Robert Barron - Whoever Is Not Against Us Is For Us
Peace be with you. Friends, the first reading and third reading today are wonderful because they have to do with, I think, a basic problem in the Church, which is the Church at war with itself. You know, mind you, the devil is the scatterer, he's the divider. And one of his favorite tricks is to take the Church, which is meant to be an instrument of the Gospel in the world, and to turn us against one another. Divide and conquer. That's a really good principle if you want to undermine your enemy. Remember in the old Tolkien stories, the orcs. The orcs are ferocious, you know, but they always undermine themselves because they turn against one another. They end up killing each other.
Well, see, if you can make your enemy do that, that's great. And so the enemy of the Church, I think, loves to play this game of dividing us against each other. A very good example of this in the Old Testament is the Saul-David Conflict. Remember? Saul and David, David is Saul's protege, they're on the same team. They're fighting the same enemy. But then, then, that voice is heard. Hey, the women sing, "Saul slew his thousands, but David his tens of thousands". And Saul is filled with murderous jealousy and just goes after David. And as you're reading that story, you're thinking, no, no, no, no, no. You guys have a common enemy here. And if you just stay together, you can beat the Philistines. But instead, David and Saul turn against each other and the purposes of God are not realized.
Well, perhaps somewhat less dramatic but still very illuminating example is in this book of Numbers in our first reading. Here's the setup for it, is the Lord wants to take some of the grace he gave to Moses and spread it to 70 elders of the people so they can help Moses in his governance of the nation. And so they designate these 70 men. There's an official list of those who will receive the grace. And so the moment comes, and these men receive the grace. But two who were on the list, Eldad and Medad, didn't show up. And so people thought, well, I guess, you know, they're out of luck. But it turns out that the two of them get the grace anyway, and they begin to prophesy.
So right away a complaint is brought to Joshua and then to Moses. "Hey, hey, wait a minute, these two, Eldad and Medad, they didn't show up for the ceremony and so they shouldn't be prophesying. You know, we showed up. We did what God wanted. So we got a right to prophesy. Those two guys, no, no. So Moses, you know, do something about this". And first question, why are they trying to stop them? Why are they trying to stop… aren't they all on the same team, that they're the people of God? And if God wants to spread his grace among them and elevate them to do great things, what's the problem? Remember our sermon from last week? If you're preoccupied with the ladder (Who's up, who's down? Who's in, who's out? Who's going up, who's going down?) well, then you are going to worry about things like this.
"Hey, hey, I took the time, I followed the rules and I was there. These two weren't there". Well, what if we say that stupid ladder, though, is just a waste of time? Who cares about it, as long as we're doing what God wants? Which is exactly what Moses says. Moses answered them, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets! Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all"! So Moses beautifully here shows great spiritual common sense. They all want to play the game of divisiveness. And who's in, who's out? Who followed the rules, who didn't? Moses is like, cuts to the chase. "I don't have time for this. This is a waste of everybody's time. I'd be happy if God made everybody a prophet. I'm not jealous because someone else has been given the prophetic gift".
hat would happen, everybody, if the whole Church would feel that way? What would happen if we just didn't care about who was number one, who got the… that we're all fighting the same fight. The Church would do its job and not be divided. Well, listen now in the Gospel, we've got a version of this. At that time, John said to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us". Jesus replied, "Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us". Same issue.
So John, presumably speaking for the other disciples, they're the in group. They're the ones closest to the Lord. They've been given prerogatives, okay, they're the 12 apostles, right? They're at the top of the spiritual ladder. "But wait a minute, there's these people over there. They're not part of our group. They're not close to you the way we are, Lord. And they're driving out demons in your name. Tell them to stop. They're not following all the right rubrics". Jesus here, like Moses, cuts to the chase. Who cares? Who cares? If they're driving out demons, think of someone now who's in the grip of a demon, someone whose life has been horribly compromised, someone who's been suffering maybe for years and years, and the demon's driven out in the name of Jesus, isn't that just good?
"No, no, no, no. I'm going to bracket that. What's bugging me is he didn't follow the regulations. He's not part of our official group". Well, who cares? Who cares? As long as the spiritual work is being done. See, what matters, everybody, what matters, I'll put it this way, is the flow of grace. God wants his grace to flow through us into the world, to lift it up, to transform it. That's what God wants. That's it. That's what he wants. Listen now, whatever structures there are in the Church, in the way we organize our spiritual lives, whatever structures there are, are in service of that, not vice versa. Everything in the Church is meant to facilitate the flow of grace.
So if grace is flowing, don't get in its way. Don't mistake forests for trees. Don't get mixed up on spiritual priorities. Now you say, okay, I guess this happened in ancient times, the book of Numbers. Guess it happened in Jesus' time with his own disciples. But thank God it never happens in my world. Open your eyes. I mean, look, I've been a churchman for a long time. I've been a priest for 38 years, bishop for 9 years. And look, I love church people. I've been around them most of my adult life. People that dedicate themselves to the work of the kingdom of God and who are involved in the structures and hierarchies and bureaucracies of the Church. And I love them, and I love those structures too, by the way.
What are they meant to do? They're meant to facilitate the flow of grace. Period. Period. Am I happy there's good order in the Church? Yeah, of course I am. Look, I'm a bishop of a diocese. Part of my job is to assure good order in the life of the Church. If there's just chaos at the liturgical level, the pastoral level, well, that's not going to help anybody. So I got nothing against church office and parish staffs and chancery and all those good things. However, does it happen sometimes that good people who are involved in these structures start caring a lot more about the structure than about spiritual power? Yeah, I think so.
Start caring much more about, you know, who's in charge, who follow the regulations, who's in or who's out, who's expected to get this and not that, then they are with the real spiritual power that comes from the flow of grace. Sometimes, too, you know, this jealousy issue, go back to the Eldad and Medad story, is part of it: "Hey, I'm on the list and I cooperated, and these two guys didn't even show up, and yet they're getting the same gift I got? Doesn't seem right. I resent that".
I've seen this happen, you know, frequently enough in my years in the Church is someone comes along with a really good idea, maybe it's a younger person, maybe someone new in the ministry, new in the priesthood, and they've got a really good idea and it's working and everyone can see that it's working and that the Church would benefit from this. And the idea is brought down to the chancery office or the parish staff or to the pastor or to the bishop or whatever, and it, you know, it dies the death of a thousand cuts. It's critiqued. It's undermined. It's put in the bureaucracy. It's shuffled around. People quietly resist it. "Oh yeah, I'll take care of that. I'll talk to the right person". Then that person is never talked to… you know what I mean, you know what I mean.
How we will out of jealousy or resentment, kill even a beautiful idea because it's not fitting into our sense of the way things ought to go. "I am jealous of that. I mean, it wasn't my idea. So why would they implement that guy's idea? And look, he's this young fella. He just joined us. I've been working here for 35 years. Why should they get all the credit"? Saul slew his thousands. David his tens of thousands. I've seen that too in parishes where 'Father Young Priest' comes along and he's a very charming and a great preacher, and everybody loves him.
And you say, "Hey, Father so-and-so, the pastor, he's great, but oh, this new kid we really like..." Well, the old pastor can start resenting that, and how come he's getting all this attention? A line I've seen attributed to Harry S.Truman, the American president. "There's no limit to what we could accomplish if no one cared about who got credit for it". That's a line that's very illuminating, I think, and I think it applies at every level of life. Let that sink in. There's no limit to what we could accomplish as a parish, as a diocese, as a church, if nobody cared who got credit.
So let's say it's my idea and I bring it to the table and then it's adopted, but for whatever reason, someone else got credit for it, someone else is getting all the praise for it. "I resent that, and I'm going to get in his way next time". Whom does that serve but the devil? Whom does that attitude serve but the devil? The dark power. What if it's, you know what, I don't care who gets credit, because what I care about is the flow of grace. Eldad and Medad, they didn't show up. Who cares?
Moses says, "I don't care. I wished everybody was a prophet". "Hey, Lord Jesus, those guys, they're expelling demons in your name". "Let them. Let them. If they're not against us, they're for us. And if people are being liberated from the dark power, terrific. I don't care who gets credit for it or if they're the in group or the out group". What if all of us felt that way? There's no limit spiritually speaking to what we might accomplish. And God bless you.