Are You In My Group? by Chad Hess

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.” “Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us. If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded.

     Mark 9:38-41

Sadly, after 2000 years, Jesus' disciples struggle with the same problem.  We get caught up on which group a person or ministry belongs to rather than working together toward our common goal.  A remarkably sad example of this happened a few weeks ago.

World Vision USA is one of the largest Christian humanitarian agencies that partners with many churches to provide meals and relief to children all over the world.  Recently, they announced that they would recognize employees in a committed, monogamous homosexual marriage.  In doing so, World Vision was not trying to take a stand on the issue of gay marriage. Rather, they were recognizing that different Christian churches have different views on the issue, and they wanted to be inclusive of all of them (the same way they do with the issue of divorce and other issues).  

The response from Christians was swift and overwhelmingly negative.  According to reports, 10,000 child sponsorships were dropped in response to the decision.  This led World Vision to reverse their decision and issue a public apology.  Ten thousand starving children were abandoned by their sponsors because World Vision was no longer "in their group."

Is it more important that someone is "in our group," or that they are working toward our same goal?  I think Jesus' answer in Mark 9 makes that clear.  So why do we struggle with this so much?  Why do we insist on "recreating the wheel" to duplicate the same ministry someone else is already doing?  Why do we put so much focus on having the same beliefs rather than the same goal?  As Andy McDonald so eloquently asked in last week's blog, why can't we be friends?

There are many reasons, I suppose, and each person's perspective is different.  For me, the shift happened when I stopped putting my religious identity in the set of beliefs I ascribed to and put my religious identity in my relationship with God.  My own beliefs have morphed over time, but that's okay because my beliefs don't define my relationship with God; they simply inform my understanding of who He is.  As with all relationships, my knowledge and understanding of the person will grow and develop.  If I can have flexibility of beliefs for myself, I can certainly extend that to those around me. How about, before we tell others to stop because they're not "in our group," we ask ourselves if they are, indeed, fellow followers of the Messiah.  Because, if we are all working toward the same goal, "I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded."

Chad Hess