As
you may know, I am a Unitarian. What’s one of those I hear you cry. A Unitarian
is a Christian who does not believe in the Holy Trinity, who does not believe
Jesus to have been God. He was a great prophet and was the Messiah (literally
the chosen) of God. And we think of ourselves as Christians because we are
trying to follow the teachings of Jesus. But yet we have been branded
throughout history as not being Christian because we do not accept the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity, as though believing the right things is more important
than doing the right thing. And I think that is what Jesus in this morning’s
Gospel is trying to say. It doesn’t matter whether you are part of my club or
not so long as you are doing my work.
"John
said to him, 'Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade
him because he was not following us.' But Jesus said, 'Do not forbid him; for
no one who does a miracle in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of
me. For he that is not against us is for us" (Mark 9:38-40). Just a little
bit later Jesus reminds the disciples that kindness shown by an outsider to
someone simply because the latter was his follower deserved reward. Or, in
other words, anyone who does a good deed is doing good. Jesus did not disown
any one who was doing good works in his name.
That
seems pretty straight forward enough. Anyone who does works in the name of
Jesus, whether or not they are part of “our” group, is doing good. But in
direct contradiction is the Jesus of Luke who says "He who is not with me
is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." And yet this
sadly has been the response of the church through history: if you are not with us you are against us.
Until 200 years ago it was illegal to be a Unitarian…
The
Jesus of Mark 9 makes no summons for anyone to join. Instead he acts the
shepherd to go retrieve the lone lamb that John had driven forth from the
flock. This is interesting to me: John tells Jesus that the unknown exorcist
had not been following Jesus and the disciples. So to John he seemed to be
poaching, violating the disciples' copyright on the name of Jesus. It is
obvious that John considered the man a non-member. But it is equally apparent
that the exorcist himself did not think himself a member either.
And,
most importantly for me, Jesus does not suggest that the man should have
joined up either!
From this Jesus we hear no
invitation to join up, no summons to decide. No, what we hear is that such an
explicit joining is superfluous, altogether unnecessary. Though he has not
required you to join him, this very openness makes you think that maybe it
would not be a bad thing to follow this Jesus. If this is a possible version of
Christianity, maybe I can be (or remain) a Christian after all!
And
that is the great point: as far as Jesus is concerned, the man does not need
to join. Since he is doing the work that Jesus does, he is already a
member. As the Epistle of James says, "I will show you my faith by my
works." Jesus has drawn a circle that counts him in. Here is Jesus, in
whose eyes one may be as Christian as one needs to be even if one's faith is
anonymous or wears another name altogether.
And to, be honest, there is no monopoly on God, or Truth. Despite what
the Church may say - just look at all
the different denominations here in Reddish (Anglican, Methodist, URC, Catholic
all of which were founded because they and they alone had the “Truth”). That
matters not. And I don’t think it even matters whether you are a Christian or
not so long as you are acting upon Jesus ethic of Love, whether you know it or
not.
I
would like to ends with words from the Unitarian Bishop Francis David:
“We
need not all think alike to Love alike.” Amen.
pretty nice blog, following :)
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