“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us . . .”
What a message this is for our society: “whoever is not against us is for us . . .”
That’s not the current theme in our society, is it? It’s us against them . . . Democrats against Republicans . . . Illegal immigrants against native born descendants of immigrants . . . Christians against Muslims . . . Fundamentalists against scientists . . . Pick your side and get ready for the brawl.
Cal and Rose Samra, in their book, Holy Hilarity, tell a great story. It seems a certain Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, used to have a problem with parking. Nearby were two other places of worship: a Catholic Cathedral and an Episcopal Cathedral. Parking was hard to come by, and since these two churches met for worship earlier than the Baptists, the Catholics and Episcopalians parked in the lot of the Baptist Church. When the Baptists arrived for worship there was no place for them to park.
However, the Baptists came up with an innovative solution. Members of the Baptist Church spent one Sunday morning putting bumper stickers on all the cars in its parking lot. The bumper stickers proclaimed: “I’m Proud to Be a Southern Baptist.” (1)
I can just see all those Catholic and Episcopal cars advertising, “I’m Proud to Be a Southern Baptist.” But it’s us against them, isn’t it?
At least things are better than they used to be.
Arthur Herman’s book How the Scots Invented the Modern World tells about one incident between two of our most august groups, Episcopalians and Presbyterians.
When one Anglican (Episcopal) missionary tried to preach in the Carolinas, says Herman, the local Presbyterians “disrupted his services, rioted while he preached, started a pack of dogs fighting outside the church, loosed his horse, stole his church key, refused him food and drink, and gave two barrels of whiskey to his congregation.”
I thought that latter was a little amusing. They “gave two barrels of whiskey to his congregation.” As Pastor John Buchanan notes, most Episcopalians he knows would have welcomed that action.
Later, having escaped and returned to civilization, the missionary wrote about his Presbyterian adversaries. He said, “They delight in their present low, loutish, heathenish, hellish life and seem not desirous of changing it.” (2)
I don’t know about you, but that is not exactly the picture I have in my mind of Presbyterians today—“low, loutish, heathenish, hellish.” Of course, maybe you’ve had a different experience. Just, kidding, of course. Times change, though, sometimes for the better.
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us . . .”
Isn’t that just like Jesus? Doesn’t he know we like to huddle in our own little cliques: suburbs and inner city, black and white, Hispanic and Anglo, gays and straights, tattooed or not, religious and atheist, the wealthy and everybody else.
How dare Jesus ruin our fun! We enjoy looking down on people who are not like us, who look at life differently than we do, who have a different set of values.
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us . . .”
The most natural thing in the world is to prefer people who are like you. Sociologists have a name for it--ethnocentrism. People prefer people who are like them. We are uncomfortable around people who are different. It makes no difference how they are different.
A few years back, when everyone dressed in their Sunday best to go to church, anyone wearing blue jeans would have made some people feel uncomfortable. Today, in churches where casual dress is the norm, a person dressed in a suit might make some people feel uncomfortable. We like people who are like us--who look like us, dress like us, come from the same kind of families, share our values.
In the church of the middle to late twentieth century, the main challenge ethnocentrism presented seemed to be racial. Dr. Harold Porter, a Presbyterian pastor in California had some delightful things to say on the Internet about his experience during that era.
Dr. Porter reports that California at that time was growing like a weed. Adjacent to their church a whole city had developed within a decade with a population of 14,000 new people. But there was not one single African?American living in that population of 14,000! They were excluded due to a law the realtors had backed. This law said, in effect, that anyone should be able to sell their house only to those they decided were acceptable. You can guess whom those Californians decided were unacceptable. Remember the old argument about property values?
Dr. Porter says their little local group of clergy decided, as did others around the state, that something must be done. After attempts at persuasion, it was decided in their church to confront the issue head on with a press conference, which surprisingly got a lot of press. Afterward, local realtors were quite angry and one called Dr. Porter the very next day.
“Why didn’t you consult with us before you went to the press?” asked the realtor.
A little intimated, Dr. Porter could only reply, “Why didn’t you first check with the religious community before you developed your racially prejudicial policy?”
It was then, Dr. Porter says, he wore his very first campaign button. It read like this, “Would you let you daughter marry a realtor?” He even sent a button to his father back in Michigan who himself was a realtor. Thankfully, California’s law assuring housing equality came a year later. (3)
It is the most normal thing in the world for people to prefer people who are like them. The problem comes when discomfort turns to opposition or even persecution.
You have heard me mention Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. For our younger members, Fulton J. Sheen was a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church known for his outstanding preaching and especially his work on television and radio. Sheen once told a delightful story about denominational conflicts.
He said that for a while living and working in New York City he had to walk from his residence on Thirty?eighth Street near Park Avenue to his office near the Empire State Building. Each day going and coming he would pass the old home of John Pierpont Morgan, the ultra-wealthy banker. The Lutherans had bought J. P. Morgan’s old home and they were adding a five?story building for office space.
This particular day one of the hardhat workers recognized Sheen and yelled down to him: “What do you think of us Catholics putting up a building for these lousy Methodists?”
Sheen yelled back up: “They’re not Methodists, they’re Lutherans and they are friends of ours.”
One of the hardhats looked up to another hardhat standing on a rafter on the fifth floor and shouted out: “All right boys, put in the rivets.” (4)
The rivets, of course, held the building together. Bishop Sheen, of course, was making a little joke. But there is no joke about all the mischief that has been done through the ages in the name of religion, even in the name of Christianity. We recoil at the barbaric actions of Isis, but they are no more barbaric than some of the atrocities committed by Protestants and Roman Catholics against one another through the ages.
A couple of stories caught my attention recently.
A few years ago, Pakistan’s Daily Times reported on violence at Dawood Engineering College in Karachi. “What started as an exchange of words,” said the Times, “snowballed into a fistfight. At issue was a poster urging students not to fight on campus. The fight was over who would put up the poster.”
I laughed when I read that. I was also amused when I read the second story:
Inside the Erie County (New York) Correctional Facility, James Conlin and Lawrence Mule began arguing over a bag of potato chips. Before long, fists were flying . . . until a man standing nearby stepped in to break up the fight. What’s ironic about that? Conlin and Mule are veteran prison guards; the man who broke up the fight was an inmate. (5)
One of the responsibilities of prison guards is to keep fights from breaking out among prisoners. And here’s an inmate breaking up a fight between two guards.
Among our duties as followers of Jesus is to bring peace to the world. We follow one who has been called the Prince of Peace. Here’s what our text calls us to think about: What happens when we cannot get along among ourselves?
In the General Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales there is a remarkable description of a poor parson, the priest of a rural county church. Here is how Chaucer described him as translated in modern English:
“He was a good man, a person who thought only holy thoughts and did only good deeds. He was very gentle, diligent, and always patient in the face of adversity. He wouldn’t look down on any of his poor parishioners for not donating money to the church. In fact, he’d rather give them what little money he himself had, especially since he lived happily on very little. He didn’t think himself better than others, but he would scold people for being too stubborn in their ways. The county where he lived was large and the houses were spread far apart, but that didn’t stop him from visiting every one of his parishioners, rich or poor. With his walking stick in hand, he’d make his rounds from house to house no matter what, even if he was sick or it was raining. He truly was the embodiment of the teachings of Jesus Christ. He lived as he preached, which set the perfect example for his parishioners, his flock of sheep.”
It’s a rather romantic vision of the priest. But Chaucer sums up his character in these unforgettable words:
He lived by the motto, “. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do? For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .” (6)
To me, that admonition isn’t just for pastors, but for the whole Christian community: “. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do?” We are those whom Christ calls to be light to a dark world. If, rather than bringing light, we bring more darkness, what hope then is there for the world? “. . . if gold rust, what then will iron do? For if [Christians] be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust. . . .”
Jesus said to his disciples, “For whoever is not against us is for us . . .” The church of Jesus Christ is called to be a unifying force in human society, not a divisive one.
Our nation and our world seem to be more and more fragmented. We see it everywhere we look. Government is but one example. Liberals, conservatives, fundamentalists all over this world seem to be at one another’s throats. In the immortal words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all get along?”
There was an ironic story in the Associated Press a few months back. Here is how it read: “Tens of thousands of people packed St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to hear Pope Francis pray for peace in Ukraine. The ceremony was topped by the release of two white peace doves. Unfortunately . . . A seagull and a crow attacked the symbols of peace.” (7) Isn’t that a metaphor for life in today’s world? Who will show us the way out? I hope it will be the people of God.
Our lesson for today shows the disciples acting territorial, jealously guarding their claim to represent Jesus. On one level, this is understandable. In that day and time, disciples were often named after their rabbi. They were responsible for carrying on his legacy. They were identified not as themselves but by the name of their rabbi. That was the nature of the relationship between disciples and rabbis. And it was an exclusive one. It would be an invasion for anyone else to use the name and even the teachings of a particular rabbi if not authorized by him to do so.
The disciples of Jesus encountered a man using the name of Jesus to preach and drive out demons when he was not “authorized” to do so. This offended the disciples and they told him to stop. The disciple John tells Jesus what they had done. It was not that the disciples had found any misuse of the name of Jesus on the part of the man or knew of any personal sin in the man’s life. They just felt he should not be doing this because he was unauthorized. The disciples felt they owned the Jesus franchise.
Jesus said to the disciples to stop hindering the man, for no one could perform a miracle in his name and then speak evil of him publicly. Jesus’ acceptance of this man was reinforced when he said “whoever is not against us is for us.” Though this man did not follow Jesus in exactly the same way or capacity the disciples did, he nevertheless followed him.
In verse 41 Jesus broadens his words to include actions besides casting out demons. Even one who performs the smallest act of hospitality in his name, he said, such as giving someone a drink of water because they belong to him will not lose his reward. Jesus had no interest in awarding exclusive franchises. His desire was to develop relationships with people, not in causing divisions between them. If the gold rust, what then the iron . . . ? We are those called to bring Christ’s peace to the world. How can we bring peace if we are ourselves at strife?
Some of you may know the story behind the Christ of the Andes. In 1899 the people of Argentina and Chile were poised for war. Then an Argentine bishop appealed for peace between the two countries. A Chilean bishop took up his cause, and the dispute was submitted to King Edward VII, whose decision settled the quarrel. The unused guns from both countries were then melted down to be used in a colossal statue of Christ, erected on a mountain range between the two countries. That is our legacy as Christ’s followers. May we be representatives of peace with all people.
1. (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 1999), pp. 17-18.
2. http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2003/092803.html.
3. http://www.mtauburnpresby.org/sermons/2006_07_16.html.
4. Treasure in Clay The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen (Garden City, NY:Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980), pp. 306-307.
5. Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader, Bathroom Readers’ Institute, (Kindle Edition).
6. http://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/lit/the-canterbury-tales/general prologue/page_13.html.
7. Reader’s Digest (Reader’s Digest USA).