Wednesday in the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time, February 23, 2022

Mark 9:38-40

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

We see the zeal for Jesus which filled the Apostle John’s breast in this saying as well as in Luke 9, 54, when a Samaritan town refused the Lord passage: “Lord, will you that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”  It is no wonder that the Lord called him and his brother James “the sons of thunder” (Mark 3, 17).  “We tried to prevent him”.  The Greek simply says, “We prevented him”, no “trying” about it.  The “we” certainly also means his brother James, but other Apostles may have been involved.  It is not clear when this took place, since John took for granted that Jesus was unaware of this fact, meaning that James and John  and Jesus were apart.  Possibly the Apostles saw this man attempting to exorcise in the marketplace where they had been sent to purchase provisions.  “He does not follow us”, that is, accompany us physically, or adhere to Christ’s teachings.  For John, the two would be the same: those who accompanied Jesus were the ones who lived according to his teachings.

The Lord’s reply would have surprised John: “Do not prevent him.”  That is, do not hinder him in what he is doing.  Whether this man is successfully casting out demons, he is in fact doing a remarkable thing: he is using the name of Jesus to do this.  The man recognizes power in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and so acknowledges that power resides in Jesus himself.  Down through the ages and to this very day, demons are cast out through the invocation of the name of Jesus.  It is a name so powerful that, as St. Paul says, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2, 10-11).  We do not know if the man was using the name of Jesus as a magic word or through belief in him.  Jesus commends the good of the man recognizing his power as in some way divine, and the man’s public use of his name in this way amounts to a kind of preaching.  St. Paul rejoiced when those who were slandering him were publicizing the power of Jesus: “Some out of contention preach Christ not sincerely, supposing that they raise affliction to my bonds. But what then? So that by all means, whether by occasion or by truth, Christ be preached: in this also I rejoice, yea, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1:17–18).

“There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.”  The Lord says much the same thing when he is accused by blasphemy: How does Almighty God enable him to perform miracles if he is speaking against him?  Rather, the miracles validate that God is with him.  We do not know if the man actually succeeded in exorcising demons.  St. Luke tells a story that may shed light on this question: “Now some also of the Jewish exorcists, who went about, attempted to invoke over them that had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying: I conjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches.  And there were certain men, seven sons of Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest, that did this. But the wicked spirit, answering, said to them: Jesus I know: and Paul I am familiar with. But who are you?” (Acts 19:13–15).  The demon then causes the possessed man to leap upon them and beat them.  However, if the man of whom John is speaking is using the name of the Lord in faith, we might hope for better results.

“Whoever is not against us is for us.”  In context, the Lord is speaking of those making his name known one way or another.  In this way, many will seek him out if only out of curiosity, and through the tiny window these people offer, the light of faith may begin to shine.