completely reversed these cultural norms. In the kingdom those who want to save their life will lose it, the last will be first, the greatest will serve the least, and a child (the least valued because they have no legal status) is the one who will most represents Jesus. Status, in the normal way of things, has no place in the Jesus’ movement.
The second illustration has to do with boundaries. The disciples, still new to the emerging Jesus’ movement, have formed their own ideas as to who is in and who is out, who is allowed to perform exorcisms and who is not. What they don’t yet understand is that in the kingdom there are no boundaries or, if there are, they are fluid and permeable. Those who behave in ways that are consistent with the kingdom – whether they be tax-collectors and prostitutes or whether they be exorcists as in today’s gospel – are counted among those who belong to Jesus’ in-group. Someone who is generous, loving and thoughtful demonstrates the characteristics associated with Jesus, and by virtue of their characters or lifestyle make it clear that they are on side. Someone who exercises the powers of healing, feeding or exorcism, proves that whether or not they are signed up members, they are part of the Jesus’ project.
As Jesus says to the disciples: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” This is a radical reorientation of conventional wisdom. It denies Jesus’ immediate followers the right to judge, to label or to exclude. It lays open the possibility that anyone at all can be a follower. It means that the established means of distinguishing people one from another no longer hold, and that God who knows the human hearts decides who, if any, should be excluded.
It is easy with hindsight to be critical of the disciples and their constant failure to grasp Jesus’ message of inclusive love, but before we sit in judgement we should consider how often, we the church, have sat in judgement and have determined who should be granted or denied membership. In how many ways have we denied the gifting of others because they haven’t publicly aligned with our cause?
“Whoever is not against us is for us.” There are many, many people whose values align with ours, whose concern for the welfare of others matches (or exceeds) ours and whose willingness to confront injustice at whatever cost sometimes puts our lukewarm responses to shame. The lesson we can learn from today’s gospel is that discipleship is not a competition. We have no need to prove that we are more holy, have more compassion or are more ready to lay our lives on the line to ensure the wellbeing of others. In the name of Jesus, we can celebrate the contributions of all who work to make the world a better place understanding that whether or not they know it, they are working for the kingdom of God.
[1] Interviewed on All in the Mind. On Radio National.
Swallowsrest 