Lent III 2024

 Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.
St. Luke xi.
 
In last Sunday’s Gospel, we read about the kind of humility and meekness that generate faith in freedom from the Devil. There, a Syrophoenician woman, a Greek inhabitant of Cana, besought the Lord Jesus for the healing of her daughter, who was grievously vexed with a devil. (St. Matthew xv. 22) In confessing who and what she was, the good lady expressed that faith that finds freedom and liberty in Jesus Christ. She confessed herself to be a dog in relation to Christ and the salvation that He brings into the world. Her humility and meekness moved her into that faith that hangs desperately on God and His Grace. Today, our faith becomes situated more soundly in God’s Grace. Today, we learn that liberation is God’s work and that we shall not be free until we allow God in Jesus Christ to cast out our demons.

In this morning’s Gospel, we read that Jesus had cast a demon out of a dumb (or mute) man, and the dumb spake. (St. Luke xi. 14) The healing is instantaneous and follows Jesus’ response to one of disciples, who had asked Him to teach us all how to pray. Jesus had furnished him with what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. To emphasize the inward and spiritual nature of prayer, Jesus heals a deaf-mute man, whose prayer is known to God the Father alone. Yet no sooner had Jesus healed the dumb-mute man, than an equally instantaneous reaction comes from the crowd of bystanders exclaiming that Jesus had cast out the demon or devil through Beelzebub the chief of the devils. (Idem, 16) The Ancients believed that physical handicaps were divine punishment for demonic possession. That some who witnessed the miracle judged that Jesus was in league with the Devil should not surprise us. If healing could not be proved to come from God alone, Ancient Man concluded superstitiously that the Devil was up to his old tricks. Thus, we read, that others demanded a sign from heaven to prove that Jesus was working with God.
        
The problem is that men in general, and religious men in particular, do not understand the nature of prayer. Most men live on the outside of themselves and thus judge a world around them without giving much thought for themselves or the state and condition of their own souls. Unlike last week’s Syrophoenician woman, they never come round to seeing themselves as strangers to God’s Promises and unworthy of His Grace. Unlike today’s deaf-mute man, they do not so much as pray to God in secret that the God who seeth in secret shall reward them openly. (St. Matthew vi. 4) Most men never ask that they might receive, seek that they might find, or knock that it might be opened to them. (St. Luke xi. 9) As a result, they are unaccustomed to God’s Gracious benevolence. So, in today’s Gospel, and as absurd as it might seem, they demand a sign from heaven, or another miracle, to prove that goodness comes from God alone.
          
On a basic level, in this morning’s Gospel, religious men in all ages are given a wakeup call and our need for the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us of our absolute dependence on God for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life. (General Thanksgiving) Today, Jesus reinforces the fact that we hang on God for all good things and that God alone can cast out [our] demons.
        
The Syrophoenician Woman of last week’s Gospel becomes the deaf-mute man. Prior to his healing, he can neither hear nor speak. His impediment separates him from the world around him. He is helpless and hopeless. Unlike last week’s Syrophoenician Woman, he can neither reveal to all that he is a dog nor reveal his need. His suffering and prayer are incommunicable to all other men. His fellow Jews judge him to be suffering because of his sins. Only when Jesus comes upon him to answer his prayer does the dumb speak, no doubt behaving like an infant child whose chief delight is found in being able to connect with the created order and all other men.

The deaf-mute man’s prayer is heard by God. God responds to him in Jesus Christ. He is no sooner healed than he hears that his healing must have come from Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. (idem)
Next, he heard Jesus’ response. Every kingdom divided against itself, he says, is brought to desolation. And a house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? (St. Luke xi. 17, 18) Our liberated man now possessed a good heretofore denied to him. Jesus implies that he had been divided from God’s kingdom and lived in desolation. Because Satan was not divided against himself, with the help of his fellow demons he ensured that this man stood fast in his kingdom, for a time. Along the lines of his life, this man both felt and knew himself to be separated from God and his fellow men. That he had miraculously been carried into a world of potential goodness was no doubt the clearest truth presented to his newly liberated senses. Satan’s singular intention was to keep him deaf and mute. Jesus of Nazareth had freed him. Satan’s one aim is to divide a man from God’s creation, from God’s truth, and from truth’s healing and salvation has been overcome. His prayer to the Father had been answered.

With the miracle, our sufferer might have wondered about the stranger nature of the world he had entered. Would that the bystanders had praised God for such a wonderful miracle as this! But we read that Jesus knew their thoughts. (ibid, xi. 17) Jesus confronted the malice and envy of the crowd, who seemed to see no illustration for their own needs and wants in the condition of deaf-mute man’s healing.  If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. (ibid, 19) If Beelzebub or Satan had cast out the demonic spirit, Satan would have been divided against himself. If some demons had brought about this good, then Satan and his friends must have been divided. As St. Bruno says, if the spirits of evil were waging war against each other, they would have little or no power against man. (St. Bruno, The Kingdom of Evil) But if Christ had brought about this evident good, by whom and for what reason did the Sons of Israel cast them out?

But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. (ibid, 20) Christ insists that the finger of God alone is sufficient to cast out any demons that plague the restless and sorrowful hearts of sinful men. The devils were united in keeping the deaf and mute man separated from God and his fellow men. The devils unite to distract and prevent us from asking God to heal and deliver us from our spiritually deaf and mute fallen natures.
When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. (St. Luke xi. 21, 22) The Devil and his friends have had their permissive power since the fall of man. The Devil and his friends had kept the deaf and mute man without hearing or speech, for a season. But a stronger than he has come down from Heaven and upon him. Satan was a strong man who kept his palace and his slaves – his goods, like the deaf-mute man, in peace. Satan’s goods were at peace since his power over him had gone unchallenged. But a stronger than he, Jesus Christ, has conquered him, broken his armour, and freed the deaf-mute man from his apparently permanent grip.

The deaf-mute man has been healed by Jesus Christ. But what of the malicious mockers and envious naysayers? Jesus says that

when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. (ibid, xi. 24-26)
 
The Jewish bystanders have believed that they were more righteous than the healed deaf-mute man, who prayed for deliverance from an unclean spirit. The bystanders lacked the vigilant and humble faith to confess that they needed God’s strong man. They rested upon their own good works. They saw unclean spirits come and go. They walked through dry, empty places, sought rest, found none, and returned to their own houses. They were now vulnerable to seven other spirits more wicked than [themselves], who tempted and harangued them. The deaf-mute man’s demon had been cast out. The bystander’s unclean spirit had merely gone out – Satan disguised as an angel of light. He would, no doubt, return. The danger for them is much worse since without any need and thankful reception of the Grace that Christ brings into the world, the last state of them will be worse than the first. (idem)

This morning the Word and Son of God made man, Jesus Christ, puts His finger on our problem, and desires to cast out all our demons. The true miracle we must seek today is that, with St. Paul, we realize that we were sometimes darkness, but now…are light in the Lord. (Eph. V. 8) True healing comes to us from God the Father, through Jesus the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. With the deaf-mute man, the miracle of our faith must be the answer to our secret, vigilant, humble, and faithful prayer for Christ to cast out all our demons. The wonderful mystery of salvation that Jesus brings into the world, should move us to ask that we might receive. Something as simple as being able to hear the Word of God in Jesus Christ and speak words in giving of thanks should move and define us with the healed deaf-mute man. With the dumb-mute man of today’s Gospel, let us be determined to hear the Word of God and keep it because we can speak the truth that has set us free to walk as children of the light so that all other men may realize that the Kingdom of God has come upon us. (Ibid, 20)

Amen.
©wjsmartin