Scripture38 John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ 39But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. (Mark 9:38-40)ReflectionGod uses unexpected people to do his work. (There are plenty of examples of that in the Bible: Moses, Jospeh, David…the rag-tag bunch of first disciples!) I experienced that when I was exploring my call to ordination: God using the most unexpected people to ask me, “When are you going to get ordained?” (Even someone who professed not to believe in God asked me!) God can and does work through all sorts of different people. We should not limit what God can do, or how he does it, because that person does not comply with our stereotype of who is able to do God’s work! It is a pretty incredible demand that the disciple, John, is making…..he’s trying to limit who God can work through! Let’s not fall into the same trap.It can be uncomfortable to see others - people who we have deemed as “not being Christians” - doing things to help where they have seen a need…… and we either haven’t seen the need or, worse still, have ignored it!Revd David
Scripture'32 Jesus was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.' (Mark 9.32-34) ReflectionWhile Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for the challenges and suffering that lie ahead they are much more concerned with their childish arguments about which of them is the ‘greatest’. It’s not surprising that they don’t understand, but that they just switch off and ignore the whole thing is indeed childish. Seneca, the Greek philosopher born at about the same time as Jesus, said ‘It’s a rough road that leads to greatness’. Their ‘greatness’ will not be what they are expecting. It will indeed be for them a hard, rough road.Sometimes there are truths, including some of the teaching of Jesus, that we would prefer not to hear, but closing our ears to them does not make them less true or less relevant to our lives. If we listen with open minds and proper humility we may be surprised at the unexpected discoveries that await us. Revd Rosemary
