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(CHURCH WITHOUT BORDERS/ BOUNDARIES)
Homily for the 26th Sun in Ordinary Time (B), 29 September 2024, Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is telling us something that we may find disturbing. Perhaps as disturbing as the words Pope Francis said when he visited Singapore recently, about other religions as “paths to the same God”.
Let us focus our reflection today on the reply that Jesus gave to his disciples when they reported to him that they had seen ”someone driving out demons in his name,” and how they tried to stop him because he did not belong to their group. The answer of Jesus was categorical: “Do not stop him. For whoever is not against us is with us.”
The reaction is not unfamiliar to us; it is an instinctive tendency to exclude or even resist those who are not part of our own circle, or our own Church, from carrying out certain things we believe we’re the only ones entitled to do. It does tend to happen to all of us. We may even regard what they are doing as a threat to us.
In the Gospels, Jesus often invites his disciples to a “metanoia”, a change of mind and heart, a kind of reorientation that involved a shift of perspectives. He reminds them that the Holy Spirit is “borderless” (sin fronteras), that we cannot limit God’s movements with the typical human boundaries of culture, politics, or attitudes that often go with our institutions, or our religious affiliations.
This is consistent with our first reading today about the two elders, Eldad and Medad. The storyteller tells us they were not inside the camp with the rest of the elders, but they received the Spirit nevertheless and they also began to prophesy. The young Joshua begged Moses to stop them, but the more mature Moses, said in reply, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:29)
It is interesting to note how Moses recognizes the freedom of God’s Spirit. The Spirit acts as he wills; he does not stay only within the boundaries that we set among ourselves. At Pentecost, it was not enough that the Spirit rested on each of the apostles like tongues of fire. God allowed his words which were expressed by Galileans in their native language to be understood also by people from various nations around the world. The fact that they too heard the Word being proclaimed by the apostles means the Holy Spirit had descended upon them too! This is a good reminder for us to remain humble, even as we participate in the life and mission of the Church. Ultimately, the work of the mission is God’s and we must always resist the temptation to behave as if we had a monopoly of the truth and goodness. What is even more evident is the fact that even with God’s grace, we continue to share in the fragility and fallibility of the human condition.
I read a lot of negative reactions to what Pope Francis said during his visit to Singapore, especially when he gave that off-the-cuff remark that “all religions are paths to the same God… that they were like different languages and ways of speaking about God’s love and mercy.” Surprisingly, many of the negative reactions came from some of our own fellow Catholics. Reactions from Catholics who found the statement rather unsettling. People said things like, “What does he mean? Is not Christ the only sure way to God? Are there other ways?”
Yes, there are. God’s grace has no borders or boundaries. Did not Jesus say, “He makes the sun on both those who do good or those who do evil. He makes the rain fall on both the just and the unjust.” I’m sure even that would made them react and say, “It’s not fair!” We react that way when we begin to look at God’s grace as a reward for our good deeds. Maybe that is why James in the second reading is cautioning the rich from thinking of their prosperity as something they deserved; and of the poverty of the poor as an automatic punishment for their sins.
I imagine Jesus explaining to his disciples that the same stone that can serve as a “building block” can also serve as a “stumbling block”, depending on how they looked at it. What is most revolutionary about Christianity is precisely the view that whatever is good in other cultures and religions does not necessarily contradict the way of Christ. With a little change of attitudes (metanoia), the same stone that we thought of as a stumbling block may actually be used as a building block. If Christ did not abolish Judaism but built rather on its foundation, what prevents him from building also on the foundations of whatever is truly good and godly in any culture or religion? What prevents us from giving an Asian or African face to the same Christ who had been Europeanized by Europeans and Americanized by Americans?
Every culture can be a Bethlehem for the same incarnate Lord. Did not Saint Augustine once say, “Ubi Caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.” (Where there is love, there is God.)? If that remains as our basic premise, then we can also say, “Where there is no love, there is no God!” No matter if the ones involved claim to be Catholics, or Christians, or believers of any religion. The most godless people in this world are not those without religion, but rather those without love. The most blasphemous people are not those who might offend our religious sensibilities by treating our religious symbols in a manner that offends us, but rather those who trample on the dignity of their fellow creatures in God’s image and likeness.
The Psalmist said it well when he once said, “If the Lord does not build the house; in vain do the builders labor.” (Ps 127) We all labor in vain if we are able to see goodness only among our own kind or only within our own religion. (That is what the French call “chauvinisme”, by the way. It’s the basic incapacity to see goodness in what is not our own.) It is then that we fail to see God’s work from the optic of God’s own design, not just from the perspective of our own contribution to or participation in God’s project. Are we not to believe that God can work also through the basic sincerity and good will, and the capacity of “other people” for compassion, care and unconditional love, no matter what Christian denomination or which religious beliefs they adhere to? This is what Catholicity is supposed to mean, in its original sense.
Just as the unknown exorcist in the Gospel was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, so too are there people today who live in ways that reflect God’s love, even if they do not follow our particular faith. The point is clear and humbling: the Spirit of God is not limited to the walls of our Church. No wonder Pope Francis keeps admonishing us from becoming too self-referential, and exhorting on us to be more open-minded and inclusive, to “widen the spaces” not just of our tents but also of our hearts and minds, to learn to find spaces of unity and collaboration not just with fellow Catholics, but also with fellow Christians of other traditions and denominations, also with fellow believers of other communities of faith, also with other fellow human beings of whatever culture or ethnicity, and ultimately, also with every fellow creature in this earth, our common home. God works through all people of goodwill, even those who may not know Christ by name. This does not diminish the truth of our faith; rather, it expands our hearts to recognize the mystery of God actively present and at work to recreate and renew the face of the earth, to “unite all things in Christ, making peace by the blood of his cross…” (Col 1:20)
By saying “Whoever is not against us is for us,” Jesus meant that we must have to have the humility to learn to see others, even those outside our Church, or outside our Christian faith, as potential allies in the mission of witnessing to God’s love and mercy, God’s peace and justice. It means we must not let pride, prejudice, or fear cause us to stumble, as Jesus warns in this Gospel. If there is anything that we are to cut off from our lives, it is the attitudes and habits that lead us to exclusion and division.
In our encounters with people of other denominations, other religions, other cultures and ethnicities, we are to remember always that the heart of Christian witnessing is about love—not just loving our neighbor as ourselves (Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31), but more importantly, loving “as Christ has loved us” (Jn 13:34; Jn 15:12). It is not about proving ourselves right or others wrong, but rather about embodying in our persons and actions the love of Christ. Pope Francis has often invited us to view the Church, not as an exclusive company of the righteous but rather as a field hospital for sinners, a shared space for the wounded who desire healing, an enlarged tent where where all people, regardless of their status in society, are treated with dignity.
