NOTES for Mar 9:33-41
Everyone who reads the Gospel is struck by a characteristic difference in Christ's words about those who are not with Him and about those who are not against His disciples. With regard to Himself, the Lord says: "Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters." But when the disciples complain to Christ about a certain man who works miracles in Christ's name but does not go with them, the Lord says to them: "do not forbid him... whoever is not against you is for you."
The disciples can be understood. If this unknown man believes in Christ so much that he casts out demons in His name, how can he not follow the path of the Twelve apostles? Is their path deficient, mistaken? No, the path of the Twelve is not mistaken - but it is not the only one. For centuries, people coming into the community of Christ's disciples have tried to "forbid" those who do not go after them. Today's passage from the Gospel of Mark directly rejects such attempts.
It is characteristic that the evangelists tell us nothing about such people, who did not go after the disciples but did walk in the ways of Jesus Christ. Only occasionally, in passing, do we learn that there were not so few of them. At one moment the apostle Paul finds a community baptized with John's baptism, and by his apostolic authority passes on to them the gift of the Holy Spirit. At another, he himself testifies in a letter to the existence of more than five hundred witnesses of the Resurrection... In the end, all who have believed in Christ enter one holy catholic and apostolic Church. But people do this by following Jesus Christ, and not anyone else.