| October 12, 2008
You are welcome to reflect on this message
The recent Wall Street meltdown and hapless bailout of the offenders, has captured the world’s attention. Turbulent periods of history have a disturbing way of putting us and our institutions on the spot. They demand our involvement and decisions; smoke us out of our illusions, compel us to take sides, and deny us the luxury of a long look. Most of the time in church we think about theology. But Mark’s story has to do with methodology. People fight over style, technique, or procedures as much as anything I can think of, except power and money. There are “sayers” and “doers.” Those who “talk the talk” and those who “walk the walk.”
Jesus left little doubt about where he stood. He had a confrontation with a methodological fundamentalist among his disciples, named John, who got bent out of shape one day when he saw somebody else healing folks with the wrong brand. So the disciples misjudge a man, thinking he’s worse than he was. But also themselves, thinking they’re better. It exposes our familiar penchant for superiority. What is it about us that blinds us to the good in others, so that all we see are the negatives? But when it comes to ourselves, we overlook our faults and compare our correctness against others’ failings. Jesus said it’s like we have “logs in our eyes, trying to pull specks out of others.”
The disciples don’t say “he’s not one of your followers,” they say “he’s not one of us.” That’s all it took to disqualify him. They’re the experts, the standard by which discipleship is to be measured and don’t take kindly to some other yahoo horning-in on their territory. Even though they have the same goal of helping somebody, they resent him.
One of the Zebedee boys, John “Boanerges,” “son of thunder,” whined to Jesus, “Rabbi, we saw this guy casting out demons in your name and you’re gonna love this: we stopped him because he’s not one of us.” And Jesus’ pulled the rug out from under the in-crowd. “Don't forbid him. If he’s not against us he’s for us.” Never mind that this unknown exorcist had no M.D. from Harvard medical school. Jesus exposes the passion of taking ourselves, our groups and our methods so seriously, as to think we alone know what’s best about what needs to be done or how it should be achieved. The sin of being an “authority.” He believed there’s a variety of dispositions and sensitivities in the kingdom of God. That’s why he’s a lot more interested in “a cup of cold water” than somebody’s creed.
There’s a part of me that feels for the disciples. It makes sense to question the qualifications and vet this unknown exorcist. But unlike John, Jesus wouldn’t put the guy down. How can we know somebody’s motive? It could’ve been money or magic, but this wasn’t what got John’s goat. It was because “he’s not one of us.” They were jealous over their status and sense of entitlement. They’d just been arguing about “Who’s the greatest?” And Jesus put them in their place. I imagine he’s getting fed up with it. But this guy bugged them because he was doing what paper mill union workers did, filing grievances for crossing crafts. It just made matters worse that he’s having some success, slighting what the disciples believed to be their exclusive domain. God help the person who dares to tread into our territory. You know how it is when somebody’s doing a good job and yet something about it made you spiteful that they’re succeeding? Pulling for somebody to lose? Jesus, by contrast is so big-spirited, “He may not be part of our circle, but surely we can see that he’s on our side.” He knew the kingdom has enough enemies, without trying to shut out tomorrow’s friends.
Mark’s text is tailor made for the elastic liberal, calling for generosity in our estimate of others. “Anyone not against us is for us.” So guess what? The Bible argues with itself. Matthew presents a more conservative Jesus as isolationist: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.” And Luke outdoes each by including both. Now we’ve got 2 Jesuses. Mark's Jesus pleads for openness. Matthew's Jesus fits the guardians of exclusive orthodoxy. It may have something to do with the churches where they served. But it’s easy for us to pick one and ignore the other, if it serves your purpose. And who wouldn’t want to claim for their cause, “God is on my side?” Then you get to say, “You can go your way, and I’ll go HIS!” Think of the power of that. If we “reserve the right to accept everybody,” we’ll cotton to Mark. But if you’re in the mood for a little intolerance, there’s something for you too. Pass the Matthew 12:30 text, please! They’re both in the Bible. So apparently, it’s permissible to serve outside the bounds of the disciples, and have less than perfect membership credentials.
It’s not that God’s on our side. God’s not on anybody’s side. Rather are we on God’s side? Maybe the important thing is not that our methods are impeccable, or that God gives the nod to our proficiency in the way we do things any more than those who are not our kind. It’s a great day when we recognize God's kingdom is larger than our definition of it. We build fences, classify, define, set limits on who’s “in” and who’s “out,” we like to say who’s “saved” and “lost?” And Jesus says, “Not everybody who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom.”
Jesus was an incredibly unmethodological guy. I can't cite one single instance in the gospels where Jesus checks out anybody's doctrine or insists that they recite some dogma to get on his good side. To him there’s something more important than being the “chosen ones,” and that is to have the capacity to celebrate anytime we stumble across something good, no matter who's doing it or how they're doing it. Methodology matters greatly to us. We cherish the sophistication of our ecclesiastical pedigrees, the preciseness of our scripted creeds, the splendor of our liturgies because they’re ours. But the grace of God, is bestowed without respect of celebrity status or expertise or denomination. And Christ has a sovereign disregard for which church we happen to attend. Because beloveds, God can “raise up children of Abraham from the stones on the ground,” and we better listen to them, not because they’re ours, but because they’re God’s, and because God uses all of our fallible regional accents to echo the gracious words of Christ: “Whoever’s not against us is for us.” “But he’s not our kind!” And Jesus could care less. For him the only question is whether it’s good or not? If so, whoever's doing it, be it catholic or Jewish or Baptist or Mormon or Muslim, is on Gods' side.
In another place Jesus sheds further light on this in a story about two boys and their Daddy (Mt. 21:8-32), who needed them to go out and work in his field. Simple enough right? Nope. With human beings it’s never simple. One son, a pleasant lad with high SAT scores and always wants to please the old man said, “Yeah Dad, I’ll be more than glad to go out and work as you say.” All the right words here. But they’re only words ... to placate the parents. But an hour later, the boy’s still on the sofa in the living room, watching MTV. He said he would, but he didn't follow through. The other son was the rebellious type, greeting his father's request with disdainful disobedience. “Say what? Now lemme get this straight. You want me to go out there and slave in the hot field all day? Look, I've got my own stuff to deal with. Get someone else to do it.” Not exactly what the father wanted to hear, right? So who shows up to do the work but this exasperating kid who said he wouldn't, but had a change of heart and ended up doing what his father wanted?
And Jesus said, “OK class. Which of these boys did what their Daddy wanted? The one with the right words or the right deeds?” And before they could answer he added this zinger, “Y’all better listen up. Tax collectors and hookers will go into the kingdom of God before you good ones.” It's not one of Jesus' better stories. Because neither son was much of a son. Nor is anyone who can't get his words and deeds on the same page. Not the one who said he would but didn’t. Nor the one who said he wouldn’t but did. Is Matthew not suggesting the real Son is Jesus himself, who not only said he would serve in his Father's vineyard, but backed it up with his behavior, even if it meant the cross? A real child of the kingdom matches words with deeds.
Today's gospel therefore confronts any presumption we may have to superiority, challenging us to find the good qualities in others rather than negative condescension. For us as for the disciples, it means having to give up our rights of chosenness and feelings of self-righteousness and preeminence. But it’s a serious business to Jesus, because the behavior to which it leads undermines faith through discrimination. So our challenge is to let Jesus be the expert, because his “is the kingdom, the power & the glory forever.” We can live with deferred results if we have to. We know that the end will come and the end is good because it belongs to God.
I like Robert Frost’s poem: “Mending Wall” . . . . “Good fences make good neighbors. Why do they make good neighbors? Before I build a wall I want to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was likely to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down.”
Mark’s Gospel suggests that “something” may be Jesus himself. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he’s not following us. Jesus said, ‘‘Mr. Zebedee, tear down that wall!”
Prayer: (10/12/08) Gracious God, we gather in prayer, surrounded by the beauty of autumn, hoping to be lifted out of our littleness and partiality and weaved into your larger concern for the world. Lead us out of our narrow boundaries so we can escape our self-absorption.
Like your disciple John, we keep trying to scale you down to our size. We can’t help thinking that your face is the color of our face, that your values are our values, and that your people are limited to those within our circle of friends, or church or denomination. Even that won’t keep us from praying for strength for all facing tough times, grant them resources beyond themselves. Continue to surprise us by the width of your grace. Expose us to the many ways you are moving throughout our world, ways that are not limited to the confines of what we deem permissible and possible. Mold us into disciples who are willing to be surprised instead of disappointed, when you meet us in unexpected places, through the work of inferior people, doing good in unorthodox ways.
May our expression of faith in this place be radiant and contagious, so that our attempts at goodness would be attractive and not repulsive. As we strive to do the right, give us direction, enthusiasm, and common sense. Save us from arrogance and nasty judgments. Grant that our involvement in church would unite our passion with reason, so that whatever causes we champion and how we go about it, would make you smile. Amen. |
