Not One of Us

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 30, 2012

Not One of Us

Mark 9:38-41

The index finger of the right hand said to the thumb,

“Aren’t we lucky to be part of hand?

And to be part of the right hand, no less!

Can you imagine what life would be like if we were toes?

Stuffed all day in hot, uncomfortable shoes.

You and I are important.

A hand does so many wonderful things:

It is the hand that makes strangers friends;

It is the hand that makes beautiful music on a piano;

It is the hand that paints a picture

filled with color and emotion.

It is the hand that allows one person to embrace another

to comfort, to assure, to show love.

What can a foot do?

Any of these things?

Of course not!

Kicking a ball is probably the foot’s biggest claim to fame.

And what’s so great about that, I ask you?

To kick a ball into a soccer goal?

I’d like to see a foot try to put a basketball through

that little hoop.

Hands are so much better than feet!”

Meanwhile, not far away,

the ear was thinking to itself,

“I am so glad I am an ear and not an eye.

I can hear all the beautiful sounds

God has filled this earth with:

the sound of birds singing,

children laughing;

thunder rumbling,

waves crashing.

People can talk to one another because of me.

Sure they need a tongue,

but they’ve got to have ears to hear,

and with me they can hear words that teach them,

nurture them,

help them grow in love,

even protect their lives.

Can the eye do any of the things I do?

Eyes – if they’re not near-sighted, they’re far sighted;

if they are not far-sighted, they’ve got astigmatism;

they itch in allergy season;

they need protection from the sun;

and they are all but useless in the dark.

I am so glad I am an ear and not an eye!”

These two absurd conversations

have their roots in the apostle Paul’s letter

to the new Christians in Corinth.

(1 Corinthians 12:12)

He was trying to help them understand

their need for one another,

that no one was more important than another,

no one less important;

that the very essence of Christianity is community.

You remember his metaphor:

that the community of disciples is the body,

the body of Christ.

And just like a human body,

the body of Christ is made up of many members.

And in the same way that the hand does need the foot,

and that the ear does need the eye,

so too in the body of Christ,

we need one another.

As Paul concluded his lesson, he wrote,

“God has so arranged the body…

that the members may have

the same care for one another.

If one member suffers,

all suffer together…;

if one member is honored,

all rejoice together….;

Now you are the body of Christ

and individually members of it.”

(1 Corinthians 12:24-27)

We are the body of Christ,

each of us and all of us within the

Manassas Presbyterian Church.

And we are members of the larger body

that is the Presbyterian Church (USA),

and the still larger body

that includes all followers of Christ.

And I don’t think there is any reason

why we cannot take Paul’s metaphor

all the way to its logical conclusion

and say that we are part of the body

that is all humanity,

for we are all God’s children,

all bearing the image of God.

It’s that word “member” that trips us.

We’re fine being part of a community,

but once we start thinking of ourselves as “members,”

it is all too easy to think of ourselves

as being part of something exclusive,

that we are part of this community,

while others are not,

as though there was a sign over

the entrance to the building

that said, “Members Only”.

When I lived and worked in New York City

back in the mid-1990s,

I was a member of a club,

The Penn Club.

Membership was exclusive:

it was open only to those men and women

who were graduates of the University of Pennsylvania.

I qualified because of my MBA from

the University’s Wharton School.

If you came knocking on the door

as an alum of Harvard or Yale,

North Carolina or Duke,

JMU or Virginia Tech,

you would have been sent away

with the same response: No admission;

Admission is exclusive to graduates of Penn.  

You would have had to have found a different club

that might admit you.

The doors of the Penn Club

would have been shut to you.

Churches are not like that,

or at least they are not supposed to be.

But the reality is, churches often are.

We are called to be inclusive,

yet we often act in ways that exclude,

exclude those who are “not like us”,

those who don’t think like us or act like us.

The point Jesus was making in our lesson

was the importance of inclusiveness.

Someone was trying to exorcise demons,

doing so in the name of Jesus,

presumably to help those afflicted

with illness to be healed.

John saw the healer and

immediately complained to Jesus:

“we tried to stop him because he was not following us.”

Do you hear what John was complaining about?

The healer was not “one of them,”

not part of their group of apostles,

not part of the inner circle,

and so, in John’s opinion,

the healer should have been stopped.

Jesus’ response is so refreshing:

“No, I won’t stop him, and neither should you.

Who cares whether he is not part of our group?

He is trying to do the will of God

and that is all that matters.

In fact, that makes him one of us,

because “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

“Whoever is not against us, is for us,”

We’ve turned that phrase on its head,

as we have with so many of Jesus’ teachings,

turning it into,

“If you are not with us,

you are against us.”

That’s not the same thing,

not at all:

To say, “If you are not with us,

you are against us”

is to draw boundaries,

to create exclusive groups.

to say, “If you don’t come into our group,

and become one of us,

then you are on the other side of the fence,

and at best we’ll look at you as

someone we want nothing to do with,

and at worst, we will look at you

as a threat, a danger, an enemy.”

To say, as Jesus does

“Whoever is not against us, is for us,”

is to say that everyone is for us,

everyone is with us,

part of the group,

included,

unless they have pointedly, clearly,

excluded themselves by saying,

“I am against you.”

Our default position is inclusion,

everyone in,

part of the group,

one of us.

Jesus was not at all interested

in building an organization,

much less an institution.

As he said repeatedly, he came

to do the will of the one who sent him.

And that is our calling, too: to do God’s will,

with one another,

as part of the body,

all of us working together,

inviting the newcomer to join us,

to work with us,

as a new and necessary member of the body.  

The great Scot preacher Peter Marshall,

who was the pastor of the

New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

in downtown D.C. through most of the 1940s,

spoke of Jesus standing at the door of the church

“with his big carpenter hands opened wide in welcome.”

This is the Jesus we should follow,

we should model:

open, inclusive,

welcoming newcomers

not to add to our membership roster,

but to strengthen the body.                       

        

The hands may well argue,

but they need the feet;

the ears may well speak disdainfully

but they need the eyes.

And we need one another,

members all,

members of the body,

called by Christ,

called by grace,

called to serve.

All together,

all for God,

all in the name of Jesus Christ.

AMEN