26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year B. Gospel -Mark 9.38-48
There is an incredible richness to the words of the scriptures we have heard today. In case you didn’t notice, this month, all of our second readings have come from the letter of James ….. one of my favourite letters ….. and one I heartily recommend you take time to read! It is all about putting our faith into action.
And as always, nestled in our Gospel today, we find another profound nugget hidden away in the text. We read about John coming up to Jesus and say, “Lord, we found somebody using your name, the name of the Messiah, to cast out demons, and we told him not to do it. You must tell him not to do it.”
Jesus has no time for this sort of thinking. Why? Because Jesus didn’t come just to save John and a few people walking around in Palestine. Jesus came to heal the world. And you don’t heal it by creating another group of people that are going to be intolerant of everybody else, or that will tolerate them until they are accepted, until they are allowed to come in to the fold.
Tolerance. And intolerance. The scripture is telling us something profound today. How profound? Well the final part of our Gospel reading is pretty clear. If our word and actions cause others to lose connection with God, then those words and actions need to stop. And he uses the body as a metaphor to reinforce how serious it is. Cut it off. Cut it out. Above everything, stop those words and actions.
These past few years have been troubling for me. And I suspect for you as well. For perhaps like me, you have noticed a decrease in our civility. A decrease in our tolerance for people. And a significant increase in our intolerance of others. You can see its presence in so many of our social media platforms. Twitter for sure. But also TikTok. And Instagram. And for you older folks, Facebook or the comments left on the various news feeds. People, hidden by the virtuality of the connection, say terrible, hurtful things about others. There is an anger and abusiveness and intolerance that shows through so clearly. And it is not just in the virtual world – it is in our real-world . And when we see it, we film them on our phones, call them Karens or Kevins, and post them to the media platforms to create even more self-righteous anger and abusiveness and intolerance.
Sadly, it seems to know no age limits. Old codgers like myself who seem to be getting grumpier. Adults, who seem to have lost their patience no matter where they are, whether driving to work, or standing in line at grocery stores. And let’s not get started on politicians and their machinations in all different levels of government in Canada … this intolerance is real and clearly present. But perhaps most tragically, our young people face this in a disproportionate way, as they struggle through adolescence. When I was a teenager, if I did something stupid, or said something inappropriate, then only a few people who were there would know. But now, with virtual platform access in everyones hands, those actions or comments are known – and seen – by hundreds or thousands of people, and each of them, hidden by virtuality, offer their intolerant comments to the mix.
For some, navigating those tumultuous seas of adolescence, the exposure is unbearable. And so Canada, that wonderful polite country known for saying ‘sorry’ all the time, has the third highest teenage suicide rate of the world’s industrialized nations. And the rate among our indigenous communities is up to 11 times higher still.
This is beyond tragic.
It seems that we exist in a world, whether real or virtual, that is saying “if you are not with us, then you are against us”. If you don’t believe the things we believe, see the world and events the way we see them, then you are against us. You are the enemy. And you are to be treated as an enemy. It is a worldview that is based on exclusion, and vilifying the other person, and anger.
But that is not what Jesus taught Peter and the apostles, and that is not what Jesus is saying to us. For he says “ whoever is not against us is for us” … whoever is not against us is with us. It is an inclusive perspective. A much more tolerant perspective. A perspective that looks at the other person with a level of empathy and a desire to understand the other person, not vilify or demonize them. And that is a timely message as today our church celebrates the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
It is a perspective that – even though the other person’s beliefs and way of acting is very different from yours – you approach them with empathy, with understanding, trying to deepen your awareness of not only them but the culture and the kind of experiences and environments they came from. That is so very much different than the world we so often experience.
For Jesus’s words about tolerance is founded on God’s teaching about Love. Basing our attitudes and actions on love, so that we might understand ourselves and we might understand the differences of others, so that we too can say we are enriched by it all, we move together in compassion, forgiveness, understanding. For these are the elements that will heal the world.
It begins with you and me, In here ❤️ – in our hearts. For our attitudes of intolerance are seen by those around us, and influence the behaviours of those around us. And especially our children. Our youth. And not for the good. But so too will our attitude of Tolerance. When our children, our families, and those around us see that we welcome the other as God welcomes them. …. it will influence those around us. When we see that the other, while they represent different forms of religion, different forms of work, different forms of philosophy ….. are all the children of God, it will influence those around us. There is a place for trying mutually, out of respect, to enter into the understanding of the other, knowing that this is where Jesus will be found, for he is as present in them as he is in us.
But it all begins when we change our hearts, our attitudes, and our actions, to become more tolerant. For as Jesus says to his disciples, and to you and I, in today’s Gospel – “Do not treat the other as enemy. Do not prevent people from speaking about God, about showing God’s mercy, God’s tender compassion, God’s kindness; even if it is in a different way than you would speak of it or show it. It is not for you to prevent that.”
The human heart, if it opens itself, and the human mind, if it opens itself, will discover that together we are all indeed brothers and sisters. This is the beginning not only of faith, it’s the beginning of hope and joy.
And it all begins when we foster the attitude of tolerance and inclusion within ourselves.