Homily: What Difference Does it Make?” by Rev. Annie Watson ARCWP, Holy Family Catholic Church

 

Holy Family Catholic Church, Austin, Texas
Rev. Annie Watson ARCWP on left

Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

September 29, 2024

 

As this story from Mark’s gospel implies, there are many Christians out there who do not have the same “brand” as we do, but they are doing good works for the benefit of their communities and maybe even the world. 

There are also many non-Christians out there who do the good work Jesus wants us to do, which is a wonderful thing. We shouldn’t try to stop them. We should be supporting them, and if we ever get a chance to point out how “Christian” they seem to be acting, then we should take it.

In the meantime, we will never make the world a better place until we learn to get along with one another. We can’t even work together very well to solve our problems here, in our own country. One would think that people could muster up enough patriotism and love of country to actually love and support people in their own country. But sadly, that’s not the case.

When I watch the News on television, I get the impression that we don’t like each other very much. Politically, although we are a purple country, we tend to see only red and blue, to use our arbitrary color scheme. Ethnically, while most Americans are good at labeling people as white, black, brown, red, or yellow, (or “mixed race,” which is a meaningless term), we should only see insignificant variations of a brownish hue. 

We are all in this thing we call “life” together, and just because we have different philosophies about taxation or different preferences about how high or low we should wear our pants, the universe sees us as playing for the same team. 

So, why can’t people who are born on the same planet understand their connection to one another? Why can’t people who were raised under the same flag play in the same sandbox together without knocking over one another’s sandcastles? Yes, we have our differences, but why do these differences make a difference? 

To use a Texas phrase: There’s really not a “lick of difference”between us, which means that the differences we do have should not lead us to kill one another. Are Jews and Arabs really all that different? Are Russians and Ukrainians so alien to one another that they can’t share a border in peace? Are the folks who cross our Southern border so strange that we can’t agree on a fair, compassionate, and practical immigration policy?

I’m reminded of the words of the prophet Isaiah? “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”

Obviously, there are real differences among us, but what difference does it make? Apparently, for some people, the differences are real.

Jesus saw this inflexible human trait firsthand and tried to put a stop to it. One day, one of his more aggressive disciples named John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demonsin your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” I have just one question: What is wrong with John?

You might remember the nickname Jesus gave John and his brother James: “Sons of Thunder.” They were known for their fiery zeal, boldness, and reactive tempers. They were not known for their sunny dispositions. 

They were fisherman, which was a dirty, thankless, difficult job, not for the faint of heart. Perhaps because Jesus rescued them temporarily from their grimy toil, they were extremely loyal to him, so much so that one time when people refused to welcome Jesus, they threatened to burn down an entire city.

John’s hard-nosed, inflexible loyalty to Jesus is on display with his knee-jerk reaction to someone he doesn’t know who is casting out demons in the name of Jesus. Jesus knows this could go sideways if he allows his disciples to continue seeing strangers as enemies, so he wisely says, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

Jesus wants us to see strangers as potential allies rather than as potential enemies. That should be our response to anyone who is out there doing “mighty deeds,” whether they are doing so in the name of Jesus or not. 

Personally, I don’t think Jesus much cares if people do good things without giving him the credit for it. I think Jesus is happy whenever people are exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit, even if they don’t yet know why they are bearing good fruit. It makes no difference to him, and it shouldn’t make any difference to us. Amen.