Word to the Wise
Friday, October 12, 2007 - Twenty-seventh Friday in Ordinary Time
[Joel 1:13-15; 2:1-2 and Luke 11:15-26]When Jesus had driven out a demon, some of the crowd said: "by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons......
One step into a store at this time is sufficient to remind us that Halloween is "just around the corner." All sorts of decorations and costumes and trick-or-treat supplies are on display. It's the one time a year that we bow in the direction of demons, goblins, ghouls, spooks. etc. etc. They are all portrayed in very fearsome fashion. I'll have more to say about this when we get to the actual day. But we are definitely in the preparation period. In Jesus' time, demons were an everyday thing. The account in today's gospel is rather casual in stating what Jesus was doing. It was a regular part of his ministry and a regular part of the cultural and religious life of the people. The problem is that some in the crowd attributed wrong motives. They asserted that the only reason he could drive out demons is because he was in league with the "prince of demons." This is a sort of "takes one to know one" attitude. Jesus turns their argument on its head by saying that such a notion would be counterproductive from the demons' standpoint of view! Instead, he shows that it is by "the finger of God" that he drives out demons and this means the Kingdom of God has come! I experienced this sort of ministry frequently at St. Ann's in San Antonio. I was often asked for a blessing to drive out a demon either from a person or a home. This was NOT a full scale exorcism, mind you. The people simply lived with the belief of the continual presence of "demons" and Satan. We kept jars of holy water at the front desk because of the custom in many of the homes of sprinkling blessed water on the children and home each evening. This is no halloween pretending - it is a serious acknowledgment of the reality of the devil and demons. Despite my ambiguous feelings about the whole thing, I recognize the pastoral value of the experience. At least it made me more aware of the "finger of God" at work all the time. AMEN
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