Readings:
Jeremiah 7:23-28; Psalm 95; Luke 11:14-23

‘So tell them this, “Here is the nation that will not listen to the voice of Yahweh its God nor take correction. Sincerity is no more, it has vanished from their mouths.”’
Jeremiah 7:28

Jesus (having been accused of casting out devils through Satan’s power) said, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin… So too with Satan: if he is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?… But if it is through the finger of God that I cast out devils, then know that the kingdom of God has overtaken you. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.‘
Luke 11:18-20, 23

While many Christians are put off by talk of the devil, or of demons, of exorcisms, or deliverances, there are others who talk of little else. A healthy spirituality gives more attention to God’s presence in all things rather than to the devil’s.

Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudon is based on fact. A nun in a convent in France was thought to be possessed by the devil. An exorcist was summoned: the possession spread through the community. Huxley’s thesis is that there was no demonic possession, but because convent life was so repressive, a perfectly respectable way of escaping from it and indulging in all kinds of outrageous behaviour was to become possessed, responsibility resting with the devils, not with the individual sisters! By projecting all our evil onto the devil, we avoid having to confront our own sinfulness.

Today, people afflicted with illness are sometimes told by other Christians that their illness is really a spiritual sickness and that there can be no cure until the afflicted one renounces some past or present attachment. While it is probably true that most of our bodily ailments are symptomatic of spiritual malaise, this truth can be used to manipulate people, working on their fears, and assuring them that they cannot be set free of their affliction unless they follow the ways which we prescribe!

Scripture speaks of Satan as ‘the father of lies’ and ‘the accuser’, and both characteristics are in today’s Gospel passage. If Jesus is accused of casting out demons through the devil’s power, and the accusation is believed, there is nothing Jesus can do which can disprove the accusation, for all his healing and preaching and goodness can be interpreted as demonic guile. The accusing lie blinds the believer, so that when faced with goodness, they can only see evil, and they will feel righteous in condemning the good person. We need to pray for an exorcism of our own minds which will cleanse us of all those accusing generalizations which can blind us to ‘that which is of God in everyone’.

We also need to ponder ‘the accuser’ characteristic in our own minds. Beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder, but so is evil and ugliness. In our judgments of ourselves, of other people and of situations, what do we usually notice, the strengths and good points, or the defects? What we see and dwell upon, we nurture and foster. There was a Religious superior of whom it was said that his communities were always outstandingly good. After his death, The superior’s biographer commenting on this wrote, ‘the goodness of his communities existed, at first, solely in his pious imagination’!

There is a place for self-accusation, for acknowledging our sins and defects, but true sorrow for sin, being a gift of God, always brings hope and a sense of gratitude ‘to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20). It is a sound spiritual principle that we should concentrate on our strengths, not on our weaknesses. Wallowing in self-accusation betrays a lack of faith, for we are giving more attention to our weakness than to the power of God at work within us.

Prayer
Rescue us, Lord, from those destructive places in our minds where darkness dispels all light, where accusation reigns and blinds us to goodness. Cleanse our minds and hearts so that we can always recognize what is of you in ourselves and in every situation. We ask you this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.