Outside In
Sermon based on Mark 9:38-50
by Rev. Rick Thompson
Can you imagine this? It’s the
championship football game, and the first-string quarterback has gotten
hurt, and the second-string quarterback comes in. He throws twelve
passes, and completes none—except for the three intercepted by
opponents. It’s late in the 4th quarter, and the team needs
two scores to win the game. Coach sends in the third-stringer, who’s
never played one play in his whole career. In fact, when he’s announced
to the crowd, the cry goes up, “Who’s he?” and the fans loudly question
the coach’s sanity. And, in story-book fashion, the unknown quarterback
leads the team to victory.
Or how about this one? The math
professor posts a nearly-impossible problem, and assigns it to the class
as homework. “I’ll give an ‘A’ for the semester to the first student to
solve this problem. You won’t have to take the final, or even come to
another class.” All night, the students work furiously, scratching
their heads and racking their brains to find the solution. The top
student in the class presents his solution—and it’s wrong. The
next-brightest student falls short also. There’s only one student who
presents a correct solution—and it’s the one who hasn’t said a word all
semester, whose name no one knows, who seemed to be absorbing nothing
all semester. And the rest of the class grumbles, “She must have
cheated; there’s no way she could have known the solution
to that one!”
And here’s another one, from the
Bible. The disciples of Jesus had encountered a spirit-possessed boy
and his distraught father. To our modern ears, it sounds like the boy
suffered from epilepsy. After traveling with Jesus for some time now,
learning from him, watching him display his power, they tried to cast
out the demon and heal the boy. They failed. In front of a crowd of
people, they failed miserably.
But there was another one who
didn’t fail; we read about him in today’s Gospel.
He’s a free-lance healer, and he has a
successful ministry, an effective ministry, in the name of Jesus.
And then, today, we read, “John
said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name,
and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ “He’s
not one of ‘us’” is the complaint. And, what’s more, he’s
doing what the disciples were unable to do. And they don’t like
it; the disciples don’t like it one bit!
The disciples didn’t like it, and the church doesn’t always like
it, either, when someone operates outside the box. And that’s the
problem here, isn’t it? “He’s not following us, Jesus! We told
him to stop, Jesus, but he wouldn’t! He’s just not doing it our way.
He’s not one of us, Jesus! So tell him to stop, right now!”
Like the disciples in
this story of “the unknown exorcist,” the church worries about who’s in
and who’s out, who’s doing the work of God and who’s not. And the
church is convinced that anyone not doing it their way is not
doing it God’s way, either.
But Jesus isn’t
persuaded. Jesus says, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of
power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of
me. Whoever is not against us is for us.” Jesus has a different idea.
So instead of stopping the wandering healer, he stops the disciples.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jesus insists. “If he’s healing in my name,
isn’t that a good thing?”
Well, the disciples
aren’t so sure that’s a good thing—and neither is the church.
“This man is not
following us,” they complained—we complain. We want
others to follow Jesus in the same way we do. We want to be part of the
church our way, or not be part of the church at all. There’s was
no room in our view of the church for someone who has a different style
of following Jesus. We want every disciple to be like us, to look like
us, to think like us, to act like us. That’s the temptation of the
church, isn’t it? We only allow room in our little group, OUR
church, for insiders!
But Jesus refuses to accept that argument. He says there is
also room in his church for the ones the church would rather
keep on the outside. And whose church is it, anyway? It’s
Jesus’ church isn’t it—not the disciples’ church?
After all, it was
Jesus who died for the church, wasn’t it? And wasn’t it Jesus
who rose from the dead, and empowered the church, and gave the
church instructions to spread the good news? To the best of my
knowledge, there’s no requirement that all disciples look alike, think
alike, and act alike. The only requirements are that disciples
follow Jesus and love one another!
There’s trouble when the
disciples start thinking that one must be exactly like us in order to
follow Jesus. There’s trouble when we decide that our way of
being church is the only possible way there is!
There’s trouble,
because that’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus opens the church to
all sorts of people whom we would rather exclude. It could be a
renegade exorcist, or it could be a person of another color, or
language, or with different political views. It might be one who
dresses differently, or is in a different social class, or whose sexual
orientation differs from ours. It could be someone who has a different
idea about how the church ought to operate. We have the urge to shut
lots of folks out, but Jesus, on the other hand, says, “Stop! Let
them in! They can follow me, too, even if they don’t do it your
way!”
You see, God is
willing—much more willing—to accept and welcome outsiders than we
are.
So I wonder--who’s the
renegade exorcist in our world?, the one we might label as a renegade?
Who’s the one we’d like to keep on the outside, but God keeps inviting
and welcoming that one in? Who’s the one doing God’s work, even though
we would prefer to think he or she is opposed to Jesus?
I’m a little hesitant
to say this, but I will.
I have to tell you
that I’ve never had much use for the Pentecostal brand of Christianity.
I disagree significantly with their theology. I have lots of issues
with the way they read the Bible, and I especially think they misread
the Bible’s teaching on spiritual gifts. I don’t agree with the way
they view the church, and I think the Pentecostal church places an
excessive emphasis on the role of emotion in worship and in Christian
spirituality. And, besides that, I’ve had more than one bad experience
in conversation with Pentecostal Christians, where I felt judged to have
a second-rate faith.
A few years ago, my
uncle Bob lay dying in a
Madison hospital. He was nearing the end of a long and courageous
battle with multiple sclerosis that lasted over 40 years. His body and
spirit were wearing out. He was ready to die.
I was in Madison
for that weekend, for our son’s wedding. I thought I might visit him
last Sunday, after the hub-bub of the wedding had subsided. But Uncle
Bob died on Saturday morning.
There was a pastor,
thought, who did visit his Uncle Bob before Bob died. It was my
cousin David. David is a Pentecostal pastor—one of those whose theology
makes me raise my eyebrows. But that day, it was a Pentecostal pastor
who did the work of God—who brought a word of life into a place of
death, who brought the comfort of God’s promises and the promise of
God’s peace.
We read it in our
text, didn’t we: “Jesus,” John complained, “there’s an outsider
casting out demons in your name!”
And we heard Jesus
reply, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”
Like my cousin David.
Like countless people whom we would prefer to keep on the outside,
because they’re not like us.
It seems that Jesus is
teaching us something today, isn’t he. Jesus is teaching us that God
works in people and places we wouldn’t expect—even those we think are on
the “outside”.
Jesus is teaching us
about the surprising, expansive, welcoming grace of God.
Jesus is teaching us
that we dare not presume on God’s grace. We dare not presume that grace
is only for us. We dare not presume that God’s grace is withheld
from outsiders.
Yes, Jesus is teaching
us something today. He’s teaching us that, in the world God is
creating, those we think are on the outside are the ones God
welcomes in!
That’s what Jesus is
teaching us. “I work through and welcome outsiders!” Jesus insists.
And then he asks us:
“Will we join me in welcoming them—welcoming outsiders in?”
