The Third
Sunday in Lent
Fr. David Curry
Christ Church Windsor NS, AD
2002
“Blessed are they that
hear the word of God and keep it”
We are defined
by the company we keep, it seems. In these days of Lent, we seem to be much
in the company of demons and devils. Christ is tempted by the devil in the
wilderness; the daughter of the Canaanite women is “grievously vexed with
a devil”, and, if that were not enough, a host of demons and even
Beelzebul, the Prince of the demons, Satan himself, comes into our midst.
Demons a-plenty, one for each of us, it seems, and even more, demons
especially for our own age, the sevenfold demons of disillusionment and
despair, for “the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
It is not the
sort of company we might wish to keep. “Have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness”, St. Paul tells us (Eph 5.11). Christ
does not wish it for us either. He seeks our blessedness and our
blessedness is found in him. No doubt, we go into the desert, but not to
become the desert, barren and empty. We go into the Lenten wilderness
to see more clearly and less confusedly the demons of sin within us which
keep us from God and the truth of our selves. The demons are just the
forms of that willed separation of our selves from God. But we do not
go into the wilderness to become those demons, to be defined or possessed by
them.
It belongs to
our blessedness to know the forms of the rejection of blessedness, to know
what it means to deny the absolute goodness of God. There is a moral
imperative to our being “followers of God” (Eph.5.1). God has to
teach us what is wrong with us in order to make us right again. Christ is
our teacher who teaches us on the way of the cross. The whole life of
Christ is the way of the cross, but how much more so when he has “set his
face to go to Jerusalem” (Lk. 9.51)? Today’s Gospel presents us with
what it means, first, to hear the Word of God and not keep it, and second,
to hear the Word of God and keep it. The difference is between the
miserable company of demons and the blessed company of Christ in the
fellowship of the faithful.
Christ comes
strewing blessings on his way. Here is the blessing of a miracle, a double
act of healing. But how will we receive it? Will we hear this word and
keep it as a blessing upon us? Or will we only hear and see the act but
reject the one who does the act? Christ casts out a demon and makes him who
was dumb to speak. “And the people wondered.” There could be
no doubting of the deed. It was done, but what was the cause of its being
done?
Jesus who casts
out demons is accused of casting them out by a demon himself, and indeed, by
no ordinary demon, but by Beelzebul, the Prince of the demons, literally,
“the lord of the dwelling”, who takes over a soul and so possesses it. Here
is the extraordinary thing. Christ is deemed demonic for casting out a
demon! Thus, the absolute goodness of God which flows from the healing
touch and teaching words of Christ is declared not-good, and an act of
blessedness is attributed to the very principle of the rejection of all
blessedness.
And there were
others for whom this act of healing did not suffice to convince them of the
truth of God in Jesus Christ. They seek from him what is, in fact, before
their very eyes, a sign from heaven. But if they would not see it, then
they cannot see it. With the word of the dumb man now made to speak still
ringing in their ears, they deny the Word of God which made him to hear and
speak. Such contradictions are a wonder to behold.
But the greater
wonder appears in our Lord’s response. He would show them what their
accusation really means. He, knowing their hearts, exposes their hearts.
How does he reply? By means of a careful explanation. He plays upon the
name of Beelzebul, with its suggested cognates of kingdom and house, to show
the folly of their accusation and the consequences of their rejection. A
kingdom, Beel, “divided against itself is brought to desolation.”
A house, Zebul or Zebulon, “divided against itself falleth.” If
Satan who is Beelzebul, the Lord of the house of rebellion, is divided
against himself, how can he stand?
How can he
stand, let alone, how can he cast out demons? He stands but only as upon
that which he denies. He is a standing contradiction. Satan is the spirit
of contradiction and rebellion, the spirit of the refusal to acknowledge the
truth and goodness of God, the refusal to honour his own derivation. He
defines himself in antagonism towards the known truth of God. But the fact
of his denial of God cannot negate the fact of his creation. He simply
exists in the contradiction of depending upon the God whom he denies. Such
is utter futility. Such is the devil.
In any event,
he who is the cause of the denial of God’s goodness cannot be the cause of
the casting out of demons. What, then, is the cause of the casting out of
the demons from the dumb man and of his being made to speak? “The finger
of God.” By it you know that the kingdom of God is come upon you.
“The right hand of the Lord hath the preeminence”, sings the
Psalmist. “Stretch forth thy right hand”, pleads the Collect. But
“the finger of God” shall suffice, says Jesus. That finger is
stronger than any strong man armed.
It is the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the indwelling Spirit of the love of the Father
and the Son. Where that Spirit dwells, there can be no place for demons.
And so Jesus is not content to leave things at this pass. There is more at
stake in this business of Lent than simply cleansing the soul. There is
more involved than just chasing out the demons of the soul’s disorder and
disarray. What’s the point of that if our souls only remain barren and
desolate, if our souls only become vacuum land, as it were, totally devoid
of purpose? There is no point at all surely, if we simply become a desert
within. For then we are in danger of a greater possession, a sevenfold
possession, having despaired altogether, it seems, of the sevenfold gifts of
the Holy Spirit.
Christ knows
the greater dangers of our disillusionment, how our sense of the seeming
endlessness of one thing after another leads us to deny that there is
anything absolute, that there is any purpose or any purpose that can be
known. To the contrary, he would make that purpose known even in the midst
of the experience of desolation and despair. The point of the finger
grace of God is not to leave us empty and desolate, but open to being filled
by the grace of God. It would place us in the company of Christ,
hearing the Word of God and keeping it. He who cast out the demons of sin
would fill us with his grace. He is the absolute goodness of God, the
antidote to despair. All purpose is to be found in him.
Suddenly the
point begins to come home. Out of that same crowd now comes another voice,
the voice of a woman who recognises something of the blessedness of Jesus,
both in his act of healing and his words of teaching. She takes delight in
the blessedness which he simply is, but in the form of honouring his being
incarnate from his mother, the means of his being with us. “Blessed is
the womb that bare thee and the paps which gave thee suck”, she says (Lk. 11.27).
Our Lord replies as if to say, yes, blessed indeed, yet, “rather, blessed
are they that hear the Word of God and keep it” (Lk.11.28). He affirms
what she has acknowledged but extends it further by way of application. She
blesses Christ and Christ blesses us. She would have all blessedness rest
in him; he would share it with us. No benefit that he was born for us
unless he be born in us. He would have that blessedness in her and in us.
But only if we hear his word and keep it.
It means the
way of the cross. No blessedness for us in him apart from the cross. The
cross is his pulpit. There we may hear his word. I pray that we may keep
it. But what company shall we keep at the cross? Shall we be in the
company of the soldiers and those who mocked him? “If thou be the Son of
God, save thyself”. Shall we persist in denying him, like Peter, and
find ourselves in the wretched company of the betrayers? Or shall we be in
the company of the Centurion who acknowledges him even in his death,
“truly, this was the Son of God.” Shall we be in the company of
those who attend to his words of forgiveness, “Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do”?
At the cross we
see the meaning of all desolation. He who is our blessedness “was made
sin for us.” He has identified himself with the desolation of our
sins and makes that desolation visible to us. “My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me.” The Son offers up the experience of total
desolation - our complete despair - into the eternal fellowship of the
Trinity. He makes the desolation of sin the occasion of his greatest
blessedness towards us. He would fill the void of our souls with the
fullness of his love, if only we would “hear the word of God and keep
it.” Such is the burning love of the crucified for us. There is
no blessedness except through “that most burning love for the crucified”
in us (Bonaventure). It means to be in the company of those who look with
penitential adoration upon the crucified.
“Blessed are
they that hear the word of God and keep it”
