Whoever is Not With Me is Against Me"

Today's Mass Readings

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus casts out demons. Some among the crowd, however, assert that Jesus was only able to cast out demons because He Himself relies upon the power of the prince of demons, Beelzebul, the lord of the flies, or Satan himself. Jesus responds by pointing out how foolish it would be for Satan to fight his own demons. How could such a kingdom stand where it was divided amongst itself? Jesus provides His audience with an alternative, however, that He drives out these demons by the very power of God, in which case, the kingdom of God is upon them. We too should be careful when we attribute certain things to evil causes. How many times in our own lives do we encounter someone or some group that is doing the right thing, and yet we find ourselves unwilling to acknowledge it. So-and-so couldn’t possibly be doing that for the right motives there must be some sinful ulterior motive. We should strive to be more charitable when we are confronted with such situations, especially when those involved are people or groups that we know we usually are frustrated with or even stronger still, when we dislike them. God can work wonders through those we dislike. In fact, God usually does work wonders through those who are closest to us who we have difficulty getting along with. Jesus’ situation was much severer than the what I have proposed.

Here is Jesus, God in human flesh, who is confronted with people who have been waiting for the Messiah’s arrival, and in another account are actually experts on the Old Testament. Do they question Jesus’ ability to cast out demons? No, not really. They go much further than this, they attribute it to Satan himself. We will probably never be put in a parallel situation in our entire lives, and yet, we most certainly will find ourselves, again and again, in slightly less analogous situations, where we must be careful in our judgments. Let us strive to discern God’s work in the world, lest we mistake the works of God with works of evil, and vice versa.