John answered, “Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not forbid him; for he that is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49-50)
Sometimes I take odd comfort in snippets like this from the Gospel because I realize that I am not the first to try and thwart God’s will because it does not fit in with how I think things should work. I thought about this because this morning I was reading a secular article about the need to be grateful. And sadly I have to say that my first reaction was to think, “Oh now you realize what we Christian’s have been saying all along.” But here is the thing, outside of the rather obvious fact that Christian’s do not frequently model a life of gratitude, I lament that sometimes we act like the Pharisees castigating Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. We act like life is a sporting event believing that when something good happens to the other team it is bad for us.
But let’s return to this article on gratitude. Yes maybe the author was late to the party and maybe he is not even sure why he is at the party in the first place, but just like Jesus tells us that he who is not against is for us. In one of C.S. Lewis’s books (I think it is Mere Christianity) he has an interesting discussion about those from other religions or faith backgrounds as the young kids say today. The tendency among certain Christians is to think that non-Christians are wrong. Other Christians make an opposite error and say that non-Christians are really the same as us but simply use a different vocabulary or way of looking at the world. But there is a third way to think about those whose beliefs are different from our own. Lewis explains it in terms of math. He says that if 2+2=4 then to say 2+2=5 is wrong, but it is not as wrong as saying 2+2=73,248 or that it equals purple. There are degrees of being wrong and even those who are “wrong” may be much right or very close to being right on many things.
Now please do not think that I am suggesting that it does not really matter what you believe. Rather what I am suggesting is the same thing that Jesus does; celebrate when people stumble onto some truth whether or not they come from the appropriate background or that they have correct beliefs top to bottom. If there are secular articles being written about being grateful this is good news. In fact if you want to be a little devious about it we could argue that someone with a grateful heart is someone who will be more likely to endorse the Gospel message. But even without being devious, grateful people are much more enjoyable to be around. The more Christ like behaviors that people engage in the better, be it casting out demons or being thankful for what they have.
Our prayer should be to keep ourselves from thwarting God’s will.