Bridges, Not Walls
[This was shared today during worship services at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Greenville, Ohio. It’s based on Mark 9:38-50.]
Our gospel lesson for today begins with John, one of the apostles, approaching Jesus to say that he and other disciples of Jesus had found a man casting demons from people in the name of Jesus. John says, “we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” (Mark 9:38)
Some scholars think that John was checking with Jesus to see if he and the others had done the right thing in telling this outsider to stop.
Others think that John and the others were sure they were in the right and wanted Jesus to affirm them.
Whichever of those two interpretations is correct, two things are clear.
The first thing is how ironic it is that the disciples who, just a few verses before in Mark’s narrative, had been unable to cast out a demon because they didn’t pray, go on to try stopping a man with faith in Jesus from casting out demons. The disciples find a man with apparently more faith in Jesus than they have and their first impulse is to stop him because the man isn’t part of the in-crowd.
The second thing that’s clear is that wherever God’s Word about Christ creates faith, the Holy Spirit empowers us to confront evil and set others free from their bondage to sin. Somehow the man caught exorcizing demons in Jesus’ name had received the Gospel Word about Jesus and believed that, in Jesus, sin, death, and evil are conquered. The Bible says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) Whoever lives in a relationship of repentance and faith in Jesus is both part of our group–the Church–and empowered, as this man was, to share Christ with others.
So, Jesus tells John he shouldn’t have told the man to stop and gives two reasons. First, “no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” And second, “the one who is not against us is for us.”
John may have gone to Jesus fishing for a compliment. But far from complimenting the disciples, Jesus condemns them.
The disciples mistakenly saw the man casting out demons as an enemy. But God’s message to us who bear the name of Christ is clear: “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against…the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Our enemies are sin, death, the devil, and the demons of hell.
That neighbor of yours, whether she or he believes in Jesus or not, is not your enemy.
That neighbor is a child of God for whom Jesus Christ died and rose and who, just like you and me, needs to hear the message that sets us eternally free: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life…” (John 3:36)
Our call then as disciples of Jesus today is to be bridges, not walls.
John and the other disciples had wanted to put up a wall preventing the man casting out demons from sharing the Gospel with others because the man wasn’t “one of us.”
Jesus calls Christians to lay down bridges to others so that they can hear both God’s Law that condemns our sin and shows us our need for a Savior and God’s Gospel that tells us that that Savior is Jesus and He died and rose to give life with God to all who trust in Him.
And so, Jesus says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”
In other words, the Christian isn’t to lead others to thinking they can never be good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven.
When we act as walls blocking people from Christ, we sin.
When we prevent others from knowing God’s grace in Christ, we fail to love God or love our neighbor. We give others reason to ignore Christ.
Many restaurant servers have told me they hate working on Sunday afternoons because that’s when the so-called “Christians” show up after worship and, filled with a sense of entitlement and superiority, make their lives miserable. It needs to be said that being nasty to strangers is not how we do the Great Commission, making disciples of Jesus.
Jesus goes on to say in our Gospel lesson that the call to be His people, bridge-builders not wall-builders, will also entail sacrifice. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) The life with God Jesus offers is a free gift. There’s nothing you can do and nothing you must do to receive it. But if you try to knowingly hold onto your favorite sins, including the sin of looking down on other people, while trying to hold onto Jesus as your Savior, you will lose Jesus.
And so, using exaggerated language to get our attention, Jesus tells us today that if our hand causes us to sin, we need to get rid of it; if our foot causes us to sin, we need to get rid of it; if our eye causes us to sin, we need to get rid of it.
Jesus is not suggesting we mutilate our bodies here. He is saying that if the things we do, turn to, or think about turn us away from life with Him, we need to divest ourselves of those sins, bringing them to Him so that we can receive His life and forgiveness, peace and hope.
Through the years I’ve known alcoholics and drug addicts whose first reaction when confronted about their addictions is to “cut back,” to try, in the strength of their willpower, to decrease or moderate their use of the things to which they’re addicted. They fail to see how hopelessly dependent they are on the objects of their addictions and that they will only be free when, relying on the God we know in Jesus Christ, our higher power, they completely “cut off” the substances that have them entrapped from their lives.
Every human being, including me and you, is born with an addiction. It’s called sin.
Sin is the inborn condition we all have that causes us to be turned away from God and others from the moment we’re born.
And we cannot overcome it by trying to “cut back” on our sins by the power of our wills.
That’s why when we gather for worship together and come into the presence of God, we confess in weakness and honesty, “we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.”
It’s why the most wonderful words we can receive as we lay our sins before Jesus is, “in the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for you, and for his sake, God forgives you all your sins.”
Friends, like the man the disciples caught being a Christian, casting out demons in Jesus’ name, you can be a bridge that your neighbors cross to enter the Kingdom of God. That happens whenever you tell them and show them that God’s grace given in Christ is for them; when you lay down bridges to forgiveness and hope in Christ instead of walls of condemnation and separation.
You can do this because, baptized children of God, God has laid down a bridge to you. His name is Jesus Christ and in Him, you are forgiven for your sin and have life with God for all eternity. Amen
