No middle ground

Every so often, there is one of those sections that makes you scratch your head, until you think more about it and see the end result of the thought process.

In today's NT reading, Jesus says "Anyone who isn't helping me opposes me, and anyone who isn't working with me is actually working against me."

But, when the disciples tell Jesus that they stopped someone from casting out demons in Jesus' name because "he was not one of us," Jesus reminds them (Luke 9:50) "Don't stop him. Anyone who is not against you is for you."

What if someone isn't doing anything? In the first instance, that person is working against Jesus. In the second instance, that person is not necessarily against the disciples.

It seems that there are a couple of ways to look at this dichotomous philosophy. Either Jesus has different rules for himself than he does for the disciples, brooking less complacency than he would allow for followers of his disciples, or Jesus is trying to create a yin/yang approach to the commands He is giving. The inherent push/pull of interpretative attempts again creates in the user the need to hold two opposing viewpoints in his mind at the same time. This can definitely broaden one's perspective and help one to grow spiritually and intellectually, but unfortunately, it can create legalistic pitfalls, especially in the issue of complacency.

Jesus clearly brooks no middle ground. He says, flat out, that someone who is not actually for Him is against Him. Looking at our interaction with our deity, I fully believe in that. If you don't believe in God, then you actively disbelieve in Him. Non-belief is disbelief. There is no middle ground. And if you actively disbelieve in Him, then (if He exists) you are working *against* Him. But if you believe in Him, you are working for Him by your faith that He exists. There's no getting out of it.

But with man, things get muddled. If man is imperfect (he is), then man can have imperfection in the understanding of theology/divinity. And complacency, therefore, can be protective because one may not be "getting it right" and you can be allowed to be a little complacent, figuring things out, as long as you are not actively working against another man.

Either approach one takes to this dichotomy yields great meaning, I think. But, at the end of the day, there is no middle ground of faith.