“For the past several years, I’ve been watching the increase in partisan enmity in the U.S. with growing alarm. Multiple social, cultural and religious factors are converging to create a particularly toxic political stew. America is being pulled apart. This phenomenon is geographic, ideological and spiritual. Thanks to the decades-long “big sort”–a phenomenon outlined by Bill Bishop in his excellent 2009 book–Americans are increasingly clustering in like-minded communities, and surrounding yourself with people who think like you think has a profound effect. As Cass Sunstein articulated, when like-minded people gather, they tend to grow more extreme. His “law of group polarization” holds that people who agree with each other grow more enthusiastic in their beliefs and agreement. If like-minded Second Amendment advocates gather, they grow more opposed to gun control. If likeminded environmental activists gather, they grow more committed to fighting climate change. As geographic separation increases, ideological divisions are magnified. America is becoming extremely efficient at creating superclusters of like-minded citizens… Now, let’s throw in another ingredient–enmity. It is clear that partisan Americans dislike each other a great deal. We live separately, snarling at each other across a growing divide. The result is a politics of fear and rage, where policy differences often take a back seat to the list of grievances that red possesses against blue and blue against red”
THE PROBLEM JESUS SEES
THE POINT JESUS MAKES
THE PATH JESUS OFFERS
“John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.”
Mark 9:38
“Don’t stop him,’ said Jesus, ‘because there is no one who will perform a miracle in my name who can soon afterward speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us is for us. And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ– truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward”
Mark 9:39
John was defining himself and other people horizontally rather than vertically. He was comparing people to people, rather than people to God.
“They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, ‘what were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, because on the way they had been arguing with one another about who was the greatest. Sitting down, he called the Twelve and said to them, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be last and servant of all.’ He took a child, had him stand among them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, ‘whoever welcomes one little child such as this in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me does not welcome me, but him who sent me”
Mark 9:33
Find our deepest sense of identity and belonging in him, not in people or groups.
Jesus is not only rebuking them for their misplaced identity he is redirecting their passion toward their true enemy..
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away— it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. And if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
Mark 9:42
Hell is real, judgement is coming for sin, and you should do everything in your power to escape that judgement.
Your sin is so deep that there is nothing you can do to purify yourself.
Jesus was leading them down a different path.
A path to the cross.
But Jesus says that we ourselves will only remain pure from sin if we get our foundational identity from Him and fight the enemy of our sin first.
“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”
