Lectio Divina: Jesus and Beelzebul

Matthew 12:22-37 New International Version (NIV)
Jesus and Beelzebul
22 Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. 23 All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?”

24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”

25 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.

30 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31 And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

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Okay, I've been missing the Lectio Divina that I was doing for awhile, so I'm trying to bring that back. So how I start is by literally just flipping around the Bible. Not a very methodical way of doing things, but honestly, that is how I always read the Bible. I'll read a few passages, reflect on it. Sometimes I'll find something right away. Sometimes, I'll keep flipping, reading, and reflecting until something strikes me.

This whole passage is just mind-blowing. I hate this word "unpack" but that's exactly what I'm going to do ("Unpack" is such a triggering word from Common Core standards. Ugh).

First, can I just point out that no one in this passage is questioning the validity of demons and demon possession? Like it's so obvious and no big deal that it's just glossed over. Me? I'm like, "Okay, is that real? And how does that work? What does it mean to be possessed by demons? How do you know?" That opened a whole can of questions for me. That part is actually kind of freaky for me. What if I get possessed by a demon? Like, would you know? I may be the only one freaking out about that.

Anyway, the more important matter going on in this passage is that Pharisees are questioning Jesus and trying in vain to catch him doing something wrong. This comes up A LOT in the Bible. And I actually looked up what Pharisee means in the dictionary: a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity. But there's an additional definition: a self-righteous person; a hypocrite. I thought that last definition was funny, especially since that's how the Pharisees are portrayed in the Bible. Even without knowing the definitions, it is obvious that the Pharisees are obsessed with following the rules, to the point of absurdity. And it is obvious, at least to me, that they have lost sight of why those rules exist in the first place.

However, Jesus handles the Pharisees in such a calm, logical matter. He obviously knows all the same rules as the Pharisees do and he uses their logic against them. It is actually quite beautiful.

The Pharisees start by saying how Jesus is apparently the prince of demons, since that could be the only way that he is able to drive out the demons.

And Jesus's reply is this: “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.  If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

So what he is saying is that he couldn't possibly be Satan because why would Satan work against himself? He would only make himself weaker by doing so. Then, (and this is the best part) Jesus says, "And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out?" Okay, I don't think people appreciate the snark in this. The more I read Jesus's replies, the more I realize how snarky he gets, and it's amazing. I love it. Jesus is saying (by using the Pharisees's logic against them) that if he is able to drive out demons by the power of Satan, then that means your people (i.e. the Jewish religious leaders) would also be driving demons out by the power of Satan. And Jesus knows that the Pharisees could never agree to that logical conclusion; therefore, Jesus is also not using the power of Satan. The Pharisees have no reply to that!

I think this is a beautiful way to deal with adversarial people in my life. Jesus doesn't get mad or emotional. But he does stand up for himself. He keeps calm and uses logic to make his point. I hope that I could do the same in such a situation. You don't have to be combative to stick up for yourself.

The last thing I have to comment on from this passage is the very last two sentences: But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

Those last two sentences are very powerful, and here, Jesus is not just speaking to the Pharisees, but to everyone. Words are powerful. What you say really matters, to the point where you will be judged based on your words. Here, he doesn't even mention actions (though he does talk about the fruit of the tree earlier which could be a reference to actions). But he ends with words. Be true in what you say. No empty words. I think we all need to keep this in mind as we go about our days. I know I need to.

Virtue Signaling: I'm really tired of it

So I go to Saturday vigil Mass, and everything was normal until the homily.

Just for reference, this was the gospel:

Gospel – John 1:29-34

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’ I did not know him, but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel.” John testified further, saying, “I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him. I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

And I know I'm still pretty new to this whole Catholic thing, but usually, the homily references the gospel. Usually, the priest tries to tie in the gospel reading to our experiences now. Which is great. I don't have a problem with that.

But what I can't figure out is how John the Baptist testifying that Jesus is definitely the Son of God is any way related to talking about needing diversity in our church and how we were all guilty of "whiteness."

So, yes, I know that our congregation is majority white. We do have a few black and Hispanic families in the church, but for the most part, it's white. Our priest has always been open to let everyone and anyone be a part of church. He has always been in support of gays. We have a sister parish in El Salvador, where we regularly donate to and go on mission trips. No one would ever claim that our priest was some backward, bigoted person.

But there he was, in front of the whole church, telling us that we were guilty of something we couldn't control. I can't control the fact that I'm white. But somehow, I'm suppose to feel guilty about this.

I mean, I get it. The new "original sin" is being white now. No one else in the whole world is called out for being guilty for just being a certain skin tone. And if they are, they're racist. Which is how it should be. You shouldn't judge anyone by the color of their skin. 

And he was up there, going on and on about how we need to come to terms with our guilt of being white. And somehow, this was suppose to bring about diversity in our church? If his actual goal is to make our church more accessible to people of color, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. But then, the speech (because let's be honest, it stopped being a homily awhile ago) should have been focusing on how we could reach those people and help them feel welcome in our church. But there wasn't one solid step towards making this goal a reality. No concrete way of going about it.

And do you know what the kicker was?

When he was done, the whole congregation applauded.

Applauded. As if he said something brave.

The whole thing made me sick.

Because he wasn't really trying to bring about change. He just wanted to virtue signal in front of the entire church. Empty words. That's all it was.

Nowadays, we don't pray in the streets or in public to show how religious and righteous we are. That would be looked down on. Instead, we virtue-signal, shouting out how woke and progressive we are, making sure to insert as many buzzwords as possible.

And it's not right.

In the Bible, Jesus clearly says:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Matthew 6:5-6

I mean, what do I know?

To Understand Faith, You Need To Question Everything.

When I was growing up,  pastors would say that you should never question your faith.

Questioning things was considered bad. Because that meant you didn't really believe. Even back then, that didn't sit well with me. I couldn't articulate why, but I felt that was wrong. So, if I just ask a question about God or about faith in general, then my faith would be shattered? How brittle and weak is faith if it can't hold up to any questions?

And this line of thinking wasn't just a one-off sermon. It was said in different sermons, multiple times. Each time my frown deepened. Maybe it was a rebellious thing. Maybe I was just being a teenager, and as soon as you tell me not to do something, then I want to do it. But it did feel like more  than that. It still bothers me to this day. And I am definitely, no-where-near being a teenager anymore.

Maybe it was one of the many things that made me turn away from the church and from God. I can't pinpoint exactly why I stopped. Growing up, I was very religious. Like a good Protestant, I would read the Bible on my own. I would pray to God almost daily. But then, by high school, I stopped. I didn't stop being religious, just stopped praying and reading the Bible. By college, I considered myself to be agnostic, borderline atheist.

I tried so hard to be religious growing up, but every time I went to church, I never felt anything. I would hear about people who had these spiritual happenings, who felt God's presence, or heard His words. I would just sit in church and try to sense God, but I never could. I felt nothing. It was really discouraging. And in the end, I thought maybe all this religious stuff wasn't for me. It didn't seem like anyone else had to try so hard. And it didn't help that when I read the Bible, I would come across verses that made me angry. I'm sure you already know such Bible verses. They're the ones that atheists like to quote to show how misogynistic and backwards the Bible is.

And then, one day, I just stopped. I never questioned my faith, so my faith should be strong, right? But it was a slow drain as I slowly stopped trying until in the end, I didn't believe anymore.

But that's not the end of the story.

Just like it was slow stopping of believing, it happened slowly in the other direction too. I slowly began to believe again. Again, I can't pinpoint exactly why I started believing again. I know that it did happen around the time that my husband's dad passed away. When we had the funeral in church, it was the first time I've been there since the mandatory Christmas and Easter services. But this time it was in a Catholic Church. Now, my mom and mom's side of the family was all Catholic and I've been to Catholic masses before. Which I hated even worse than Protestant services because somehow everyone knew what to do and say except me and I was never allowed to take Communion because I wasn't Catholic. It made me feel more like an outsider than I normally felt. But after my husband's dad died, he wanted to start going back to church more. I agreed, understanding it was his way of grieving, and I didn't really mind anyhow, even though I never understood the whole Mass thing.

The thing is, I never really hated God. I mean, I might have gotten angry at Him once in a while (like, "How could you let this horrible thing happen?" kind of way) but I never hated Him. The whole reason I leaned towards agnostic was because I thought there is more out there than I know, but I just don't know what it is.

And I did work (and continue to this day) in a Catholic school. Not by choice. I mean, no one held a gun to my head and said I had to work there, but I couldn't find a job anywhere else, and after three years of subbing, I decided to finally give in and try teaching in a Catholic school.

Maybe these were all influences that slowly developed my faith again without me really being aware of it. Maybe this is why they say that God works in mysterious ways.

But as I began to be surrounded by Catholics, at home and at work, I began asking questions. I mean, I just didn't understand a lot of Catholic stuff. I wasn't being mean; I just wanted to know why they did the things they did. What's with all the sitting and standing? Why do you pray to saints? What are Holy Days? Why do you pray the Rosary? What's the Trinity? What's Advent? The more questions I asked, the more I realized how much I didn't know. But the more I understood, the more I could appreciate, even if I couldn't completely wrap my head around it (I get the whole saints thing, but it still feels weird to me).

Even though I was beginning to be more receptive to this whole Catholic thing, I still wasn't sure about it. As I understood more, I didn't mind going to Mass anymore, except at Communion time when I had to step aside to let everyone out of the pew and I had to stay there like an outsider. But the rest of the time, I was okay with.

When we decided to baptize our daughter, I knew it was time to officially join our church. That fall, I signed up for RCIA. I was nervous about it because I didn't know anyone and wasn't sure what it would entail. However, the priest put me at ease right away when he said to please ask questions about anything you didn't understand. Each session was an exploration of different aspects of Catholic faith, and we all had an opportunity to discuss and ask questions. It was quite a different experience than those that I had growing up.

By learning, discussing, and (God forbid) asking questions, I felt my faith grow stronger each time I went to RCIA. By the time it was Easter, I was ready to be confirmed.

So I guess the moral of the story is that you should question God. You should question your faith. Because God will answer.

Spiritual Sunday!

Lectio Divina: Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."

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Every time the author writes “Beta Male,” all I can think of is Jesse Lee Peterson saying, “BETA!” If you don’t know who Jesse Lee Peterson is, check out his YouTube Channel. They’re amazing, “AMAZING!”

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During the first chapter, I was waiting for the reaper to show up. I mean, if you read the synopsis, it tells you flat out that Charlie becomes Death. I figured it would be similar to the 1994 The Santa Clause with Tim Allen, where Santa dies and Tim Allen has to take over to be Santa. Except, instead of Santa dying, it’s the reaper, and Charlie becomes the new Death Helper. 

Writing Prompt Wednesday! No Garlic

[WP] No italian restaurant is safe. The vampire activist group is going after hate food served at restaurants.