Not One of Us

Text: Mark 9:33-41

The disciples of Jesus look dumb in Mark’s Gospel. Maybe a kinder and gentler way to say it would be that the disciples of Jesus are myopic in Mark. You might push back, “How can you say that, Gary? Didn’t they see clearly enough to leave everything behind and follow him?” The answer to those questions follow. Stay tuned.

         I have an annoying device on my fancy new “smart” phone that rings like a muffled bell to remind me of an upcoming appointment. It rings and then it is silent just long enough for me to forget about it, then it rings again. By the third time, I know I’m already late for my meeting and I’m ready to place this fancy piece of technology on the railroad tracks outside Cove. 

         There is a verbal bell in Mark’s Gospel that sounds three times trying to get the disciples’ attention and it never succeeds. The bell is a warning from Jesus telling them what they do not want to know. It warns them that the road ahead will be filled with potholes of suffering and sacrifice. The road leads to Jerusalem—a geographical curse word for Mark, a place where prophets are spit upon, where evil prevails and where the Son of Man will die.

         Jesus warns his disciples: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him; and three days later he will rise” (9:31). A version of this same warning bell sounds three times in Mark’s Gospel and what do the Terrific Twelve do when they hear it? Nothing. Mark tells us, “They did not understand what he said, and were afraid to ask” (9:32). What’s not to understand? And, if unclear, why not ask the person issuing the warning?

         Just when it seems Mark could not cast the disciples in a more disparaging light, it gets worse. Inside the house in Capernaum, Jesus asks them this conversation stopper: “What were you arguing about on the way?” (9:33). You can feel them squirming. Jesus has just shared his most intimate, confidential thoughts with his disciples, has shared a vision of the terror and hope ahead, and what do they do? They debate which one among them is the greatest disciple. They send their togas out to be dry cleaned and polish their sandals, so that they will look good sitting at the head table at the heavenly banquet.

         Not willing to give up on this less-than-insightful-apprentices, Jesus has yet another talk with them. To paraphrase Jesus here, he says: “I’ll tell you how to be great. Serve anyone and everyone in sight. People who push to the front of the line will find themselves catapulted to the rear. Those who never hope to see the front will suddenly be first in line” (9:35-7). Earlier, Jesus told the Twelve that those who seek life will lose it (8:35); the same is true for status. You gain status in the sight of God, says Jesus, not by debating greatness but by doing great things for others, especially for those who can never return the favor.   

         Anne Lamott offers her own twist of Jesus’ words to the Twelve. She writes: “We're at the beginning of human and personal evolution. Whole parts of the world don't even think women are people. So now, after an appropriate time of being stunned and in despair, we sigh and help each other back to our feet. Maybe we ask God for help. We do the next right thing. We register voters and march. We buy or cook a bunch of food for the local homeless. We return phone calls, library books, smiles. We donate money. We . . . say hello gently to everyone, even strange lonely people who scare us. We go to the market and flirt with old people who seem lonely. It can’t be enough but it will be.

         “I have no answers but know one last thing that is true: Life is much wilder, sweeter, heartbreaking, weirder, richer, more insane, awful, beautiful and profound than we were prepared for as children or that I am comfortable with. The paradox is that in the face of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of taking in beauty, in actively being people of goodness and mercy and outreach, we are saved” (May 2022, blog).

         From reading Mark, I can imagine the Terrific Twelve listening to those inspiring words from Anne and asking, “Now what does she mean?” Sigh. Look for one outstanding student among the disciples in Mark’s Gospel and you won’t find one, not one. Even so, Jesus keeps trying to teach them.

         Recognizing that his pithy sayings have not made much of a difference, Jesus uses an old trick of the prophets. He uses a visual illustration. He moves a child center stage and says, “Whoever receives a child like this one in my name receives me and whoever receives me also receives the one who sent me” (9:37). Given the low estimation of children of the day – they were not to be seen or heard – this enacted parable should have made perfect sense to the Twelve. 

         A “child” in Jesus’ time was more akin to an outcast, a person we avoid intentionally, than to an infant whom church members coo over in a nursery. Holding a living symbol of the very least of these in society, Jesus speaks about those in society, no matter their age, who are always last in line and are valued the least by society. Jesus asks his disciples to be great by extending their hands and hearts to those who often feel only the back of the hand and the hardness of the human heart.  

         Sounding like a 21st century Mark, the late renegade Mississippi preacher Will Campbell, challenged the church to pay attention to this enacted parable of Jesus. About those living without a home in America, Will writes:

         For the past few weeks, I’ve been out peddling books. . . In every city I visited I inquired as to the number of people living on the streets. Then I asked how many churches, synagogues, and mosques there were. I was not too surprised to learn that in most cities there are about the same number of houseless people as there are congregations.

         Quite often when I make a speech to a church group . . . someone will say, “You complain a lot about the faithlessness of the steeples, but you never tell us what we can do to make the world better.”

         Well, how about this: Let every congregation adopt one person who lives on the streets. Ask no questions as to the worthiness of these people. Who among us is worthy? Just find them lodging, a job, friends--give them hope. 

          “But how would we afford it?”

           `The same way you afford your tall steeples, rich edifices, preachers’ salaries, and all the rest. With tithes and offerings” (Soul among Lions, pp. 15-16).

Jesus pleads with the Twelve to welcome “children” – the unnoticed, neglected, outsiders – in the same way they have welcomed him into their lives. And, just as this lesson is or sadly, probably, is not sinking in, one of the disciples comes running up to Jesus. Sounding like a jealous schoolboy, he proudly reports to Jesus: “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and as he wasnot one of us, we tried to stop him” (9:38).

         You just have to shake your head. Not one of us? Jesus was just holding a child before them, a living, breathing symbol in his society of not one of us. Jesus had just told the Terrific Twelve to welcome anyone with and everyone considered to be not one of us. 

         There are few words that are uglier in any language and are still used far too often today than “He was not one of us.” The disciples discover someone who is bringing wholeness to broken lives and giving all the credit to Jesus for the healing. Do they respond, “Hallelujah! The lame can walk. The blind can see. The mentally confused can think straight again” and throw this healer a party? No. They say, “Rabbi, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he was not one of us.”  

         Earlier in Mark, the Twelve could not heal a child, even though Jesus had given them the power to do so (9:14-29). Now, when someone outside the inner circle casts out the demonic in Jesus’ name, the Terrific Twelve close ranks and seek a divine “cease and desist” restraining order. But Jesus will have none of their xenophobia. He shakes his head and responds, “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” (9:29). Discipleship, in Mark, is not about people following us, becoming more like us; no, it is about all of us following the One who calls us: “Whoever then is not against us is for us” (9:40). 

         I have spent much of my adult life studying and writing about the Gospel of Mark. I am indebted to Mark because whenever I am feeling like an absolute failure as an apprentice of Jesus, I can look at the disciples and not feel so alone. When I am feeling overly confident about how best to live the Christian life, I am reminded that there are those outside the church who have much to teach me.

         It is clear in Mark’s Gospel that the glory of God awaits those who live great lives, live accented by loving gladly even ones we are told not to love, by forgiving generously even ones who have done us serious harm, by giving all with wild abandon to help the ones everyone else forgets or ignores. The glory of God awaits those who forever eliminate the phrase, “not one of us,” from their vocabularies.

         When we live that great kind of Jesus life, says Mark, then great things await us.

         Here then is wishing us all a great life!

                  AMEN