This teaching was given to 8th Day Faith Community on September 29, 2024.

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “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. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. Mark 9:38-42

I first want to start by saying the Bible has some strange stuff in it. Jesus says some really challenging things, but he also says some really weird stuff as well. We tend to ignore the hard stuff and the strange stuff because it makes us feel a little uncomfortable. Rich people don’t want to take seriously Jesus’ teachings on money. Universalists don’t want to take seriously Jesus’ teachings on hell. Slackers like me don’t want to take seriously Jesus’ demands on our total commitment.

We want our Savior to be a comforter, a nurturer, a friend. We want him to be understandable. But the truth is Jesus is often hard to understand and even hard to explain to others.

I remember when I was younger I regularly engaged in forms of evangelism: I picked up hitchhikers, I walked the streets, and I tried to talk to people about their lives, their views on religion or politics, and sometimes, their beliefs about Jesus. I had some incredible conversations and it was in some of these conversations that I got first hand feedback about some of the strange things Jesus said or taught or even did. Why did Jesus compare the Canaanite woman with a dog? Or why did Jesus point to a Roman centurion, who was oppressing the Jews, as an example of faith? These are good questions! I am not sure I had good answers, but the joy is always in the wrestling with these hard passages.

With that in mind, let’s look at our passage. To understand what is happening here we have to recall the earlier part of chapter 9 where Jesus takes three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, up to a mountaintop where he appears with Moses and Elijah and Jesus is transfigured before them. It is a powerful and transformative moment, but it comes to an abrupt end when the disciples insert themselves into the event, asserting that they could build tents to honor them.

Then, when Jesus and the three disciples come back down from the mountain to join the rest of the disciples they find a demon-possessed boy who remained possessed because the disciples who had been left behind could not deliver him from the demon. Jesus’ frustration with the disciples boils over and he accuses the disciples of being a faithless generation. And he ultimately casts out the demon himself.

Now, to our text, the disciples see someone who is not in their group driving out demons. Either out of jealousy or shame, they essentially ask Jesus to crack down on the person who is doing what they had failed to do.

The disciples exhibit what we have seen done by those in positions of power from the beginning of time: they are protecting their turf. They are protecting their perceived role and their positions that are so close to power. They have been selected by Jesus to be the elite of a new movement. They were now part of a special club and that should come with some perqs, namely, that all public displays of power should flow through them. Yes, they were unable to actually do it when presented the chance just a few verses ago. And yes, this other person, NOT in their group, is obviously much more effective at this. But still, this other person does not belong! He is not with us! Most importantly, what if people stop coming to the disciples and start going to this other guy? Even more, what if Jesus takes a liking to him and replaces one of them since he is better at exorcisms than they are?

Territorialism. Turf protection. This blinds us from achieving justice and liberation. This is what turns us into mindless bureaucrats more interested in preserving our own power than in using that power to achieve creative and just ends.

I remember when I worked on Capitol Hill I worked in a coalition on criminal justice reform. In 2006 through 2008 I worked on a bill to support the reentry of returning citizens called the Second Chance Act. The Second Chance Act provides crucial resources to people coming out of prison so that they have a real opportunity to rebuild their lives. It is still being funded. It is a good bill.

But in 2007 the bill was stuck. And do you know why? Because two staffers didn’t like each other. Seriously, that was it. A very long story made short, one staffer in a key office refused to let the bill proceed through the relevant committee because another staffer outside the committee made that key staffer angry. And he was angry because the bill should have “belonged” to the committee in the first place.

This was sheer territorialism. And the bill stayed stuck for months. We finally got it unstuck when we got a high-ranking staff person for Speaker Pelosi to meet with and castigate both staffers in a roomful of advocates for playing turf battles instead of moving important legislation forward. I was there. And after his dressing down of the staffers the bill literally sailed through the committee and then through both chambers, ultimately being signed into law by President Bush in April of 2008.

Turf protection and bureaucratic obstacle courses are of course not limited to the federal government. They are alive and well in churches of all sizes on all levels. From top-heavy, arcane, overly institutionalized denominations to small local churches, territorialism is a killer of mission. Turf protection stifles creativity and prevents justice from being realized. Territorialism is antithetical to mission because it places the minor ends of those engaged in mission above the ultimate ends of the mission itself. Sadly, this happens every day.

I am reminded of this constantly. But once again Jesus surprises us. Earlier he expresses his anger with his disciples because they could not deliver a young boy. But here, he sees the disciples trying to preserve their tenuous hold on power and, instead of laying into the disciples, he gently redirects them back to the mission – loving and serving others.

And Jesus wants to do this with us, to lovingly, gently, redirecting us from focusing on the minor stuff and to instead focus on our call – to love and serve others.

So, today I want to urge us to take a few moments to ask ourselves a couple of questions:

• In the mission to which Jesus has called us, are we focused on achieving the goals of our mission or are we too worried about preserving our place, our role, our title, our power?
• Secondly, how is Jesus gently, lovingly redirecting us back to our call? How is God’s Spirit reigniting our passion once again?