PROPER 21, YEAR B

Sunday 26 September 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

One of my favorite maxims is that we’re often “right in what we affirm and wrong in what we deny.” So far as I’ve been able to trace its origins, this saying originated not with the nineteenth-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill—to whom it’s usually attributed—but with the Anglican theologian and social reformer Frederick Denison Maurice, in his 1838 book The Kingdom of Christ.

Edward Bouverie Pusey, a key figure in our own Anglo-Catholic tradition, expressed the same idea in his writings: “Look at what other people affirm, where they are usually in the right, not at what they deny, where they are usually in the wrong ...” In his 1951 book Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr of Yale Divinity School repeated it: “[People] are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. What we deny is generally something that lies outside our experience, and about which we can therefore say nothing.”

Of course, we’re talking about a general tendency rather than an ironclad rule. There are exceptions. We can certainly be wrong in what we affirm and right in what we deny; and some propositions are so wrong that they must be denied in the strongest possible terms.

Nonetheless, the insight behind this maxim is that the truth is often so much bigger and more complex than any of us can grasp. So, just when we’re tempted to deny something that someone else has affirmed, we need to consider whether it’s possible that they’ve glimpsed something that we’ve missed. We need to be careful. It’s all too easy to be “right in what we affirm but wrong in what we deny.”

Today’s Old Testament and Gospel readings present examples of religious leaders who were “right in what they affirmed but wrong in what they denied.”

The reading from Numbers recounts an episode from Israel’s wilderness wanderings. God puts his Spirit upon the seventy elders that Moses has assembled at the Tent of Meeting, empowering them to assist in the burdensome task of leading the people. But Eldad and Medad have remained in the camp where they, too, have received the Spirit and started prophesying. This development seems dangerous and subversive to Joshua, who urges Moses to forbid them. But Moses displays a much more open and generous attitude: “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them.”

In the Gospel reading, John tells Jesus that the disciples saw a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name and they forbade him to do so because he wasn’t following them. The disciples seem to feel that such use of their Master’s name outside their circle constitutes a kind of breach of copyright. But our Lord’s response echoes Moses: “Do not forbid him . . . for he that is not against us is for us.”

Both Joshua and John are right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. Joshua is right to affirm the spiritual authority of Moses and the empowerment of the seventy elders. And John is right to affirm the special relationship between Jesus and his disciples.

But both Joshua and John are wrong to deny that God’s Spirit is free to operate outside the authorized channels. Moses and Jesus see the big picture where Joshua and John don’t.

These stories anticipate a certain tension in the Church’s life between institutional authority and prophetic inspiration, between ordered hierarchy and charismatic spontaneity. Some of the Church’s greatest saints have been figures like Francis of Assisi and Teresa of Avila whose relationship with the ecclesiastical authorities of their day was often uneasy. But other great saints have been figures like Augustine of Hippo and Gregory the Great who were themselves the very embodiments of such institutional authority.

We need both. God gives us institutional authority in the Church to keep order and maintain boundaries so that the Gospel may be truly preached, and the Sacraments rightly administered. But from time to time he also inspires prophetic witnesses to challenge us when we become too complacent; and raises up charismatic figures to remind us by their words and examples what it means to live according to the Gospel.

As an Anglo-Catholic priest, for example, I believe firmly in the efficacy of the Sacraments as means of grace. So, when I anoint someone with oil for healing, I’m confident that at some level God reliably imparts the grace of healing to that person, regardless of whether a physical cure happens. It’s not because I personally have a particular gift of healing, but because I’ve been ordained to act in the name of Christ and his Church, and the Sacrament of Unction is the Church’s authorized channel of Christ’s healing power. As Saint James writes: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord …”

But however strongly we affirm the efficacy of the Sacraments, it would be foolish in the extreme to deny that God can and does work outside the authorized channels. Over the years, I’ve known a good number of lay people with real gifts of spiritual healing. Such people are sometimes drawn to an informal ministry of visiting the sick and praying for healing, sometimes with spectacular results. So, according to the traditional saying, we may be bound by God’s ordinances, but God is not.

Today’s readings also speak to our relations with other Christian denominations and, indeed, other religions. One of my longtime interests is ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. To engage in such dialogue, we don’t have to go all relativist and believe that any form of Christianity is as good as any other, or that any religion is as good as any another. On the contrary, I believe that the Catholic faith as received and expressed in classical Anglicanism is the Truth, with a capital “T.” 

Still, the truth of our own tradition should not blind us to the elements of truth, goodness, and beauty to be found in other very different traditions. Commenting on today’s Gospel, St. Augustine of Hippo writes, “Just as there is much that is uncatholic within the Church, so there is much that is Catholic outside the Church.” Engaging in ecumenical and interfaith conversation, friendship, and co-operation does not require us to compromise or water down our convictions. It just requires us to be alert enough to recognize, identify, and act on shared ideals and values.

It’s easy to be right in what we affirm but wrong in what we deny. We rejoice in our own traditions, beliefs, and gifts. But let’s not be too quick to deny or disparage those of others. For it’s more than possible to encounter God’s presence, power, and holiness in the most unexpected places.