Text: Mark 9:38-41
Sometimes the best thing a preacher can do is to be real and authentic.
And so I’m going to confess that I’m really struggling with how to share this text with you this week.
This fall, we are loosely following the lectionary – the three-year cycle of texts that help us to explore the fullness of the scripture. Rather than just preaching on my favorite texts each week, the lectionary challenges us to think outside of our comfort zone.
But we also are building up to our Stewardship Sunday at the end of this month, and as we organized the texts and the themes, we wanted to ask the question – Are you able to support the ministry of others? Are you able to invest in the work of your fellow siblings in Christ – even if you don’t always do things the same way? Are you able to encourage people you disagree with?
I still want to preach that sermon.
But I admit that it is harder to preach today than it was a month ago or a year ago.
And that is because what we see all around us, in both the church and our larger political landscape and indeed in our world, is a whole lot of us vs. them mentality.
I was sitting at an event in Chicago two weeks ago with other members of the General Conference delegation from our jurisdiction. And there is this particular person with whom I have a very difficult time finding any common ground. They weren’t even sitting at the table with me, but I could see them across the room and every single time they caught my attention, I could feel my anxiety rise. My heart beat faster. My chest clenched up a bit.
I realized that I see this person as my enemy.
We are on the same team.
We both love the United Methodist Church.
And yet everything we believe appears to be so diametrically opposed… and not only that, but I feel like their position actually harms people I love within the church.
I don’t want them to win.
And I don’t know what to do about that and how it is impacting my own soul.
Politics is the social life that we share together and we have witnessed our political discourse crumble to pieces.
In these past few weeks, anyone who has tried to say something about what is happening in our nation, particularly around the Supreme Court – for or against it – is immediately swarmed by people who both criticize their position and criticize them for not going far enough.
We are so entrenched that we cannot even see clearly.
The red side and the blue side are enemies and the slightest mention of anything political and you can watch a room fill with tension as people discern when to engage and how in order to be victorious.
But, friends, there simply have not been any winners in these political battles.
We have all lost.
As we have been following the gospel of Mark this fall, we come to a moment of struggle for the disciples. They have worked so closely with Jesus and even though they don’t always get it completely right, they understand who their tribe is.
To use a sports metaphor, Jesus is the coach and they can point to the other eleven players.
They know who their teammates are.
But as our pericope begins, the disciple John tells Jesus about how he and some other disciples noticed these other people who were doing ministry in his name. Specifically, they were casting out demons, something that the disciples themselves had just failed to do successfully a few verses earlier.
What was their very first response to encountering these people?
Resentment. Hostility.
They tried to stop them.
If they aren’t part of our team, our tribe, we have to shut them down.
Into our tribalism and partisanship, into our entrenchment and division, Christ speaks.
From the message translation:
“No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side.”
Whoever is not against us is for us.
Those are really hard words to hear when you feel like you are on the battlefield.
They are hard words to hear when you consider someone your enemy.
They are especially hard words to hear when you look at the actions or the policies or the attitudes of someone and you actually believe that they will harm you or people you love or things you care about.
And maybe that is why I have struggled so much with this text this week.
Because there are bigger issues out there in the world than simply accepting or encouraging the ministry of someone who sets up communion a different way that I do.
I think our division is so intense because we believe there are issues of life and death, holiness and faithfulness, justice and covenant, on the line as a result of the direction we take… from either side.
But I wonder if what Jesus is really calling us to in this passage is a different way of engaging those battles.
What if instead of seeing those on the other side of the aisle or the other side of the church or in another part of this world as enemies, we saw them first as allies.
Jesus says that you demonstrate you are on his side by giving others a cup of water, giving the hungry food, clothing the naked, comforting the mourning.
Not by destroying those with whom you disagree.
If we continue just a bit farther in this chapter, Jesus talks about how if your hand or foot or eye causes you to stumble, cut it off. And then he reminds us that everyone will go through a refining fire sooner or later… and we need to consider how our actions demonstrate our faithfulness.
I think Jesus is calling us to get busy doing good, to worry about our own actions and our own failings, and to let God sort out the rest.
I got to thinking about my friend, Doug, as I thought about this work.
Doug was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor in the community that I first served in Marengo.
While we are both Christian, our two traditions have very different understandings of communion, ordination, and the place of women in the church.
The very first time I met Doug, I admit I had a lot of anxiety.
This was a person whose faith taught him that I couldn’t and shouldn’t be a pastor.
Everything in my being was preparing for an argument or to figure out a way to defend myself and my personhood. I had already drawn lines in the sand. I had already thought of him as a potential enemy.
Do you know what Doug wanted to talk about?
He wanted to ask if I would be willing to join him and some other pastors for breakfast every Wednesday morning to talk about the lectionary.
He didn’t see my as an opponent or someone he had to convince, but as an ally, a colleague, a friend.
He was offering me a cup of water…. Or coffee in this instance, in the name of Christ.
He was doing ministry in Jesus’ name.
And he recognized that I was doing the same.
We shared breakfast every Wednesday morning for four years.
And when we are invited to this table, we are called to set aside our weapons and our armor and to see people we believed to be enemies as brothers and sisters.
We will not agree.
We will not do things the same.
We might even believe that the actions of another person might harm our witness or people we love and care about.
But if we engage one another in love…
If we greet them in the name of Christ…
If we offer them a cup of water…
If we open ourselves to allow them to do the same for us…
Then at the very least we are preserving that place in our own souls that dies a little bit every time we consider someone to be our enemy.
Once we allow someone to sit with us at the table and break bread and share a meal, we discover that there are new ways to have a conversation about our differences.
We find there are good things that we can do together in Christ’s name.
And we have a chance to build the kind of trust and relationship that will allow us to truly hold one another accountable for our actions. We will finally have the authority and respect in one another’s life to call out actions that are done in the name of Christ that harms the body. And we can do so in love, with compassion, trusting and knowing that we are on the same team and that if our sister or brother is calling us to account it is because they want what is best for not only our own soul, but for the church and the world that we share.
So are you able to invite someone you disagree with to the table?
Are you able to point out the good things they do in Christ’s name?
Are you able to encourage them and love them so that one day you can both hold one another accountable?
May it be so.
