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| Driving Out a Mute Demon, Wikimedia |
1st
Passiontide
Luke 11:
14-35
Jesus was
driving out a demon from a man who was mute. And it came to pass that as the
demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. However,
some of them said, “He drives out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons.”
Others sought to test him by asking for a sign from heaven as proof of his
spiritual power.
Jesus knew
their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself will be
desolated, and house will fall against house. If Satan is divided against
himself, how can his kingdom stand? And you claim that I drive out demons by
Beelzebub? Now if I were to drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers
do it? Therefore, they shall be your judges.
But if I
drive out demons by the finger of God, it follows that the kingdom of God has
already come to you.
When a strong
man in full armor guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when someone
stronger attacks and overpowers him, the victor takes away the armor in which
the man had trusted, and divides it up as spoils.
He who does
not unite with my being is against me; and he who does not gather in inner
composure with me [work for inner composure with me] scatters.
When an
unclean spirit comes out of a man, it wanders through waterless places seeking
a place to rest; and if it cannot find it, it says, ‘I will return to the
dwelling out of which I have come.” When it returns to this dwelling it finds
it cleaned and adorned. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked
than itself and enters and dwells in that man. And his final state is worse
than the first.”
As he was
saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, “Blessed is the
mother who bore you and nursed you.”
But he said,
“Truly blessed are those who hear the divine word in their hearts and tend it
there.”
1st Passiontide
Luke 11:14 – 28
March 8, 2015
This gospel reading
is a wake-up call. Present day humanity is under a great deal of duress. It has
become easy for us to wish for an all-powerful, magical ruler who will set
everything to rights. But the problem, as Christ puts it, actually lies within
us. As does the solution.
We are estranged
from our own true being, deaf to higher inspirations. So rather than searching
for salvation from without, we need to be willing, like Christ, to take the
path of descent, to ride out the hard road of suffering. We need to be willing
to change our own inner ways. We can develop the capacity to see and hear both
ourselves, and the world, clearly and impartially, with inner equanimity.
In this way, the
light of the Risen One, who shines in the depths of every human heart, can
illuminate every circumstance in which we find ourselves. He will help us drive
out our inner demons so that a clear light, awakened by His Word, shines out
from the depths of our being. As David Whyte says:
…the lightest touch,
…
a whispered healing arrival,
a word in your ear,
…then, like a hand in the dark,
it arrests the whole body,
steeling you for revelation.
In the silence that follows
…you can feel Lazarus,
deep inside
even the laziest,
most deathly afraid
part of you,
lift up his hands
and walk toward the light.[1]
