Today's Gospel

This Is God’s Territory

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we explore the genius of the Gospel. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark 9: 38-40. John said to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us." So short reading today, what jumps out at you? Word, phrase, or idea? Because what are we dealing with? We're dealing with sort of a territorialism.

And John's saying to Jesus, "Hey, Jesus, we saw this guy casting out demons in your name, and we told him not to do that." So there's insanity there. Right? It's like, okay, we saw this guy casting out demons. Okay? And he was doing it in your name, but he wasn't following us, and we didn't know who he was. He wasn't with our group. And so we told him, "Hey, you got to stop doing that." So it's like crazy. Right? But it happens all the time. It's this embedded human nature that we have, that we want to keep our own thing or be with our own group or this sort of territorialism. And it shows itself in a thousand different ways every day. It shows itself in families. It shows itself in workplace. It shows itself in churches. It shows itself in schools. It shows itself everywhere. The question is, are we mindful of it for ourselves? And when are we territorial? And when we are territorial, to be able to remind ourselves that, "Okay, no, this isn't my territory. It's all God's territory." And that's essentially what Jesus says to them. He says, "No. No. You don't have to stop him from casting out demons in my name." The famous line, "For he that is not against us is for us." And of course, in our cancel culture, that certainly isn't enough. Right?

And it's a classic example, modern example, cancel culture of like extreme territorialism and doctrines of, if you don't declare loud and now that you are for X, then we are going to declare that you are against X. It's sad and tragic and it ruins communities, and it ruins lives. Have a great day. Remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic. [music]

I hope you're enjoying the Daily Gospel Reflections. It's one of the things I love doing, spending this time with you each day. Recently, I released a book called 33 Days to Divine Mercy. If you haven't had a chance to check that out yet, I encourage you to do that today.