A reflection for Sunday 26th of September.
Every so often in the gospel we are given a tantalising glimpse into what I call a ‘shadow person’. Someone who is necessary to the story of the gospel but we actually aren’t told a lot about them.
In today's gospel it is someone who I will call Doogal.
38 John said to Jesus ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’
39 But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me.
So who is this someone who is casting out demons?
This is what we know about Doogal
Doogal knows of Jesus.
Doogal knows that the power of Jesus' name can cast out demons.
Doogal is not one of the 12. He is not part of that intimate group that is talked about here in the gospel. He was not part of the ‘inner circle’ that they were in.
Therefore Doogal is a bit of an outsider, at least as far as John is concerned.
Doogal is confronted by the disciples and told to stop.
What we are not quite sure about.
It reads like, but we are not sure, that Doogal has been an exorcist for some time. It doesn’t sound like the exorcism that John and the others saw was Dougal’s first go.
We're not told how it was that Doogal came to be doing what John and the others saw him doing. Could it be that Doogal had watched from afar as Jesus cast demons out of someone else; or perhaps he only heard about it from someone else’s report.
Or could it be that Our Lord had actually known him from quite a different encounter that was never recorded. Somebody that Jesus bumped into at one of the dinner parties he went to, or did Jesus haggled with and buy his fish from Doogal at the market?
There must have been lots of these people. Lots of ‘Doogals’. Keep your eye open for them and I assure you that it is not a sin to play with the possibilities of these people. What were they like? What was the backstory? What led them to this particular encounter with Jesus? What happened to them afterwards?
In any case, out of a genuine belief that Jesus had authority over demons—and perhaps being moved with deep compassion for the needy people around him—Doogal had actually been going around casting demons out of people in Jesus’ name.
Now this story is just as much about how John got it wrong as it is about how Doogal got it right.
So consider how John felt about what Doogal was doing. He believed strongly that the man should be forbidden from performing the miracle of casting out demons in the name of Jesus. The man was actually in the process of casting demons out of people in Jesus’ name; and John and some of the others came and told him to stop. And the reason John gives for stopping the man was—as he himself said—"because he does not follow us".
And please note very carefully, dear brothers and sisters, what John didn’t say. He didn’t say, "We forbade him because he does not follow You, Lord." Rather, he said, "We forbade him because he does not follow us. He may be casting demons out in Your name, Lord; but he’s not a part of our group. He’s not in our inner circle. He does not follow us.
So John’s focus is on the inner cabinet. The clique. John’s focus is not about the Master which is its own form of blindness. And sadly, John’s focus is also not on the poor tormented soul who needs to get rid of their demon.
“He was not following us” … but he may well have been following Jesus. With Our Lord there is no room for exclusivity. It is not about us and who belongs to us, it is about who belongs to Jesus and who follows HIM.
Further, our war is not against other people, it is against evil. With our lives we must write a narrative of the common good of all people.
The absolute imperative is always about Him and we will find Him in those who are vulnerable and tormented and weepy and cranky and frightened. Those who find themselves in an odd place, a different dimension, uncharted and wonky territory.
Who is in and who is out is not our call, has never been our call, and it never will be.
Something fun to think about.
After this was all over, did John have the good grace to go sheepishly back to Doogal and say.
“Umm… well Doogal, I’m sorry you were right. We have checked it out with Jesus and he said it was OK. You are doing a great job. Have the rest of the week off on full pay” Do you think John went back and apologised? Would we?