Friday, October 27, 2023  

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Today’s Scripture Reading 
Matthew 12:22–32

Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see. All the crowds were amazed and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.” He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (NRSV)

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Reflection

The Pharisees lost in their attempts to demonize Jesus, the one sent by the Spirit of God to liberate a man from his own debilitating demons (and humankind from ours). These religious leaders’ antipathy over Jesus’ exorcizing power and, perhaps even more threateningly, effectiveness in captivating the crowds, was not of God. Their knee-jerk intellectual clumsiness in attributing Jesus’ power to the embodiment of Beelzebub is called out by Jesus for its obvious lack of logic that betrayed their seething underbelly of resentment (“if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out?”).

What was at stake, however, was far more than just their dismissive attitude: the blasphemy of denying the in-breaking of the kingdom of God, demonstrated through Jesus as an agent of the Holy Spirit’s redeeming power, threatened to separate them, eternally, from God’s forgiving grace. What Jesus asserts, so to speak, is that in coming for “the bull,” they risk getting “the horns.”

As much as we’d wish otherwise, too often, we “Pharisees” are inclined to “block our blessings.” If not our own, then we frequently discount or dismiss the work of the divine in the stories and experiences of others. Perhaps out of fear of losing our own fragile senses of power and control over life’s circumstances, we run the risk of ignoring or discounting what God is manifesting in our midst. Let us instead stand with the crowds to behold the wondrous power of God wherever and however it unfolds.

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Prayer
O God our Liberator, free our minds so that our mouths may declare words of wonder at your power, to the glory of your realm. As we watch what we say, may we behold what you accomplish in and through us. Amen.

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Written by Nancy Benson-Nicol, Associate Pastor for Caring Ministries and Spiritual Formation

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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