Choosing up side. We human beings are pretty good at it. Israelis and Palestinians; Muslims, Druse and Phalangists, or Shi’a and Sunni in Beirut; Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland; Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda; Democrats and Republicans in congress; recent immigrants and descendents of more distant ones. Household turmoil; family squabbles between parent and child or among siblings. And the questions of why the conflict and who is responsible are not always clear.

Forbearance is in desperately short supply in the human race, isn’t it? It seems so easy for us to see each other as the enemy.

Jesus and his disciples have just returned for a major preaching mission. They have come back home to Capernium, where Jesus has a house, and in our reading today they are debriefing. Sharing their experiences and reflections of what has been happening to them. Today’s reading picks up on the conversation where we left it last week, just of John is changing the subject.

John tells Jesus about a country parson he ran into somewhere on his travels – an encounter that raised some questions in John’s mind about who is and who is not a true disciple of the Lord. Jesus, this guy was teaching and preaching in your name, and doing a lot of the good things you’ve been teaching us to do. And at first it seemed to me he was doing a pretty good job. But the more I thought about it, the madder I got. Who does he think he is, anyway? He isn’t one of us. He hasn’t experienced what we’ve experienced. He’s different. So I jumped on him and told him to stop.

But, why should he stop? Asked Jesus. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. In fact, you just said he was doing good. And if he was doing it in my name that means he won’t be able to join those who are going to testify against me at my trial.

That isn’t exactly what Jesus said, of course, bit it is in the background of the story Mark is telling us. After this retreat at Capernium, Jesus is going to start this long journey toward Jerusalem and the cross, and many are going to rise up to testify against him. To cry, crucify!

And anyway, said Jesus, anyone who is not against us is for us. Now, there is an unexpected twist – one we need to give some thought to. Whenever we are tempted to try to force everybody into the same mould. When we are tempted to strike out against each other over some difference of opinion or viewpoint or way of life.

Rarely in this world is there only one right way of acting or believing or being. Faith does not require uniformity. Spiritual unity is not an absence of difference; it is an absence of division. Spiritual unity is the merging of human differences into one unique spiritual body in which individuals do not lose their uniqueness or distinctiveness, but gain new insight, experiences and opportunities. Those who are not against us are for us.

One of the hallmarks of our Presbyterian tradition is its toleration – even encouragement – of diversity within the one holy, catholic Church. A tradition this congregation is trying to embody – to be, in the words of our vision statement printed on the front of the bulletin each week, a place where All are Welcomed and Valued.

A people who value our uniquenesses, our diverse ways of living out and thinking about the faith. Free to ask our questions and share our search for answers.

Are there limits to such diversity, such inclusiveness? No doubt there are. According to the Gospel, we may seek to know and follow the ways of God, or we may oppose them. Those who reject God’s way out-right are beyond the boundary – what possible meaning would the faith of the Church have for them? But that is a very narrow standard of exclusion, indeed, if it reaches only those who are actually "against us." Simply being different is not enough. Holding doubts and asking questions is not enough.

For far too long, being different – not being quite "like the rest of us" as John seems to want to put it – has been the standard for excluding people from the faith community. But, if Mark’s understanding of what Jesus said is right, being different does not constitute such grounds. Those who are not against us are for us.

As our family has moved around the country during my career, I have been a member of several different civic clubs. I one place I was a Jaycee. Later I was invited to join Rotary. Do you know the difference between the two? Rotarians are people who have more or less made it in their professions; Jaycees are people who are trying to become Rotarians.

But the ideal for the church is something different. We call it being part of the Body of Christ and it is grounded in the reconciling act of God in Christ – which is the very heart of the faith we celebrate. Our task is to testify to the breaking down of barriers, not their erection. Anyone who is not against us if for us.

It is true in families, too. People have different strengths and weaknesses, different abilities and limitations, and experience a wealth of feelings differently. Each person is unique, and that is one of the most important lessons we can learn as we try to live together in households. To know and value our own uniqueness is part of what it means to accept myself – and to do the same for others is what it means to accept one another. Our sense of self – and our ability to acknowledge and value the "self" in others -- grows out of the experiences of competence, self-control, privacy and acceptance.

That sense of acceptance in church and family is especially important when the hard times come. Life can be difficult, demanding all the resources we can muster. Death, divorce, separation, illness, drug or alcohol abuse, are hard of relationships and individuals. Those are times when it might be especially important to know that those who are not against us are for us.

Today is World Communion Sunday – a time to celebrate the worldwide diversity of the body of Christ. This is the 70^th year for this observance, when we celebrate our unity with believers around the world by gathering at the Lord’s Table. It is a time to affirm our commitment to faithful witness in the world, and our solidarity with brothers and sister in the faith everywhere who are also celebrating this sacrament in their churches throughout the world.

We often talk about the church as being a "family." There are two important factors about families to keep in mind. First, not all families are alike. They are of different shapes and sizes, made up of different configurations of people. And secondly, they are rarely simply nuclear, but link us – for good or for ill – with others, perhaps of other times, places and generations. In that setting, you don’t get to choose your relatives – though undoubtedly there are times when you wish you could! And our church family is something like our family of origin. We don’t all look alike; we don’t all act alike; we don’t all think alike. Some may look down on, or up to others. In some churches – happily not in this one -- some try to deny their kinship, fight with each other or ignore one another. But even in that situation, the truth is still the truth: we are not all alike, but we all belong to one another. In all of our diversity and uniqueness, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, joined to one another in our baptism and nourished together at the Table of the Lord.

Whoever is not against us is for us. There is some wonderfully good news in that, if only we can learn to live it out in all of our life and relationships.

[COPYRIGHT 2006, John C. Bush]

NOW WORSHIP, HONOR AND THANKSGIVING
BE TO OR GOD,
AND TO GOD’S NAME BE PRAISE
THIS DAY AND FOREVER. AMEN.