Sunday September 26, 2021
18th Sunday After Pentecost
Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Scripture: Mark 9:38-50
Have you ever heard someone say: “If you’re not for us, you’re against us!”? Possibly the most famous example of this was George W. Bush, 20 years ago in the wake of the September 11 attacks, trying to stir up the world to join him in the war on terror. In a speech on September 20, 2001, he said, “"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." In other words, if you aren’t with us, the good guys, you are against us with the bad guys.
Jesus’s disciples seem to have a very similar attitude in today’s reading. They are travelling along, and they see someone casting out demons in Jesus’s name. The only problem is, they don’t recognize this person. He isn’t one of the regular crowd hanging out with Jesus, and yet he still seems to be able to cast out demons in Jesus’s name.
And so they send John up to tell their teacher. “Come on now, Jesus. This guy, he’s not one of us. If we let him keep doing this, maybe he’ll start drawing the crowds away from us – we’re going to start to lose followers! Or even worse, maybe he’ll do something wrong, and damage our reputation. He’s not one of us. He’s not with us, so he must be against us!”
But Jesus just shakes his head. He says to his followers, “Don’t stop him. If he is doing powerful things in my name, the Holy Spirit must be with him. And if the Holy Spirit is with him, then he isn’t going to be able to do anything to harm us. I know that the world says, ‘if you’re not for us, you’re against us’; but instead I say, ‘whoever is not against us is for us.’”
The challenge with both of these statements – with both “whoever’s not for us is against us” and “whoever’s not against us is for us” – is that they are false dichotomies. When you are in any situation of tension and conflict, there are two defined sides – people who are on my side, and people who are on the other side. But then there are also a lot of people who are neutral – who are on neither side. To say “whoever’s not for us must be against us” is to assign a side to those neutral folks. The person who is saying this is trying to make a clear distinction, whereas in reality there is a lot of fuzziness.
George W. Bush and Jesus’s disciples assume that the neutral folks must be with the enemies. If you haven’t chosen to fight with us – whether we are fighting the so-called terrorists or whether we are fighting demons – if you haven’t chosen to fight with us, then you must be on the side of the demons.
But Jesus disagrees with them. Jesus places the neutral folks, the people who haven’t chosen a side on his side. “Whoever is not against us is for us.” He has a much more expansive understanding of who is included in the in-circle. Anyone who isn’t actively working against Jesus must be for Jesus. We aren’t singing it this morning, but it all comes down to drawing the circle wide, then wider still.
I’m also always curious whenever demons appear in our readings, because even though, in 2021 we may not name them as demons, I do believe that there are demons at work in the world. Demons are things that work against God’s loving purpose. Demons are things that can control us and make us act in ways that we wouldn’t otherwise act. Some of the demons still active in the world today might include racism. Or homophobia and transphobia. Or systems of poverty. Or even, in extreme cases, political ideologies, as we have seen in different parts of the world in recent times.
And so the question that this reading forces me to ask is – who are the people outside of the immediate circle of Jesus followers who are casting out demons in the world today? I think of the black lives matter movement, working to cast out the demon of racism. I think of Indigenous educators, working to cast out the demon of racism as well. I think of all of the people working with Romero House and Avenue B and all of the other social organizations working to cast out the demon of poverty. I think of Affirm United, working to cast out the demons of homophobia and transphobia from churches.
And Jesus says to draw the circle wide, to colour outside the lines, so that all people who are on the side of love are included. For whoever is not against Jesus is for Jesus.
I wonder what happened to this person who was casting out demons in Jesus’s name. We never hear from or of him again – he is only mentioned in passing this one time.
He was performing works of great power in Jesus’s name, and must have been filled with a sense of the Holy Spirit’s presence. I wonder how he learned of Jesus. Had Jesus passed through his village months before? Maybe he was someone who had been healed by Jesus – the recipient of one of the many works of power that Jesus was wont to perform while travelling around the countryside. I wonder if, healed from his own demons by the power of the Holy Spirit, if he was then able to turn around and offer that healing to others.
But I also wonder how he responded when the disciples told him to stop. I wonder if he felt ashamed of what he was doing, and I wonder if that shame caused him to stop what he was doing.
Or maybe instead, he was able to turn and cast out the demon of narrow-mindedness from the disciples who were questioning him. I wonder if he was able to show them a more expansive vision of God’s kingdom of love, where all of God’s beloved children live together, loving and serving one another.
I wonder if he was able to tag along with the crowd for a few days, soaking up Jesus’s teachings, and soaking up the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. I wonder if then, strengthened by the Spirit, he was able to continue his healing ministry, bringing a message of God’s love to people desperate to hear that they were loved. I wonder how many people he was able to reassure of their place in the kin-dom of God, by the healing he offered them.
I also wonder who in our world we might try to sideline from their ministry of spreading love and healing. Who do we consider to not be part of the in-circle, and therefore not worthy of our support? How can we support and encourage their ministry, rather than trying to shut it down?
For whoever is not against Jesus must be for Jesus. Whoever is not actively working against the power of love must be on the side of love. And we are called to allow ourselves to be transformed, so that we can catch a glimpse of the amazing, expansiveness of love that is God. May it be so. Amen.
Ecumenical Window – The Old Stone Church (Cleveland, Ohio)
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