The scribes said, “Jesus has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” Not only is Beelzebul a reference to the Prince of Demons as described in the Old Testament scriptures, but Beelzebul is translated into English as “Lord of the Flies.”
I am not sure anyone born after 1960 could have graduated from high school without reading the Noble Prize winning book entitled Lord of the Flies. Even I, who rarely read all my required summer reading, remember flipping through the pages of this timeless classic.
I can still see the images that my childhood imagination created of Ralph and Piggy and Jack. I can still feel the darkness that my soul experienced when I read how the boys mistook Simon for the Beast and beat him to death and when Roger pushed a boulder off the cliff to crush Piggy to death.
I still remember sobbing with the boys when they were rescued. They sobbed because they were filled with guilt and shame. They sobbed because they wished everything that happened was just a dream. They sobbed because their childhood innocence was gone – forever.
The boys were emotionally and, in some cases, physically destroyed all because they gave power to an imaginary Beast. Just like a page out of the scriptures, the boys even enshrined a Boar’s head to appease the wrath of the alleged Beast.
But, as Simon said, the real Beast was in their hearts. Even the leader of the pack, Ralph, the one who repeatedly denied the existence of a Beast, was eventually overcome by the paranoia and participated in the deadly beating of Simon. The book tells a startling and vivid story of what humanity is capable of when it is driven by paranoia and fear.
Following the scribes’ accusation that Jesus is filled with the power of Satan, Jesus speaks to them in parable saying, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” Jesus goes on to say that a strong man’s house cannot be plundered unless that strong man is tied up first.
And finally, Jesus tells the crowd that all sins are forgivable except for sins that blaspheme the Holy Spirit, except for the sins committed because one cannot tell the difference between the works of Satan and the works of God.
Lord of the Flies is a testament to the total destruction that happens when we assign power to the wrong things, to the works of evil; even more, when we assign power to things that hold no power at all. Instead of turning their attention to the fire, to the light, to the smoke signals that would have saved them, the boys are consumed by paranoia over the imaginary Beast and find themselves beyond the point of no return.
Likewise, we live in a world that often finds itself beyond the point of no return. We live in a world that is distracted by the imaginary things that we think are going to destroy us instead of focusing on the things that will save us. Instead of being consumed by the light of God, by the things that will draw us together in positive ways, we consume ourselves with the darkness of this world, a darkness that we let infect our own hearts, a darkness that puts us against each other, a darkness that is constantly fed by paranoia.
But as Christians, do we not believe that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it? As Christians, do we not believe that Jesus and the power of his eternal truth and love have rendered Satan and the works of evil powerless? As St. Paul said, do we not believe that even when our earthly systems are destroyed that we have a building from God to protect us from evil?
As far as I can tell, the political system in this country, on both sides, are constantly filling us with a paranoia that is dividing our country, our communities, our families, and even our own hearts. From the right we are hearing, if we don’t do this, then our country is doomed. From the left we are hearing, if we don’t do that, then our country will cross into the point of no return. However, I am afraid we have already passed into the point of no return.
While the particular issues are important and make a considerable impact on our daily lives, the issues themselves are not the things that are going to save us. Rather, there is something much deeper in our system that needs to be addressed and dealt with before the issues can have real power.
In this supposed “melting pot” of a country, we are a house divided on too many levels to count. Too often do we let our political ideologies, our cultural norms, our religious beliefs, our socio-economic class divide us into separate groups. And instead of seeking the light of Christ working through it all, suspicion and paranoia create a darkness in our hearts, a darkness that clouds our judgment and gives us all over to the work of evil. Truly, a house divided cannot stand.
The good news is that Jesus comes to find us beyond the point of no return. In today’s lesson, we see how Jesus is making a bridge for us to come back to the place of light and life. In Jesus, God is offering a way for humanity to reverse the curse we received in the garden when we rebelled against God’s way of light and life.
In today’s gospel, Jesus builds the bridge back from the point of no return when he asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And then he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” In this statement, Jesus compels us to erase our divisions by calling us to be ruled by the simple truth that we belong to each other, we are family – start acting like it.
As you have heard me say many times before, before the world can know the healing and reconciling power of God’s love in Christ, those of us who call ourselves Christians must model how the healing and reconciling power of God’s love makes us members of one family.
In this day and time, the most important mission we can do as Christians is to model and work toward unity across the barriers of this culture. And we are able to do this because we believe the will of God is all about breaking down the barriers that divide and destroy us. For this reason, St. Paul’s has partnered with Tabernacle Baptist and St. Peter’s on St. Croix. For this reason, we are beginning to work with the other downtown churches to lift up Ward 3 (more details to come).
Methodist Bishop William Willimon describes this work of Christian Unity as less than glamorous saying, “What do you have to do to be credibly called a Christian, a contemporary follower of Jesus? … You must join us at the table, addressing some of the most sinful, often difficult to bear rascals as “brother” or “sister,” just because Jesus loves them to death.”
Doing the will of God means taking up your cross, leaving behind your fear and paranoia and suspicion in order follow the Jesus who is leading all the nations and tribes of this world out of darkness into light and life, the Jesus who is calling the whole world to treat everyone like family.
The warning here is that if we do not believe that the love of Jesus can make this happen, make us all one family, then we are confessing that the work of evil and darkness is more powerful than the work of God’s goodness and light. And according to today’s lesson, this kind of belief is unforgiveable.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that you do not fall into the temptation of letting paranoia assign power to things that hold no power. I pray that you do not fall into the temptation of believing that darkness is more powerful than light for remember that even the smallest light, even the dim flicker of God’s light shining in your heart, can inspire a world of change, a change most clearly seen in the glory of God given in the face of Jesus Christ – the One whose boundless love is making room for all to have a place at the table. Amen.
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