“The ‘battle lines’ are drawn”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, August 12, 2023
Mark 9:30-41 (Forward, p. 14) CEV p. 1039
It is true that Jesus, and Christianity in general, draws up lines of demarcation, ‘battle lines’ if you will. Choices have to be made and in these choices there can be no neutral ground, no ‘no man’s land’. A person is on either one side or the other.
However, however these ‘battle lines’ are not always quite what we think they are. Early in today’s passage, we read that the disciples, while on the way, were arguing about who was greatest in the kingdom. Here then, in respond, Jesus absolutely bursts their balloons of self-importance—and does so, in two ways.
To start with, He talks about the place of honour and importance, as being that of a slave, a person who devotes his or her life to serving others. Yuck. That entire notion would have been utterly distasteful to them.
And secondly, Jesus has a child stand near Him, thereby giving the child the place of honour—the very place that each of the disciples had been scrambling to fill. Jesus takes a child, basically another ‘nobody’ in that society in terms of rights and rights and puts that child ahead of all of them. Talk about a come down, another one!
So, here is a battleground that we are still involved in, the battleground between personal privilege, control and ambition on the one hand and the sometimes thankless task of serving others on the other. And yes, not to despise or put down anyone or see them as ‘nobodies’ or as unimportant. This then, is a personal battle ground.
But then there is a corporate battle ground, one than is no less with us. The apostle John spots someone else casting out demons, and because he wasn’t ‘one of us’, tells him to stop. John, out of pride or loyalty to the group, is concerned about competition. But Jesus doesn’t see the kingdom in those terms. With Him, anyone who is ‘on board’, who is pursuing the same end goals, is free to cooperate and join in the effort. This is quite a rebuke to many of us Christians over the years, for we have marginalized or avoided others ‘not of our particular group’ and have often refused to
work with them. This has included our fellow Christians from other denominations, and people from other faith groups—or not. Somehow, for us, being of similar goals was not enough.
But here’s a bit of a ‘fly in the ointment’, the kind of thing that critics of the gospel love to point out. In the gospel of Luke (Luke 9:50) we hear Jesus saying the same thing as in today’s passage from Mark. And yet, in the very same gospel, the gospel of Luke (Luke 11:23), we find Jesus telling His disciples, “If you are not on my side, you are against me. If you don’t gather in the crop with me, you scatter it.” Many would like to point out this as an obvious contraction, and yet it’s not. The first utterance has to do with how we assess others, and whether we will be willing to work with them or not. It’s a kind of corporate thing.
In this latter passage, however, it is a personal thing. Here it has an application to the individual, to you and I as individual believers and followers of Jesus Christ. Are we dedicated to working with and for Him? Are we gathering in the ‘crop’ on the one hand, or in essence, doing nothing, and allowing the crop to scatter and be wasted, on the other? Once again, there is a battle line drawn. Once again, there can be no neutrality.
Jesus has this incredible, and often disturbing knack of asking difficult and disturbing questions of us believers. He asks us where we stand, both corporately and personally, and awaits our answer. I’m afraid that is precisely what the Christian life is all about, namely deciding just how we will answer His questions, which we must do day by day.
Forward notes: “Whoever is not against us is for us” (verse 40).
“In this passage, the disciples anxiously seek, like all followers, to control the situation. ‘We tried to stop him, because he wasn’t following us’ (Mark 9:38). I will admit to more times like that in my ministry than I should have allowed. It is a matter of control—and forgetting who is truly in control.
“Fortunately, at this point in Scripture, the proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God had not ossified into the church. When movements become institutions, rules often take precedence over Good News. Think about how often we get upset when somebody ‘not on the committee’ does
something to revitalize the church. We find it challenging to recognize partners in Good News when they don’t bear the right label.
“Yet, it is the good deed that counts. As Jesus says, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me’ (Mark 9:37). It is that simple. Why are we so blind or stubborn?”
Moving Forward: “How much more powerful would our witness be if we welcomed into our group all who are doing good deeds?”