Readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Numbers 11:25-29
Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14
James 5:1-6
Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
In our divided and divisive times, this weekend’s Gospel should give all of us pause. It poses some hard questions about how we judge others – and asks us to look more closely at how we judge – or fail to judge – ourselves.
Should we be mistrustful or suspicious toward people who aren’t like us? Should we be defensive and territorial? Doesn’t the good work of God carry a copyright? Maybe not.
After John described how Jesus’s apostles tried to prevent someone from driving out demons in Christ’s name – because, as he put it, “he does not follow us”– Jesus disagreed. He proposed another approach.
“Do not prevent him,” he replied. “There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”
With that, Christ not only turned down the temperature in what was undoubtedly a heated exchange among competing exorcists, but also offered an invaluable lesson in tolerance and understanding: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” In effect, he was saying: Anyone seeking to do good in the name of Jesus should not be prevented or interrupted. Who knows how God might work?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers this insight: “Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him,” which can include both the physical world and other people (CCC 31).
Put another way, God often writes straight in crooked lines. You can never predict how he might seek to work in the world, or what instruments he might use.
More pointedly, Jesus in this episode went on to suggest that the difficulty isn’t necessarily other people. In fact, he said, we should look more closely in the mirror. Maybe the real problem is closer than you realize.
Consider what might be causing you to sin. Is your hand a problem? Cut if off. Your foot? Cut it off. Your eye? Pluck it out. Again and again, Jesus challenged his followers not to spend so much time concerned with the missteps of others, but to look more closely at their own weaknesses, faults, limitations, sins.
You think other people are the issue? Think again.
There are powerful and provocative lessons here for our own time, when so much of our culture (especially, these days, our politics) is reduced to tribal factions, disputes and squabbling sides. So many of us are often quick to label others, to be simplistic or paint people in broad strokes. We believe half-truths and misinformation, or only listen to those who tell us what we want to hear.
But one of the important lessons of this Gospel is that seeking to pigeonhole the other can lead us to pay less attention to ourselves and our own shortcomings. That has to stop. We need to begin by working on our own conversion.
Do we spend too much time judging people outside our own tribe and finding fault simply because they aren’t a part of our group?
What are our own deficiencies and weaknesses that need to be removed, vanquished, amputated?
How can we better build up the Kingdom of God, beginning with our own choices, actions and habits?
Among other things, Christ’s teachings here stand as a vivid lesson in humility, by making clear to the apostles (and us) that those of us who think we have all the answers are usually wrong – and by asserting that the important work of conversion begins close to home. Changing the world begins with changing ourselves.
Deacon Greg Kandra is an award-winning author and journalist, and creator of the blog “The Deacon’s Bench.”
