Who Belongs and Who Doesn’t?

The Gospel today has a little of the theme about who belongs and who doesn’t. Somebody is reported to be driving out evil spirits in Jesus’ name, but is not a bonafied member of the “God-squad”. Jesus, as did Moses, calms down everything with a few wise words.

These verses continue from last week’s Gospel. Jesus is still holding a child in His arms and refers to this little person as He makes a wisdom statement. Those who are with us cannot be against us. The more important thing is to live the holy life of reflecting the love of God and thereby not spreading the plague of sin to others. Holding the child, Jesus, as did Moses, wishes all to live in such a way as not to cause even this child to know what sin is. This is a stronger way to drive out the evil spirit in Christ’s name.

The final verses are a strong condemnation of those who cause sin to flourish and so infect others. They would be better not to have had a beginning than to experience the endings of their lives in torment and for ever.

There is a cute little theory that sin is spread genetically. At the moment of conception, when human life begins, that life is tilting a bit toward what we call “sin”. You might say that we don’t have a chance. It is one of many thoughts. It is true that we have to spend years learning to be virtuous. So we are born into and live our days in the tension between being “with” Jesus and being “against”. The real sin which gains such condemnation by Jesus is that of causing others to tilt even more toward being “against”.

Where sin comes from, blamed Adam, blamed parents, other persons, that is not as important as where do we learn about redemption, recovery, holiness? Sin is like this “Swine Flu” going around the world. On my flight to Korea this past summer, I spent fifteen hours in one plane breathing rebreathed air and I contacted a respiratory infection. Now somebody was the cause! Sin is different. Sin tilts us toward the earth, selfishness, violence.

We are the “elders” the “prophets” Moses wished for. In families, communities, classes, playgrounds, dormitories, even in the workplaces, we are inspired to be more the cause of grace than disgrace, more agents of the straight, than tilters toward darkness.

www.creigthon.edu