Whoever is not against us is for us
Ordinary Sunday 26: 1st October, 2006
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
'Whoever is not against us is for us'. (Mk 9:40)
This positive and generous assertion comes from the Lord in the context of a dispute about a healer not known to the disciples, doing just the same sorts of things as they were. It did not seem to worry the Lord at all. There is a similar story in our Old Testament lesson today where the attitude of Moses is just the same. God's grace and God's gifts can operate outside of the camp, beyond our institutional boundaries. This might be unsettling or even disappointing but it should not come as a surprise. The disciples are therefore warned that instead of boundary riding they should rather be careful not themselves to be a stumbling block, or be careful not to stumble through their own shortcomings.
These are hard sayings. It would be interesting to speculate on the implications for us if the teaching had instead been 'Those who are not for us are against us'. That of course is a much more defensive position – there is a real difference – and the world that could comfortably have been described as ours would be very much smaller.
Readers of The Age over the past week or so would have been aware of that paper's fairly vigorous examination of a particular very exclusive Christian group, which has drawn its boundaries very close indeed. Such groups from any religious tradition pose substantial questions and challenges for their wider communities. In these times, the confronting nature of such groups might be seen in doctrinal or political or even security terms. It has been helpful to be reminded that the Christian tradition is as capable as Islam of providing inspiration for such ideas.
Insofar as we ourselves are very different in our own approach to the implications of faith and community and our wider interactions, that more inclusive rather than exclusive approach itself requires a grounded and informed understanding on a solid theological framework. It is not a matter of just being nice, but more a coming to a clear perception of what God is calling God's people to be. What is the Christian community going to be like? In general? In this particular place?
Coming at that issue from another angle, our ongoing readings from the letter of James move today into the sort of territory that encouraged medieval peasants' revolts. It is a blistering indictment of uncaring and corrupt wealthy people who have spent a lifetime cheating and hoarding and being indifferent to suffering. Their time of reckoning is coming, says James, and it will be grim. This is of course another way of underling his fundamental teaching that how we actually live as people who profess a Christian faith, not just what we say we believe, is of the utmost importance. In the gospel today it was pointed out that even offering a glass of water – such a tiny action – would be taken as an indicator of a good heart. The patterns of a lifetime are made up of thousands of such small actions and intentions, either good or not good.
Behind James's epistle is the clear presumption that God hears the cry of the poor. That injustice or indifference do not go un-noticed by God: that God cares about the sort of community we are, locally or indeed worldwide. Many individual Christians grapple with that, and many do indeed attempt to respond to it.
The simple directness of the appeal of teachings like 'Inasmuch as you do it to the least of these, you do it to me' has always found those who will respond through the generations. Every generation produces them; many parishes this included have people who have done this constantly in a lifetime of service. We all need this encouragement and example as we consider how we ourselves might appropriately try to live this out.
This week, we will remember the feast day of Francis of Assisi on Wednesday. Now here was someone who is held in universally high regard who was very much inclined to take gospel verses and gospel examples seriously and literally. This rich young man did not turn away sorrowfully when confronted with the challenge of the person of Jesus Christ. Instead his life was completely turned around. He literally gave up the clothes on his back. He literally sought out to embrace the lepers and the outcasts. He literally sent his followers out two by two to tell the good news. He literally found joy and wonderful beauty in God's good creation. He literally sought to treat his enemy as brother and with respect. He was a challenge to those who would rather that things stayed exactly as they were. He is a challenge.
Francis responded to what he clearly understood to be his call in the context of his own particular community and his own particular time. Somehow or other though, he perhaps more than any other saint in the whole history of the Church is joined with the first band of disciples in offering the clearest of encouragements for every succeeding generation. The greatest of saints all point to a new life of radical Christian vision and reform. Francis in another generation might have been the occasion for a Reformation and division. In his time he brought astonishing renewal to a tired institution. That was 700 years and more ago. But coming as he does from way behind the troubles and religious battles of more recent centuries, here we have a major recognised holy person from our common undivided spiritual and intellectual past who still is able to have impact.
The key to that impact is the utter simplicity of what he said and did. He was always pointing directly to the life, example and teachings of Jesus. He attempted to do that with a happy approach to life and to the world that comes across as honest and uncontrived, even as it was physically hard and sacrificial.
So Francis lived out Christian values that remain fresh and invigorating. He was very determined in this. You might really say that he was a fundamentalist then too. That is what is so confronting about him, as well as being so very appealing. Priorities of life are what are at issue for him, all flowing out of a deep love for God and a joyful recognition of God's love.
So what is so different about this major figure of the faith who has been our inspiration for a blessing of the animals at the 9.30 mass – with all the happy chaos that that implies – and the grim certainties of some of those other possible fundamentalists with whom we began? Positively speaking, what might therefore characterise disciples of the Lord in this tradition?
It has to be tied up with a deeper understanding of just what 'Those who are not against us are for us' might mean – a broader understanding of community. It will involve a further exploration of what the Incarnation, that child, Son of God yet born of Mary, the 'Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us', means for our attitude to the world and all creation. It will involve a deeper search into that most confronting teaching about genuinely being neighbour to others. It will have to face directly that part of the Lord's Prayer that asks for God's forgiveness for us, even as we seek to forgive others. And it will certainly include those happy and hospitable characteristics of both God and God's people at their best, that have to do with care and love and grace.
The Lord be with you.
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