Friends
Peace be with you.
One of the challenges with education is trying to accommodate different learning styles in the same classroom. For example, some people tend to be more practical or hands-on in their learning while others tend to be more cerebral or conceptual. You can “learn-by-doing” in shop class much easier than you can in theology. In science, you first have to learn how to do an experiment before you jump in and do it: lab comes after lecture. But, for some kids, they’d rather do the lab and then learn the hows and whys after...or maybe never. Teachers struggle to accommodate both learning styles. I admire the ones who do it well because I never felt like I did.
Believe it or not, this is some of what is happening in the gospel and first reading today. In the first reading, we’re nearing the end of the first five books of the Bible. You may remember a few weeks ago that I talked about one of the unique aspects of these books is that they represent a time when God spoke directly to the person or people in charge. After this, God will set up a structure, called the prophet, to speak to the person or people who are in charge for him. We hear how God set that up today in chapter 18 of Deuteronomy. God is speaking to one of the most unique figures in all of Sacred Scripture; Moses. He will raise up an ancestor to Moses who will be a great prophet. Now, it’s important to note that this comes after an important part of chapter 18, God talks about how his people are barred from associating with one who “practices divination, or is a soothsayer, augur, or sorcerer, or who casts spells, consults ghosts and spirits, or seeks oracles from the dead. Anyone who does such things is an abomination to the LORD, and because of such abominations the LORD, your God, is dispossessing them before you.” Now, I know people who visit mediums or watch ghost hunter shows and think there’s nothing wrong with it as long as they take it for what it is: a fraud or entertainment. But, I’d be very cautious of that attitude. There are evil spirits in the world and we shouldn’t do anything that encourages them to interact with us, even in a casual way that seems to deny their existence.
Let’s look, for instance, at the Gospel. Jesus is in one of the holiest places he will be during his life: a synagogue. It’s a place for prayer and a place for study of Sacred Scripture. Only the Temple in Jerusalem would be more holy than a synagogue. But, it’s here that he encounters an evil spirit. Now I know we may be tempted to be think either that this was probably an undiagnosed medical condition like Tourette Syndrome or bipolar syndrome but, though the church has sometimes historically struggled to know the difference between a person struggling with brain health and demonic possession, this is a real demonic possession of a person who had appeared to be just another faithful member of the synagogue. There are stories of Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis having to exercise people at their audiences as they walk among them. And even stories of priests having to stop Mass to exercise someone, though this hasn’t happened to this priest. I can tell you, without going into details, I’ve experienced more evil inside the church than outside.
Now, here’s the good news: evil exists and is powerful but God is infinitely more powerful. Let’s return to the Gospel for a second. The devil asks what Jesus has to do with us, implying he is more “in league” or “connected to” the people than Jesus is. Jesus is the Son of God so what is he doing slumming with people? The demon even tries to have some control over Jesus by threatening to out him as the “Holy One of God” before Jesus is ready for everyone to know him that way. Jesus’ response is simple, powerful, and demonstrative of how weak the evil one truly is. He says simply “Quiet! Come out of him!” And the evil is gone.
I’d like to suggest that Jesus is being both performative and instructive when he does this. He actually performed an exorcism but he also taught his listeners a hard lesson. On the one hand, if we are afraid of something evil, something that goes bump in the night or someone who seems to not act the right way, praying quietly, “Jesus said, “Quiet! Come out of him” or Come out of here or go away is a pretty good start.
But, I don’t think it’s just for the demons that Jesus says to be quiet. Let’s return to that first reading. After telling people not to go to someone who “practices divination, or is a soothsayer, augur, or sorcerer, or who casts spells, consults ghosts and spirits, or seeks oracles from the dead” God goes on to speak about how he is going to speak to his people. He speaks through prophets. We believe Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophets, a prophet even greater than Moses because he was both fully God and fully human, both Son of God and Son of Man. So, we need to listen to Jesus, to his word in Sacred Scripture and to his lived presence in the Body of Christ, the church. It doesn’t mean that everything a church leader says is perfect. Even the pope can err. He’s only protected from that when he sits on his chair and declares something infallible, which has only officially happened a handful of times in history. Still, I think part of what the first reading and gospel remind us that we don’t always get to be in charge of when God speaks to us. We can ask a question or ask for help but it doesn’t mean God is going to jump right up and do it for us. Most of the time, I am reminded of how important it is to ask for something, then be quiet and patient. It may not happen on my timeline but either it’ll happen or God will do something even better that we would never have thought possible. How is God calling you to be quiet?
