GodReflection: It’s Jesus Friday

We humans seem to like inner circles. There is nothing like casually dropping the name before our friends of an encounter with someone perceive to be higher up the food chain.

The reality is that we attended a breakfast with three thousand others and the “someone” important.

Mr. or Miss. “someone” didn’t shake our hand, didn’t know our name, had never seen us before, nor will ever see us again. But for a short time we made claim to the inner circle.

Those who daily trailed along with Jesus as he introduced the Father to the people enjoyed the inner circle designation.

I find a disturbing action by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel to inner circles.

I will return to that thought in a moment.

It bothers me that I am far too much of a tribal follower of Jesus.

I most identify with people of my church tribe. I have a tendency to overlook my own misunderstandings of the Holy while I stand ready to discount another’s comprehension of God’s acts.

Then I read the story Mark selected to preserve from the life of Jesus recorded in the ninth chapter of his gospel:

“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us”.

“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward”.

As I look across the landscape of people dedicated to Jesus I see gazillions of gallons of cold water gushing from Christ followers to quench the thirst of the world.

Is that alright?

Should I tell them to stop?

The cold water is not all flowing from my church tribe.

Perhaps, I should just utter a prayer of thanksgiving that they are getting the values and actions of Jesus right.

Maybe I should be thankful that cups of cold water are distributed in the name of the Messiah in numbers beyond my ability to comprehend.

Could it be that those who get Jesus right get his doctrine right?

I keep wondering if right Jesus might just make right doctrine.

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells – A GodReflection Inner Circle Phobia

Gary@Godreflection.org     www.MakeYourVisionGoViral.com