Pentecost 17, October 1, 2006

The patient’s family gathered to hear what the specialists had to say.

“Things don’t look very good.  The only chance is a brain transplant.  This is an experimental procedure.  It might work, but the bad news is that brains are very expensive, are not covered by insurance, and you will have to pay the costs yourselves.”

“Well, how much does a brain cost?” asked one of the relatives.

“For a male brain, $500,000.  For a female brain, $200,000.”

All the men nodded in understanding of why that would be the case, and a couple actually smirked.  Then the patient’s daughter asked, “Why the difference in price between the male brains and the female brains?”

“It’s a standard pricing practice required by the AMA,” said the head of the transplant team.  “Women’s brains have to be marked down because they’re used.”

Sorry, fellows.

Our patron saint, John, the one who loved Jesus more than anything or anyone and the one who sat so close to Jesus at so many crucial times in his earthly life, is quite proud of himself.  Mark’s Gospel for today has John returning to Jesus with the good news that he had observed a man casting out unclean spirits and healing the sick in the name of Jesus.  But, John says, “We tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

Well, we haven’t reached the life-giving, life-changing miracle of Easter and already the Christian enterprise has formed an inner circle.  The disciples were becoming a closed group, a clique.  They were beginning to think of themselves as an institution with a fixed, registered, and card-carrying membership, kind of like a social club.  The preaching of the word of God, ministering to people’s needs, and touching those who were hurting had to be done by the institution in order to be considered legitimate.  This man, John was saying, has not asked for institutional certification.  Therefore, he cannot possibly preach and heal until he is brought into the system.  What he says and does cannot matter.  He may indeed be preaching in Jesus’ name and ministering to people’s needs, but if just anybody can start preaching and healing how can we have denominational structure and proper order and control?  It simply makes sense, from John’s perspective, that this man must first be certified, commissioned, and ordained.

Look at what Jesus does with John’s logic.  He says to John, to the other disciples then and now, and to all who might gather in his name, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.”  Apparently, Jesus was not primarily interested in creating an institution or organization, but in getting the reconciling word out to as many people as possible.

Now, I have no trouble defending the need for the church to have some sense of organization about it, but woe to the church or denomination that allows it organization to get in the way of its message.  Even greater is the “woe” to any who would make the church or denomination the message itself.  A troubled and dying world needs to hear the reconciling word of God in Christ.  The church or denomination must proclaim that Word and stop the bickering and tragic diversion from its primary mission that comes from judging each other.

In order to understand that mission Jesus lays down the great principle of Christian tolerance.  I would have to say, based on current events that the world is becoming less and less tolerant of human differences and the church is tempted to reflect the world in which it lives and sometimes forgets that the world can never set the agenda for the church.  The rhetoric continues its climb to intolerant levels, Christian denominations continue to throw barbs at each other, and the mission goes lacking.  Jesus reminds his church that it is not the great deeds for which he looks; it is very often just a cup of cold water given in his name to a thirsty person.

“Whoever is not against us is for us.”  At the very least we may learn some things about the living of our own discipleship from this principle of tolerance.  First, every person has a right to think for themselves.  Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength means we have a right to our own beliefs.  We must resist the human tendency to condemn what we do not understand.  It is a fearful thing, and borders on the demonic in my opinion, for any minister or any church to claim to have a monopoly on salvation.  Truth, the type that sets people free, it always larger than any one person’s grasp of it. 

The basis upon which Christian tolerance may be built is the knowledge that we are finite creatures.  God alone is infinite and the parameters of truth are beyond our comprehension.  Intolerance, judging others, is a sign of both arrogance and ignorance.  Intolerance is a sign that a person believes there is no truth beyond that which he or she sees at the moment.  It is one thing to say, “Given what I know at this moment in time, this is what I think about a particular contentious issue.”  It is quite another thing to say, “This is what I think and it will never change.”

The second thing the principle of Christian tolerance teaches is that each person has a right to speak for themselves.  Freedom of speech is the dearest of all our democratic rights, but it is also the one most often abused.  Spouting doctrines and stereotypic attitudes that, if carried to their ultimate completion, would violate the sanctity or person of others is not exercising free speech.  The very best and most effective way to combat that problem is not to eliminate such people by force or to gag them, but to prove them wrong.  Attempting to kill ideas or world views never works. 

Finding one’s own voice in this world brings about a freedom like none other in the world.  The church must always struggle to help those who have no voice or have lost their voice to speak for themselves.

Finally, the principle of Christian tolerance means that any doctrine and any belief and any ministry must ultimately be judged by the kind of people it produces.  The important questions about the church are not what kind of structure or polity it observes, but what kind of people are produced by the hours of worship, study, and prayer that takes place within its walls.  Churches that produce people who are concerned only with what goes on inside their own walls, people who are judgmental and intolerant have some soul-searching to do, in my opinion.

Certain luxuries are not allowed the Christian believer.  We cannot think for others, we can only help create an atmosphere in which thinking can occur.  We cannot speak for others; we can only be committed to the healing that is necessary before people can find their own voice.  We cannot produce anything other than people who are filled with the love of God, for then they will be filled with love for all God’s creatures and God’s creation.  We may even find the inexpressible joy of giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty person in the Lord’s name.  Doing so might even help us avoid drastic surgery and might help us find our brains.  Amen.