Mark
9:38-41
One of the funnier things that
happened to me on my sabbatical happened at the Vatican. I decided to wear a Louisville
Cardinals T-shirt that day, because it seemed appropriate to wear a shirt that
said Cardinals when going to the
Vatican. We were walking through St. Peter’s Basilica, which is such a
beautiful and overwhelming place, and I was taking pictures of everything. As I walked near the altar a guy was
standing there, and he looked at me and said, humph. My wife made me
leave all my UK stuff at home.
Even traveling halfway around the world it is impossible to escape the
UofL/UK rivalry!
This morning, my message is The Worldwide Tribe of God. I want to talk about something called tribalism. Tribalism is loyalty
to a tribe or other social group especially when combined with strong negative
feelings for people outside the group.
Our Scripture text for today has an
unfortunate demonstration of tribalism.
Listen to what Mark’s gospel tells of how the disciples demonstrated
tribalism –
38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone
driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one
of us.”
39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For
no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad
about me,
40 for whoever is not against us is for
us.
41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives
you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly
not lose their reward.
Humans are naturally tribal in nature, and we love to gather in our
tribes, generally to the exclusion of those in other tribes, so that we can
talk about the people in those other tribes. There is, obviously, a great deal of tribalism in the world
of sports and sports fandom – there are the UK, and UofL tribes, both of which
are well represented here. And
please, don’t let anyone be in the Duke tribe. But it also includes other tribes – are you a Bengals fan or
a Steelers fan (the Steelers are my tribe!)? You’re not a Cowboys fan, I would hope. What’s your music
tribe – country, classical, bluegrass, contemporary Christian, hip-hop, rap, or
classic rock? What’s your
political tribe? Republican,
Democrat, Independent, or Libertarian?
What’s your regional tribe?
Are you a northerner, southerner, from the east coast, the west coast, or
New England? To what ethnic tribe
do you belong? White, black,
Hispanic, or Asian? Where do you
fall among the religious tribes? Believer or unbeliever? Affiliated or unaffiliated? Which religion? Christian? Well, which sub-tribe?
Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox? Christian? What worship style tribe, contemporary, traditional, or
blended? What denomination? Presbyterian? Presbyterian USA, Cumberland, or one of the other kinds?
Methodist? Freewill or United
Methodist? Baptist? Southern, American, Cooperative or one
of the 200+ other varieties?
Christian Church? Which
tribe in that group – Independent Christian Church, Church of Christ, or
Disciples of Christ?
We find tribalism everywhere, from the more
innocuous debates about our favorite sports teams to the very dangerous actions
of groups such as ISIS or Al Qaeda, who will kill others simply
because the others are of another group, or tribe. There are people in this world who desire to do harm to us simply
because we are of a different tribe.
Tribalism is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and it’s
also one of the least noticed. Tribalism is rarely noticed by its
practitioners. This was certainly
the case exhibited in this week’s Scripture text. The disciples approached Jesus, probably somewhat perturbed,
to complain that someone was driving out demons in his name. The disciples told the person to stop
because he was not one of us (typical
tribal language – not one of us). I imagine the disciples assumed they
were acting correctly in trying to stop the other person. They were, most likely, acting on a
belief that they needed to protect their own work and ministry, and certainly
that of Jesus. They were probably
surprised, and a bit hurt, that Jesus told them not to stop the man.
One of the mistakes
that religious people sometimes make – and the disciples made this mistake in
their handling of the situation described by Mark – is seeing themselves as the
gatekeepers to God. It is easy to
fall prey to the idea that we are the ones who control access to God, or at
least to serve as the ones who can sit in judgment of who can have access to
God.
At times, we even baptize
our beliefs and our attitudes as being God’s. If we hold to a particular political opinion, it must
certainly be God’s as well. Our
opinion of other people must surely represent God’s opinion of those
people. We pitch our tent and then
draw it in to include some and exclude others, rather than expanding it to fit
the vision of God. The scandal of
the gospel, as demonstrated by Jesus, is that God doesn’t draw lines and set
boundaries as humanity is so prone to do.
So the question for us is, what boundaries do we need to reshape, to
defy, in order to be the people God has called us to be?
We create artificial borders by the
creation of all the various tribes, and one thing that happens with all those
tribes and borders is we allow ourselves to believe that if it's across a
border, it’s not our problem. It’s
in another country, or state, or county, or neighborhood so it’s not my
concern. That’s not an issue for
my tribe, so I’m released from any concern. Do you think God recognizes those boundaries?
Jesus, however, was
constantly demolishing any illusions of our desire to be gatekeepers to all
things spiritual. Jesus
obliterated the social stigmas and unspoken rules and regulations about
associations that divided people into tribes. Jesus was constantly under attack by the scribes, Pharisees,
and other religious hierarchy because he stepped across the tribal boundaries
that had been so carefully erected.
He was not afraid to associate with the “sinners” of the day. He was not afraid to be seen talking
with a Samaritan woman, when such behavior would have been considered a
terrible breach of social protocol.
He told the story of the Good Samaritan, which tells of the tribal
attitudes preventing characters in the story from offering assistance to an
injured man because he was of a different tribe. Imagine, the very idea that it is
impermissible to help another human being who was beaten and left for dead
along the road, because you are taught that if they are not a member of your
tribe you shouldn’t help that person, even if they are on the side of the road
bleeding to death.
People often want to tell us who is
acceptable for our association. We
should walk together whether or not we agree on everything. We should walk together whether or not
we read the Bible in the same way, whether or not we worship the same way, whether
or not we believe the same way, whether or not someone believes, because every
person is a child of God and every person is a member of God’s tribe!
Where did the idea come from that we must agree
about everything and that everyone must be just like us? There is such a strange
orthodoxy in our society these days that decrees we must all be the same and
that orthodoxy seeks to impose a sameness and conformity on everyone and if you
veer from that it in any way you are subject to public ridicule and shaming.
Where did it come from that we must
agree on everything? There is a
false narrative that says we must all gather in our little tribes, with our
like-minded folks, and reject all others.
There is a stratifying taking place in our world, in our nation, and
even in our churches that is very disturbing. Some churches will give you a list of what you must believe
and to which you must adhere. Our
church does not do that. We do not
impose any kind of sameness – theological, political or otherwise – upon anyone
who attends here. You do not have
to agree with me, and I don’t have to agree with you. You may not agree with or like some of the things I say or
write. That's okay. I don’t care if you agree with me or
not. You know what? Sometimes I don't agree with what you might
say, or write, or think. But so
what? You will never hear me tell
you what to think or to believe; you will hear me say what I think and what I
believe. I do not spoon-feed people into belief, because if your faith rests
upon another person, it is a faith that will not withstand the arena of human
interaction. If it is a faith
dependent upon Jesus and is entered to in your own freewill, nothing will harm
or limit that faith. Nothing.
Too many followers of Jesus see it
as a point of pride who they exclude, rather than who they include. Not everyone can walk with us,
unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean we’re doing anything wrong; it may mean
we’re doing what’s right. If we
draw a thousand people because of who we are, great; if we lose a thousand
people because of who we are, that’s just the way it goes. What’s sad is that people believe the
false claim that you should only associate with those who think like you, act
like you, and believe like you.
Some will say to come out of a church if they don’t reflect your beliefs
on every topic. My goodness, if
that were the standard there wouldn’t be anyone left!
One of the things Tanya and I
noticed while traveling in Europe was that the English and the French don’t
like each other very much, and there are some historical reasons for this. But it also seems rather absurd, as
much of the roots of their enmity comes from long ago, and it’s now centuries
later and they still struggle! We
visited the Tower of London one day, where we had a very knowledgeable and
entertaining guide. But he
obviously didn’t like the French.
At every opportunity, he criticized the French. Even when he asked what countries we
were from, when some visitors from France raised their hands he said, arrgh, the French!
I’ll be honest and admit that I was
somewhat uneasy about traveling to Paris.
In our country, we too can be hard on the French. Remember some years ago when something
happened (I don’t even remember now) and people were saying we should stop
referring to French fries, and call
them freedom fries instead? Wasn’t that ridiculous? Many people say the French are rude and
unkind, but Tanya and I found them to be friendly, kind, and helpful, in all of
our interactions. We loved our
time in Paris, and loved our interactions with the French people.
If we could find a way to escape
our tribal mentality and our tribal attitudes, imagine how different the world
could be.
Remember this – God breathes the
breath of life into everyone.
Everyone. Not just those of
our liking or choosing. The
scandal of the gospel is that God doesn’t draw lines or set boundaries or
create tribes as humanity is so prone to do. Every person is a part of The Worldwide Tribe of God!
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