Mark 9: 38–50,
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
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Two weeks ago, my granddaughter – Francesca – called me
for help with a homework assignment. Her history teacher had
asked the class to write a thumbnail sketch of some strand of their
family’s history – with special attention to family traits,
traits which they themselves might have inherited. I was happy
to help and told her something about my great grandfather John Matthias
Law who in the mid’nineteenth century had been the editor and
publisher of a small newspaper in East Orange, New Jersey. He
was also an accomplished photographer, an avid gardener and collector
of first editions of Charles Dickens’ novels. As each new
aspect of his life unfolded before her, Francesca exclaimed, “Oh,
that’s just like me! I love to read.
I like to write! And I just started a new photography
course.” She was excited to discover her heritage.
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Well, just as it is with our human traits, passed down from one
generation to the next, so it is with our spiritual inheritance.
Our faith tells us that it is God who has made us and not we
ourselves. In fact, he has woven into us some of the same traits
he himself possesses – traits of mercy and kindness, goodness
and truth. That’s what it means to have been created in the
image of God – not that we look like him so much as we
act like him. We are kin to him in kindness and in
mercy. And we recognize him in others when we encounter those
same traits.
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That is why, up at the altar each week when I am preparing the
Communion table, I will bow to my Eucharistic minister and he will
bow in return to me. We are recognizing and honoring the image
of Christ in each other. That bow to each other reminds us of
the kinship between us. It reminds us that we all belong to
God and we belong to one another. And it hardly matters whether
the Eucharistic minister is a 12–year–old acolyte who barely
knows his faith or a mature Christian believer who’s been walking
with the Lord for years. For its the loving kindness of
God who holds us both in his love – that makes that image of
God, that imago dei visible.
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This is something that Jesus understood easily, but his disciple John
in this morning’s Gospel story hadn’t yet fathomed.
John still hadn’t learned to look for God in every person he
met. Instead, he was still trying to keep himself distant from
others, still thinking in terms of “us” and
“them.” To John, you see, “us” meant
Jesus and his 12 disciples – plus the larger group of believers
who were now traveling with them. But everybody else was a
“them,” a stranger – and represented a bit of a threat.
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So when he sees someone he doesn’t know casting demons out of
people in the name of Jesus, his reaction is quick and
decisive. “This guy isn’t one of us. He needs to be
stopped.” And with the help of a few fellow disciples John does
stop him – and then he returns to Jesus to tell him the good
deed he’s just done.
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But Jesus doesn’t affirm him, doesn’t thank him for what
he’s done. Instead he corrects him. “Come on,
John,” he says. “There’s another way to look
at this. No one can use my name to do something good and
powerful – and in the next breath cut me down. If
he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone who
gives you a cup of water in my name is on our side.”
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Earlier this week I was thinking about all this and probably driving a
little carelessly when suddenly, in my rear view mirror, there were
flashing blue lights and the touch of a warning sound from a police
car. Uh oh! I had crossed a solid yellow line to get
into the turn lane, and the officer in the patrol car didn’t like
it one bit. So he stopped me right there in the turn lane and
walked up to the driver’s side of my car. Wordlessly, I
handed him my license. He looked it over and said,
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“You live on Porter Street?” In other words,
“So you are local?” I nodded my head and said yes.
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“Well, you just crossed that solid yellow line,” he
said. “Don’t do that again.” And with
that he walked back to his car.
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To say I was stunned is to put it mildly. I was amazed. I
was humbled at the mercy I’d just been shown – and all
because I’d just been perceived as one of “us” rather
than one of “them.” Surely this was the astonishing
mercy of God in action. I think it’s called grace. So
that was Monday.
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The next day I had to go to the post office to mail a package to our
son in Japan. There’s a lengthy customs form you have to
fill out to mail anything to Japan, so I filled that form out at the
tall writing desk across the room from the postal clerk’s
window. Behind me, I heard the elderly gentleman standing there
at the window, with his cane, apologize to the clerk behind the counter.
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“I’m sorry this is taking me so long,” he said.
“I have the shakes, and it takes me a while to write anything.”
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Her young voice came back, “Sir, would you like me to fill that
form out for you? My father had the shakes and I know how
hard this can be.”
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Once again, I was astounded. I was hearing and seeing the mercy
of God – in action – all around me. I have no idea
where any of these people go to church, or whether they go to church
at all. For that isn’t the important thing. The
important thing is that they were honoring their kinship with God by
showing kindness and mercy to others. And by their example the
Lord was showing me that he had me surrounded by mercy and grace, where
I hardly expected it. And I was amazed. That was Tuesday.
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On Wednesday, since I had just gotten my car back from the shop,
it’s engine newly repaired within, I decided I could finish the
job by vacuuming out the car’s interior. And there, in a
pocket on the driver’s side door, I pulled out a plastic bottle
of drinking water.
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I had left that bottle in the pocket a few weeks ago, after Jeanelle
Mellor had kindly given it to me. That hot July day, you see,
I had stopped by Phil and Jeanelle’s house to visit with them
for a few minutes before I took a check to a lady in downtown
Milledgeville who had been burned out of her home earlier that week,
and had called the church asking for help to pay for lodging. But
when Jeanelle heard the motel I was headed for, she exclaimed, “I
am not letting you go to that sketchy part of town by yourself. I am
coming with you.” And she pulled a bottle of cold drinking water
from her refrigerator and gave it to me, as we made that trip together,
and delivered the check safely to the clerk at the motel. And
then, our errand of mercy completed, we returned to Jeanelle’s house.
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But it was only this week, after reading Jesus’ words about
God rewarding those who extend kindness to others – kindness as
small as a cup of cold water – that I finally grasped the
significance of her gesture. I’m a little slow in these
things, but even I finally get it. God is with us every day,
working through us, encouraging us, surrounding us with people whom
he has filled with his mercy and grace. If only we have eyes to
see, ears to hear and hearts to lift up thanks and praise.
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Amen.
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