October 1, 2006
(Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 21)

Radical Inclusivity

by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer

Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29  •  Psalm 19 or 19:7-14  •  James 4:7-12(13-5:6)
•  Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48
(From The Lectionary Page)

You may recall a time in your life when you were excluded from something desirable. Maybe it was something as relatively innocuous as being the younger sibling, banished by an older sibling when he or she had friends over. Maybe it wasn’t innocuous at all. Maybe it took the shape of discrimination on the basis of your race, gender, or sexuality. Or maybe you recall, perhaps even with some embarrassment now, being one of those popular kids who excluded the weird kid with braces and bed head from your table in the cafeteria. So let me just say this: if at any time in your life you have excluded or been excluded, welcome to Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral and to the human race. Today’s gospel – challenging as it is -- is for you, for me, for all of us.

And it’s all part of a piece that, in the ninth chapter of Mark, has had to with discipleship. Jesus had challenged his disciples to a new and, for them, unwelcome way of being. Discipleship, as Jesus has been teaching it, is not about self-aggrandizement, it’s about self-emptying love. The trek to Jerusalem will not be to install Jesus on the throne of Herod. Glory will come, but it will come through the cross. Faced with this difficult teaching, the disciples do what we all do when faced with an uncomfortable reality – they went off point. Jesus teaches self-emptying love, and the disciples argue instead about greatness. In fact, last week’s gospel told us that they argued among themselves who was the greatest. Jesus draws all the world to himself, but as far as the disciples are concerned, it’s every man for himself. By the ninth chapter of Mark, each disciple saw himself as a rival of the other.

The French philosopher Rene Girard points out in his seminal work on mimetic theory, that when we desire something and are thwarted in our efforts by others who also seek the same thing, anxiety builds. Individuals and cultures tend to release this anxiety through identifying a third-party scapegoat, if you will, who is then excluded in some way. People who are in competition for the unattainable “something” find common cause in their scapegoating of someone else. United energy is put into vilifying, excluding, perhaps even injuring the scapegoat. A good 19th century example in this country might be the southern states during the Reconstruction and their scapegoating of African American men. A 20th century example of this phenomenon might be Germany’s treatment of Jews under Hitler. Many, myself included, suggest that the Church’s treatment of gay and lesbian persons is a contemporary example of this scapegoating phenomenon. Girard points out that in this process, the scapegoated person is assumed to be somehow guilty and therefore deserving of this treatment. He also noted this tendency in cultures throughout history and throughout the globe. No amount of cultural self-awareness or sophistication seems to mitigate this human tendency toward scapegoating and excluding.

And this tendency seems to be going on in spades in the ninth chapter of Mark. Believing themselves to be acting on behalf of their teacher, the disciples made decisions about who gets to be one of the insiders and who does not, who gets to minister in the name of Jesus and who does not, who is under the umbrella of his authority and who is not. They introduced a scapegoating mechanism into Jesus’s ministry and cloaked it with a veneer of respectability, as though somehow they had Jesus’s best interests at heart, as though Jesus had ever once in his ministry excluded the outsider, the alien, the nobody, as they had just done.

Jesus reacted in the strongest possible way. Whoever is not against us is for us, he tells the disciples. Can’t get much more inclusive than that. And to punctuate how serious he is, the passages that follow are some of the strongest that we find attributed to Jesus in the gospel of Mark. He's trying to make a point to his disciples and it's hard to miss the passion, even if it is easy to get sidetracked by the imagery. Here's what's at stake, Jesus says, scapegoating, excluding, running roughshod over outsiders under the guise of protecting the integrity of Jesus is unacceptable. How serious is he here? Serious enough go all apocalyptic on us and use imagery that certainly gets our attention. Serious enough for the man, who has spent his entire ministry healing the lame and bringing sight to the blind, to suggest that we'd be better off maiming or blinding ourselves than to stumble in this way.

It’s a sobering message for us all, because all of us share in this innate human tendency toward rivalry, scapegoating, and exclusion. It continues to play itself out in the arenas of politics, educational levels, social or economic status, religion, or human sexuality.

But when we do it in God’s name, or on behalf of God, we are on shaky ground. We need not take Jesus’s warning literally, but we must take it seriously. The Church is called to be an open, inclusive community, not because of enlightened self-interest but because Jesus himself drew no boundaries of exclusivity.

Several weeks ago, our gospel passage had Peter correctly identifying Jesus as the Messiah, but failing to grasp what that meant. Jesus reminded the crowd that if any want to be his followers, they must deny themselves and take up their cross. To recognize our human propensity toward rivalry, scapegoating, and exclusion and to choose to live mindfully in a way that more closely mirrors the life of Jesus and his message of radical inclusivity is one way by which we can deny ourselves. When we as individuals, as a nation, as members of the Anglican Communion refuse to engage in this process of rivalry for whatever we desire most, we will be less apt to then unite in scapegoating others and engaging in exclusion. We will have taken up our cross. And we will see and live and rejoice in the truth: Whoever is not against us is for us.