22 May 2024 Mark 9:38-40
“Whoever is not against us is for us.” Mark 9:40
Believing that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist is not a teaching that is necessary for salvation.
Neither is clerical celibacy.
Neither is the belief in seven Sacraments, as opposed to just two.
All of these, and many more, are important Catholic teachings which all Catholics are obliged to believe, which all faithful Catholics trust to be extraordinarily useful in their calling to love Jesus and live the Gospel. Other Christians, however, can reject them all without putting their salvation at risk.
This doesn’t mean that Catholics are indifferent toward our teachings. Far from it. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus wrote that “The Catholic Church is the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time.” Catholics believe that the teachings of our Church are the ones most perfectly suited to result in lives of faith, hope and charity, and that the teachings of other churches are less perfectly suited to that end. This is not to say that lives of faith, hope and charity are impossible in those churches, but that, in the main, the process will take longer and be less complete.
Salvation, however, is up to Jesus, not the Church. Jesus himself said, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice” (John 10:16). When the disciples wanted to suppress the exorcist who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but was not one of the Twelve, Jesus told them to leave the exorcist alone, that if he was performing deeds of power in Jesus’ name, he was on their side: “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40). He went on to say that the least act of help to those who are living the gospel will not be overlooked, even a mere cup of cold water (9:41). Jesus will not forget anyone who does even the smallest thing to help people find their way to Him.
In Matthew 12:30, however, Jesus appears to say the opposite: “Whoever is not with Me is against Me.” But this is not a contradiction so much as it is an elimination of all other options. You can follow Jesus, even if your following amounts to little more than doing very small favors to assist those who are trying to live the faith. Maybe you just give a bottle of water to someone who is witnessing on a college campus, or ask others to not interrupt so that you can hear. We have Jesus’ own assurance that he will not forget people who have done only that much. But if you are not willing to do even very small things to assist, then you’re an enemy of Jesus, and there is no in between: “Whoever is not with Me [even if it is just a very little bit] is against me.”
What churches need to be saying with the greatest urgency is not that their teachings are essential for salvation, and the teachings of other churches are all wrong. They need to be saying most urgently that there can be no neutrality about Jesus. It is not the case that there are Believers on one side, Non-Believers on the other, and “Independents” in between. When heaven is the goal, there are no “undecideds.” Jesus did not say that he was A Truth, but The Truth. He did not say He was A Way to Heaven, He said he was The Way. You are either on that Way, and in that Truth, or you’re not. The stakes are very clear, and very high.
Once you are on That Way, and in That Truth, then is a good time to ask who may have the most fully and rightly ordered understanding of the Way you are on.
But you have to make up your mind about Jesus first.
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