WE ARE BIGGER THAN THIS
Author: Fr. Michael Byron
September 25, 2021
I spent Wednesday morning at a coffee shop with a few other
clergy here in Eden Prairie who are trying to revitalize what once was a pretty
active ecumenical ministerial association. For the second time in a row, there
were exactly four of us present, even though every clergy member in town had
been invited. It was I, Pastor David from St. Andrew’s Lutheran, Pastor Becky
from Eden Prairie United Methodist, and Pastor Trish from the Ecumenical
Community. It was a marvelous exchange, again, but I wondered, again, where was
everybody else? I assume that they were all tending to their own communities or
maybe not seeing much value in spending an hour getting to know one another in
a common purpose.
But ours is a common purpose, and not only among the clergy.
In fact, not even primarily among the clergy. Every religious community in this
place is dedicated to bringing people to an encounter with God; with what is
most true about our own existence; and our future; and the threats of sin and
evil in the world; and the promise of enduring life and happiness together. And
even when our own organizations and institutions differ about how to do that
best, it doesn’t change the common hope, the common goal, the common mission,
the God of all.
I won’t accuse the absent ones of being tribal, but perhaps
of being a bit myopic or indifferent. Whenever belief in Jesus Christ gets
boiled down to the limits of me and mine, of one’s own particular community,
with the correct denominational ID on the sign outside, we have work to do in
better understanding the breadth of Christian discipleship.
Our summons as disciples is not ultimately to preserve “my
church” the way I want it. It’s to be about making God’s Kingdom real and
effective in this world – to which every religious organization is in
service, always. As soon as our commitments – however good and generous and
right they may be – as soon as they take on the purpose of promoting only me
and my people, we’ve lost the way. And very often Catholics can be among the
greatest transgressors of this, by the way that we so often critique one
another for not being the correct enough kind of Catholic. I’ve felt it myself.
I’d often prefer to have coffee with the Presbyterians than with the Catholics
who I think of as so wrong-headed.
And our Scriptures today recall for us that this has been
going on from the very beginning, not only in Jesus’ time but from centuries
earlier. The Old Testament book of Numbers tells of the prophets Eldad and Medad,
spreading the word of God among people without having been formally, ritually
commissioned to do so by the elders. Joshua comes to Moses and says, “Stop
them! They haven’t gone through the proper channels and they aren’t one of us!”
And Moses’ reply:
“Are you jealous? How I’d love the
Lord to send the Spirit on everyone! Who do you imagine you are protecting by
requesting Eldad and Medad to stop talking? Protecting me? Protecting God? Or
merely protecting your own sense of self-importance as specially chosen
preachers? Would that all the people of the Lord be prophets!”
Let’s hear that again:
“Are you jealous? How I’d love the
Lord to send the Spirit on everyone! Who do you imagine you are protecting by
requesting Eldad and Medad to stop talking? Protecting me? Protecting God? Or
merely protecting your own sense of self-importance as specially chosen
preachers? Would that all the people of the Lord be prophets!”
If followers of God are engaged in the work out of a sense
that they attain some sort of status or set-apartness on that account, then
we’ve got hold of the wrong God.
The same sentiment is here again in the gospel of Mark
today… James telling Jesus that he tried to prevent someone from doing a good
and healing work because that person wasn’t a part of the chosen tribe. Not
enough part of the imagined special clan. Not Catholic enough. Not Lutheran
enough. Not American or Christian enough. And Jesus was having none of that –
nor should we.
We assemble here under a specific kind of religious identity
because we enable ourselves and one another to do God’s work when we do so
united as one specific body, and NOT because we are the only people that God
wants or needs to create his kingdom. The minute we begin to believe otherwise,
we begin to serve ourselves – the very antithesis of what the gospel
summons us to be and do.
And Mark’s gospel doesn’t end here. It’s not enough that we
are prone to deceiving ourselves about how singularly important we must be for
following Christ. We also are (or can be) the source of scandal and disbelief
for others who look to us and our communities to be something other than
self-serving, self-absorbed, self-consumed. Especially those others who are
most weak, vulnerable, and alone. Those whom Jesus calls the “little ones,” who
struggle to fend for themselves in this world, and who rightly look to us as
sources of help. We might name them today as Haitians, Guatemalans,
Salvadorans, Afghanis. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in
me to sin…” Well… Here “sin” doesn’t mean enticing people to do bad things. It
means causing them to believe that their trust in God has been in vain because
of the lack of charity from the communities who profess to know and follow him.
If this gospel sounds fairly tough and provocative for us, that is exactly Mark’s
purpose.
Of course we are meant to take care of ourselves, our
families, our communities. But the real gospel is a whole lot bigger and more
inclusive than that. It must not be silent when we leave this Eucharist or this
building. These images of cutting off hands and feet and plucking out eyes are
not literal, but they are not subtle. They tell us what is at stake here. They
intend to grab our attention. Let us pray that they do just that.
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