Not Against = For

Paul Walton
30 September 2003

Mark 9:40 says: ‘Whoever is not against us is for us.’ That’s one of the sayings of Jesus that has always intrigued me. It’s intrigued me even more that if you go to Matthew 12:30, Jesus says, ‘Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.’ And it’s not just Mark against Matthew’; Luke includes both sayings in his Gospel. Luke 9:50 says, ‘… whoever is not against you is for you’; Luke 11:23 has, ‘Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters’. What’s that about? A contradiction? Or is it—as an ‘exchristian’ website says—Jesus on a good day saying one thing, and Jesus on a bad day saying another?

Last week we got to talking about sects—unusually for the Uniting Church, that’s s-e-c-t-s—and how everyone involved knows just who is ‘in’, and who is ‘out’. There are no patches of grey.

Sociologists say (as far as I understand them!) that religious movements often start out as sects, with rigid walls separating them from those outside; but then later generations make their peace with the world around them and become ‘church’ rather than ‘sect’—a ‘church’ has less visible walls, and it is not so clear that any particular person is ‘in’ or ‘out’.

I spent a number of years in a fundamentalist Church that was very clear indeed about who was ‘in’ and ‘out’. Because I was ‘in’, the consequence for me was a whole heap of spiritual pride. And being blind about the goodness in people from other churches or religions. And a distorted view of God, who loved the whole world—but sent most of it to hell.

‘Whoever is not against us is for us.’ When I see a Moslem woman praying in the chapel where I work, I see the truth of that. Wherever I recognise kindness in a person who is not a churchgoer, I can remember that.

Where are the edges of the Church, who is in or out? I don’t know. God knows.

But Jesus also said, ‘Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters’. So should that comfort members of sects? Is there a Jesus for people who like things black and white, and another for those who like fifty shades of grey?

Both of these sayings occur in close to stories about the exorcism of demons. Take today’s reading: Peter, James and John—who was critical of the man casting out demons in Jesus’ name—had recently come down from the Mount of Transfiguration. They meet a man whose boy is demon-possessed, and they can’t cast it out.

So it’s a little precious of John to be upset that someone from outside their group is successful at the exorcism trade. There’s only one way to deal with people like that! Stop them! John wants start a Jesus franchise, with Kentucky Fried Parables, all sounding—and smelling—the same. This other joker just didn’t fit. He wasn’t ‘in’, so he had to be ‘out’.

That’s when Jesus says, ‘Don’t stop him—he’s on our side.’

The other saying—‘Whoever is not with me is against me’—is in the context of another exorcism story.

In Matthew’s Gospel, a charge is brought against Jesus—‘It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out demons’. No one denies that Jesus casts out demons, but they say that he does it by evil means. Jesus easily refutes this—how can Stan cast out Satan? It makes no sense at all.

But then he says: ‘If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out?’ The Pharisees’ own people cast demons out. How do they do that?

The same reasoning applies—if they cast out demons, then it is not by the power of the devil. How can Satan fight Satan? No, if the Pharisees have exorcists that can cast out demons, then they do it by the Spirit of God.

Jesus is recognising the power of God at work in the Pharisees. He says to those Pharisees who accuse him, ‘Whoever is not with me is against me’. It is their accusations, the way they speak evil of him, that provokes this response by Jesus. But he might well say of their exorcists, who actually work by the Spirit of God, ‘Whoever is not against us is for us’.

These two stories are really not all that different. In both, people from outside the Jesus group are doing good, and they are commended by Jesus. In Matthew’s story, the Pharisees accuse Jesus of working with the devil, and that is why he says ‘Whoever is not with me is against me’.

When we look around today, we can see many people who are not Christians who nevertheless are transparently good people. We can say of them, ‘Whoever is not against us is for us’.

We should be more cautious in saying the reverse. Perhaps only Jesus should say, ‘Whoever is not with me is against me’. But we may come across people who accuse those who do good of being evil. Those accusers could come from anywhere—even from within the Church. And those they accuse can come from anywhere—even outside the Church.

I don’t find a contradiction in these verses. I don’t think they are really about whether we are a church or a sect, either. ‘Sect types’ might be more comfortable with the excluding word, and ‘church types’ with the including word; but we all need both words. We all need to be able to know goodness when we see it, and to know false accusations when we hear them.

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