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NOT IN THE GROUP – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (9/26/2021)
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Numbers 11:25-29
Psalm 19
James 5:1-6
Mark 9:38-43,45,47-48
NOT IN THE GROUP
“Wait, they're not supposed to be doing that...they don't belong to our group.” How familiar this sounds—we've heard it before. (Maybe we've even said it before!) We see an example in the first reading with Eldad and Medad—got to love those names!—prophesying “outside the group.” We see it in the gospel with the case of the “unfamiliar exorcist.” The lesson here is that God gifts and anoints whomever he will. “Our God is in heaven and whatever he wills, he does.” (Psalm 115:3)
NUMBERS
I have always liked this reading ever since hearing a great teaching on it in the early 1970s. The Lord takes some of the spirit that was on Moses and spreads it around on the seventy elders who served as his Council. Eldad and Medad were not in the tent but received the anointing of the spirit anyway and proceeded to start prophesying.
Joshua wants to stop these two, but Moses’ answer is instructive: “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!” To which we say, “Amen to that!”
GOSPEL
The gospel relates a similar situation to that found in the first reading. The Apostle John (one-half of the Sons of Thunder!), tells Jesus that he and the apostles tried to prevent the unknown exorcist from casting out demons in Jesus’ name. His reason was “because he does not follow us.” Jesus: however, says no. “There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.”
Then Jesus adds, “For whoever is not against us is for us.” In the parallel passage in Luke, there is a slight variation which says, “For whoever is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:58)
Jesus includes a warning against causing a little one to sin, as well as an admonition about avoiding sin ourselves. His point is that it would be better to go to heaven bodily maimed than to go to hell with all bodily members intact.
JAMES
Our second reading continues to be from the Letter of James. This passage is a strong word against the rich and riches, basically saying that wealth won't save anyone, but may instead present an obstacle.
The particular sin singled out for condemnation here is withholding just wages from the workers. This is one of the sins in the Bible which “cries to heaven for vengeance.”
In this passage it definitely sounds like James is expressing what has come to be called “a preferential option for the poor.”
TODAY'S TAKEAWAYS
What lessons can we take away from the readings today? One, for sure, is that God chooses and anoints whomever he will. As I heard someone preach a long time ago, “God blesses and uses people I would neither bless nor use.” It is not for us to pass judgment on and exclude those whom God has favored.
Another takeaway is radical separation from sin - being willing to be separated from something as close and necessary as a bodily part to avoid being separated from God.
A final takeaway is to be on guard against the lure of worldly riches. As St. Paul says in 1 Tim. 6:10, “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
There is much rich teaching in today's liturgical readings! May the precepts of the Lord continually give joy to our hearts (Responsorial, Psalm 19).
