Proper 21 -- Esther
7: 1 – 10; 9: 20 - 22
A
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon,
Illinois on Saturday, September 29, 2012, and Sunday, September 30, 2012.
“JUST
WHOSE MINISTRY IS IT, ANYWAY?”
(Homily text: Mark 9: 38 - 50)
In today’s gospel text, Mark records
John’s voice as he comes to Jesus and says, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him,
because he was not following us.” (Italics mine)
John’s strange comment raises
questions: Just who was this mysterious
man? What – if any – connection did this
man have to Jesus….had he heard about Jesus and knew what Jesus had been doing,
or was he a follower who went out on his own, doing the same things that Jesus
had done?
Alas, Mark doesn’t tell us the
details that would fill in some of the missing information about this
mysterious miracle worker. We will have
to content ourselves with living with the unknowns of the exact nature of this
individual’s work.
But we do know some important facts
about this man’s activities:
·
He is using Jesus’ name to effect the work he is engaged in,
·
He is apparently successful in the
ministry he was engaged in.
It’s important, I think, to focus in
on John’s discomfort, for therein lies an important lesson for the original
disciples, and for us.
If we back up just a little in
chapter nine, we see in verse 18 that the disciples themselves had not been
able to cast out a demon. They had
failed in the ministry they were engaged in.
So, naturally, they seem a little miffed, having seen someone who has no
visible connection to the Lord doing successfully the very same task they had
been unable to do. (I would assume the
connection that John has in mind is one in which a follower of Jesus would
travel around with Jesus, like the disciples did…the mysterious man apparently
was unknown to John).
John’s comment leads us to believe
that he believed that he and his fellow disciples were the exclusive owners of
Jesus’ ministry. As if to say,
“Ministering in Jesus’ name belongs to us,
exclusively.”
Funny, isn’t it, that John doesn’t
say to the Lord, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we
forbade him, because he wasn’t following you.”
There is no doubt that the original
twelve disciples (minus Judas, plus Matthias) had a central role to play in
Jesus’ plan to spread the good news to all the world. After all, it was these twelve who would be
transformed from being disciples into being apostles, that is, they were the
ones who were sent out (which is the root meaning of the word “apostle”).
But others were engaged in a
ministry in Jesus’ name, as well. For
example, early on in His earthly ministry, Jesus calls together 70 others, and
commissions them to go out, carrying the good news with them (see Luke 10: 1). For another, we know that many women played a
various roles in Jesus’ ministry, as well.
So the fact is that the original
disciples-become-apostles, though they played a central role in spreading the
gospel news and in founding the early Church, didn’t own the ministry that had
been given to them as a sacred trust.
The points that John seems to have
missed are these:
·
The results of ministry activity will
verify the faithfulness of that ministry activity to Jesus’ message…this
unknown man was effectively using Jesus’ name to deliver those who were
afflicted,
·
The true connection to Jesus lies in the
consistency of the ministry to Jesus’ words and actions.
Thus, John seems to miss the fact
that the man he saw was successfully carrying out the same ministry that Jesus
was, and he was using Jesus’ name to do so.
Therefore, this man was truly engaged in a faithful ministry. That ministry was connected to the Lord
through that faithfulness, even though there was no visible connection to the
Lord’s physical presence.
Time has passed, and we are now almost 2,000 years removed from Jesus’ time on earth. Any physical, visible connection to the Lord has long since passed into history….we are no longer able to walk with Him in the flesh, and to witness what He did. So what lessons might lie in today’s incident for us as 21st century believers?
Perhaps these observations are
worthy of our reflection:
·
When we encounter a Christian ministry,
the gauge of its trustworthiness is its faithfulness - in its entirety - to Jesus’ ministry. Since what we know about Jesus’ earthly ministry
is to be found in Holy Scripture, then we can be safe in saying that the gauge
of any ministry is its consistency with the scriptural accounts of Jesus’
teaching and work.
·
All ministries remain the Lord’s
possession. We can never own a ministry
we are engaged in. The best that can be
said is that we have been trusted to carry out a ministry. In that sense, a ministry is a sacred gift
that has been given to us to accomplish for awhile.
·
The Lord is to be the focus of
attention. John’s comment smacks of a
desire to be the center of things. Too
often, Christians seem to want to occupy a similar position, right in the
center of things. But if that happens,
then the Lord’s presence and power can be eclipsed. It’s important for us to remember that no
ministry will ever be successful if it depends on human ability alone to
accomplish it. The Lord’s presence, the
Lord’s name, are the ultimate sources of power to do the things that He did.
May the Holy Spirit enable the Lord
to increase, and our estimation of our own importance to decrease, so that
Christ may in all, and above all, and through all.
AMEN.
