Gospel: Mark 9:38-40

 

Today’s Gospel narrates quite a beautiful and actual example of the pedagogy of Jesus. It shows us how He helped His disciples to perceive and to overcome the “yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod”.

 

Someone who did not belong to the community used the name of Jesus to drive out devils. John, the disciple, sees this and forbids it. In the name of the community he forbids that the other one can do a good deed! He thinks that being a disciple, he can have a monopoly on Jesus, and because of this, he wants to forbid that others use the name of Jesus to do good. 

 

Jesus responds: “You must not stop him” (Mk 9:40). It would be very difficult to find a more ecumenical affirmation than this affirmation of Jesus. For Jesus, what is important is not if the person forms part of the community or not, but rather if the person does the good which the community should do.

 

Jesus is the center, and the model of formation given to the disciples. By His attitudes He is an example of the Kingdom. He embodies the love of God and reveals it. Many small gestures show this witness of life with which Jesus marked His presence in the life of the disciples, preparing them for life and for their mission. Formation was not, in the first place, the transmission of truths to be remembered, but the communication of the new experience of God and the life which radiates from Jesus for the disciples. Formation led people to “conversion”.