“John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he is not of our company. Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him.” Jesus went on to talk about what causes us to sin, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” “And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna.”
Demons are believed to be a malevolent supernatural force. They are feared for their believed ability to take possession of people causing them to sin. Jesus seems to indicate the possession or sin does not take control of the whole person but rather a part, “If your hand causes you to sin… if your eye…. What do we do if our mind causes us to sin, being possessed by a malevolent force; ‘We saw the Haitians bettering themselves, driving out the demons of white supremacy and poverty in your name Jesus, and we tried to prevent them because they are not of our company.’ Jesus’ disciples misunderstand the malevolent force at work and think they have found it in an unnamed healer. So too MAGA misunderstand the malevolent force at work and think they have found it in Haitians. Jesus’ disciples are aggrieved, believing someone else is taking their special place. So too MAGA are aggrieved, believing someone else is taking their special place. It is not only a problem that white supremacists must erroneously identify themselves as discriminated against in U.S. society. It also a problem that those people against whom they discriminate, Blacks, specifically Haitians, must be identified as a malevolent force because they are advancing. How dare anyone heal anyone. MAGA want us to believe the Haitians are not of our company, meaning not of our association, not of our nation, not of our kind. Supremacists, like the complaining disciples and the complaining MAGA, decide who’s in and who’s out. MAGA are deciding this lately in the matter of U.S. citizenship. They promise to round up and mass-deport noncitizens based on their “serial numbers.” They are planning to end automatic citizenship for children born in the U. S. to immigrants, violating the 14th amendment. Jesus teaches us that all others are of our company, our community, especially in healing. Whatever it is that has taken possession of us, supremacy, enemy making, MAGA, so that we cannot appreciate healing – cut it off. No matter how painful it is. Should it feel like we are losing a hand, an eye, a self identity – cut it off. Bear with the pain, for a shared life in the Community of God is the healing result.
Anthony Gittins in his book, A Presence That Disturbs: A Call to Radical Discipleship, writes of the needed movement between stranger and homemaker. As the stranger we are sometimes out of place, vulnerable and uncertain. Yet, we must gather the courage to dwell in such space. Are we usually the homemaker, living in our place, secure and certain? We must gather the courage to invite others into our space? It is the courage of the many white people of Springfield, Ohio are inviting their Haitian neighbors into their space. It is the courage of Haitians who are inviting their white neighbors into their space. As homemakers we can exercise control. We would therefore be wise to open ourselves to be the stranger in life. As the stranger we discover a different life story from what is typical. We learn we have additional, uncommon and heretofore unknown resources. As a stranger our presence expands the dimensions of what was a previously smaller world. As we are the stranger, we experience people’s goodness and openness as mutually enlivening. We are called to be vulnerable, as homemaker, as stranger. We are called to invite the same of others.
Prayer: Spirit, help us to move between the center and the edge always rearranging the world to heal it.
Question: What disturbs me about another, yet is a helpful quality? What fails to disturb me about my self, yet is a harmful quality?
September 29, 2024 Mark 9:38-43 Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time