Dispatch Two Hundred Seventy-Seven

MARK 9:38-50

³⁸ John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” ³⁹ But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. ⁴⁰ Whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

⁴² “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. ⁴³ If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. ⁴⁵ And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.⁴⁷ And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, ⁴⁸ where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

⁴⁹ “For everyone will be salted with fire. ⁵⁰ Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Jesus was drawn to others no matter their nationality, social class standing, religious affiliation, or moral character because his awareness was open to the level of his personal identification with them, sharing a common ground as living creatures and fellow human beings. For him, these cultural distinctions were little more than lines in the sand separating one part of the beach from another.

Beneath the divisions and surface distinctions, all sand is essentially the same. In the same way, whether one was Phoenician or Galilean, a Samaritan or a Jew, a man or a woman, an adult or a child, of “this” circle or “that” circle, did not finally  matter to Jesus – and was certainly, in his mind, nothing to build privilege upon. When he looked at another person of whatever color, creed, size, or disposition, he saw through all the attributes and accidents of birth and station, to the core humanity manifested there. That’s where compassion begins, and where it can lead us, if we are courageous enough to follow its inspiration.

When the disciples complained to Jesus that someone not of their circle was performing deeds of power in Jesus’ name, his reply brought judgment upon all our faith and fanaticism regarding group privilege and “true religion.” It’s not necessary to hold a confessing membership in some particular group in order to be living on the path of spiritual freedom and purpose. In fact – and here’s the rub – insisting otherwise can put a stumbling block before another who is living honestly and earnestly for God’s true cause in the world. All our concern over orthodoxy and exclusive truth will at most guarantee that we ourselves are far, far from it.

Dispatch Two Hundred Seven

EPHESIANS 2:11-22

¹¹ So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— ¹² remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵ He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷ So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸ for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹ So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,²⁰ built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²² in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

We have already commented on how the institutionalization of religion makes it into a ‘tower of privilege’, horizontally separating insiders from outsiders and then dividing insiders into vertical ranks of status and power. In first-century Judaism division was built into the very architecture of the temple in Jerusalem. Different ‘courts’ had been created like concentric circles arranged around the inner sanctum of the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God was believed to be most intensely real. The ‘court of the Gentiles’ was farther out from center than the ‘court of Israel’. Among this more privileged company only priests were allowed to minister at the altar, but only the High Priest could enter the holiest place, and then but once a year on the Day of Atonement.

Paul looked upon the dividing wall between Jews and non-Jews as representative of the basic fault-line that runs through the human family worldwide. The habit of dualistic thinking not only divides groups into bigoted and often violent opposing parties, but it alienates us all from the Truth we mistakenly think we possess. In Paul’s view, Christ Jesus broke down the dividing wall – not only the wall in the Jerusalem temple but the one that fractures in two the truth of what we are together, as children of  God.