Whoever's Not Against Us Is For Us
/The Gospel for this Sunday has some strong words from Jesus. They’re provocative and even a little gross. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” He says the same about our foot and our eye. I can’t imagine that Jesus would ever want us to inflict violence upon ourselves or even think that doing so would help us to avoid sin. Good thing we don’t take Scripture literally.
What I think he’s doing with these strong words is trying to shock his listeners into, well, listening. Maybe his first listeners, like us, zone out from time to time or become complacent or start to think that Jesus is just a really nice guy with some nice words. So, Jesus shocks us into paying attention, into being present to his words, into remembering that he’s a prophet with a message to say. He’s going to challenge us with it.
And what’s the message? To get rid of anything in our lives that hinders us from living the gospel. What would that look like for us? There’s probably an endless list of things that pull us away from gospel living in our day, but here’s just a couple that came to mind:
Obviously, Jesus would not have thought of this, but I did — our phones. Phones can distract us from prayer and from relationships. Using my phone for social media can make me compare myself to other people, which isn’t a bit helpful in the spiritual life. It can breed even more contention over politics, and God knows we don’t need more of that right now. On the other hand, my phone also has a few prayer apps that I use, as well as podcasts that enhance my spiritual life. So, do we have to cut our phones out of our lives?
Probably not. Now, don’t hear me say that my phone is just as important of an appendage as my leg, but maybe the same logic applies. Just like I wouldn’t really cut off my leg if it pulled me away from my spiritual life, I can’t really cut out my phone. However, I can put some better boundaries around my use of it. I can stop falling asleep at night watching TikTok videos. I can limit my time on social media and also take the heavily curated content with a grain of salt. I can simply use it less and spend more time with God and nature and people. Maybe I can even recover my broken attention span too.
What else can we cut out of our lives? I was also thinking of some relationships, the ones that cause us more harm than good. We hear a lot about toxic people and narcissists, etcetera, and I think that’s a bit over done. Of course, if someone is in an abusive relationship, they need to get out, and they’ll likely need help getting out. And, in less dire circumstances, there are people who will bleed us dry or take advantage of us or do a host of other destructive things if we let them. We should definitely cut those behaviors out of our lives, although we can’t always remove those relationships. Some people can’t be eliminated from our circle of contact because they’re in our workplaces or families or communities. We can’t cut them out. Nor can we remove people who aren’t necessarily toxic but who don’t have a great influence on us. I mean people who are annoying or negative or domineering. We all have people in our lives who rub us the wrong way. That’s just a side effect of community with humans.
However, I wonder if, like our phones, we can limit our exposure to difficult people or simply limit their effect on us. I’m not personally great at this, so this is also a pep talk to myself about setting emotional boundaries. I do think it can be done, though. We don’t have to allow other people’s behavior to determine our mood. How other people act is not really about us anyway. I do think this is very challenging, though. Cutting off others’ effect on us, like cutting off our leg, metaphorically speaking, could go a long way in not causing us to sin.
We can put boundaries around others’ behavior, but we can’t cut off every negative thing in life, can we? Maybe that’s not exactly what Jesus is saying either. We can’t really hide away from all negativity, and everything and everyone who’s different from us isn’t necessarily negative either. The Gospel Reading starts off with one of the disciples complaining about someone else driving out demons, someone who’s not on their team. I guess divisiveness isn’t unique to us in our day (although we seem to do it particularly well). Jesus’s response is not reprimand them but rather to say, “Whoever is not against us is for us.” Just because someone has a different background or might think or speak or look different, or who might identify with different groups, doesn’t mean they’re an enemy.
Wow — that’s a message I wish we could take to heart right now, especially in the United States as we prepare for a national election. We tend to see division where there is none or a difference of opinion as a character flaw. What if most of us want basically the same things? I wonder if we could assume good intentions in our conversations before we take down someone we assume is different or bad or wrong. Whoever is not against us is for us, and maybe those we think are against us actually aren’t.
Jesus uses strong words, but I think his message is simple. Limit the things that make gospel living harder. Have holy boundaries. Use self-reflection and discernment when it comes to how and what to limit. And regarding who’s one of us or not, who is the “us”? Maybe we could expand the sense of who’s on our team and even extend a little grace to those who think or act or believe differently. In all of this passage, Jesus just keeps bringing us back to mission — serving people and living the gospel in the best way we can. Periodically I do need strong words to shake me up a bit and move me back to my purpose, and Jesus is doing exactly that in this story.
In the part of the world where I live, we’re moving out of the heat of summer and into the chill and change of autumn. While I pumpkin-spiced the God Space House with fall décor this week, I also heard the invitation to reflect on my life – how it’s going and what needs to change. Times of transition often call me to this kind of reflection, a gentler approach than a slash and burn eradication, thank God! As I sift through all of this, I invite you to reflection with me:
What are the helpful practices that move you toward God?
What brings freedom, growth, deeper compassion, and life?
And what moves you away from God? What makes you feel distanced from God, or anxious, restless, peevish, or hopeless?
What do you need to cut out of your life in order to move toward God?
To whom could you offer a little compassion and grace rather than judgement and condemnation?
by Sister Leslie Keener, CDP
Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She enjoys music, dancing, meaningful conversations, and this present moment.