Sunday 27 September 2009
Open hearts – open church
Numbers 11: 4 – 6, 10 – 16, 24 – 29,
James 5: 13 – 20,
Mark 9: 38 – 50
There is a story told that an earnest theological student sought out a teacher for instruction in the meaning of the gospel. The student spent many years studying the sacred scriptures, but his mind was filled with many questions. Which teacher of theology was the most trustworthy? Which of the scriptures were most reliable and what weight should be given to the various parts of the bible?
He took all these questions to the teacher. Upon hearing all these questions, the teacher immediately threw the student’s books into the fire, refused to answer any questions and dragged the student into the market place where he confronted the student with a poor, crippled beggar. “Learn righteousness,” he admonished the student.
The central question of this part of Mark’s gospel concerns the question of discipleship. Who is the true disciple? What do true disciples do? What kind of attitudes so they display? In the previous week’s gospel readings, Jesus has talked about taking up the cross. In response, the disciples have argued about greatness. For them, discipleship is about being important, or being special, or being in control. So Jesus had to show them the irrelevance of status in the kingdom of God. Disciples of Jesus have learned the humility of servanthood. They have captured the simplicity of a child’s eyes and know how to build trust.
To be frank, the disciples look thick as Mark relates his story of Jesus. The thing we learn from them is that they are not ashamed to Bring to Jesus their faults and deficiencies, because as we see, Jesus is able to help overcome them and grow through them. So today, the disciples confront Jesus with a new issue. “Teacher,” they say, “We saw a man casting out demons in your name whom we forbade, because he was not one of us” In other words, they complain because this outsider is not in ‘the club’! Here are the disciples displaying their worst proprietary tendencies. Perhaps they wanted to keep Jesus and his power all to themselves. Perhaps they were control freaks. Maybe they thought they were the only ones who deserved their positions and so now they needed to defend their patch. Or it may be they thought they were the only ones who new how to do things properly because they had experience. Whatever motivation they had, the outcome was going to be ugly and so once again Jesus has to teach them.
So it is notable that when the disciples ask about the man who is “not one of us”, Jesus does not brush the issue aside. This becomes a teachable moment. Jesus begins to explain that being a disciple means putting aside their pride and opening their hearts to see good in others. He tells them that good works done in his name are to be celebrated whoever does them. Even if the words aren’t quite right, and even if the membership credentials are not in order, disciples can and ought to see the good in others and rejoice that good work is being done. The kind of attitude Jesus is looking for in his disciples is an attitude that ‘gives permission’ rather than ceases control. He wants us to have open and flexible hearts that say, “Yes, we can make room for that person. Yes, that group can try that experiment! Yes, they can share in our ministry! Yes, they are welcome to walk with us.” The key thing here is to be an open community of faith, a church that is prepared to move over to make space for others. That’s what being in a growing church is all about. Every time a new person comes in, we all have to move over to make room. The gospel requires it. Sadly, we will put new people on trial, sometimes for years, before they are allowed to be “one of us”. Sometimes we will get grumpy and proprietorial and give new people a taste of our power and the benefit of proving our superior experience and wisdom around here. But Jesus has particular expectations of his disciples. He wants the boundaries to our church community to be porous. He expects our hearts to be open and flexible and our space to be shared. He wants us to let go of our need to be in control. This is a difficult spiritual journey. It is part of the unfolding of what it is to take up our cross and to follow Jesus. As Joshua says in the first reading, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit in them!” Well that is exactly what has happened in baptism. God has poured out his spirit on us all and our task is to be a church with a wide open door. We are to co-operate with God’s intention to make room for everyone in the household of God.
So what are we to make of the subsequent text; warnings about being a stumbling block, better to have hands and feet cut off and eyes put out, and so on. On the face of it these are hard words. The substantive issue is accountability to one another as members of the body of Christ. While we are to have open and flexible hearts, the other side of the coin is that we are to be accountable to one another and not simple do what ever we like, and Jesus is using harsh language to make his point.
Some years ago I visited the United States of America at a time when interesting escapades of television evangelists were coming to light. TV news crews were coming out with one scandal after another. I thought about the sincere people who had lost money and even their faith because of the actions of some of the TV preachers. I thought about the damage that was done to the whole Church because of the foolish actions of a few. There were people who said, “Well, I didn’t agree with everything they said, but they still did a lot of good.” But was it not more accurate to say that those who invoked the name of Jesus on TV thought they were immune from accountability?
Throughout the gospels, Jesus emphasises relationships of mutuality, which means we are all accountable to one another for the way we live as Christian people and for the way we exercise our gifts in the name of Christ. We are all accountable, and there is a means of measurement: and the measurement is the gospel. We are expected to be Christ for others as we go about our lives and we are to be accountable to the body for the way we go about being Good News. The gospel is a matter of works of compassion from relatively small works of love, such as giving a cold cup of water to someone in Jesus’ name, to world wide movements to eliminate poverty or to address global warming, something our parish mission committee has been bringing to our attention. The Christian life is not a matter of doing anything we want with nothing more to commend us than a muddle-headed warm glow of religion. It is a matter of being faithful to the gospel which puts high value on concrete, visible, practical love in action.
No doubt the early church had to make proper distinctions between those who actually follow Jesus and those who were terribly confused about Jesus. But “not being one of us” is not an adequate criterion for determining who is or who is not a Christian. Knowing that God’s kingdom is bigger than our own particular definitions of it, we can expect to be pleasantly surprised by the rich array of responses which the presence of Christ evokes. As we come to the Lord’s table, be reminded that our faith is a matter of correct doctrine, orthodox belief, clear thinking; but it is also a matter of the small works of love, the giving of a cup of water, as well as the cup of Eucharistic wine, given in the name of the one who so richly offered himself to us that we might offer ourselves to others.
