Give the Devil His Due

Give the Devil his due—an old saying, maybe Shakespeare.

Don’t ignore an evil adversary.

Don’t underestimate someone who’s trying to harm you.

Don’t think he’ll always fail just because he’s evil.

Acknowledge that he’s very good at what he does.

If we take that saying most literally, it applies to the Devil himself.

Satan, Beelzebul, the Ruler of the World.

But is he even real?

Surveys show that about half of Americans don’t believe in the Devil.

And about a third of Catholics don’t.

Jesus talks about him as if he is a real person—an individual creature.

In today’s Gospel Jesus warns his apostles of the coming evil

—His Passion and death.

He says, The ruler of the world is coming.

But he has no power over me. 

Elsewhere he speaks of the Devil saying:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky.

If I drive out demons by Beelzebul

By whom do your own people drive them out? 

The enemy who sows [the weeds] is the devil.

Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.

You belong to your father the devil ... a murderer ... the father of lies.

We could view those statements as just 

A figurative personification of evil.

Surely the Devil’s not a physical being 

With cape, tail, horns and pitchfork.

But that doesn’t mean we can dismiss him.

Even if we have trouble seeing him as an individual spiritual being.

Even if we suspect he’s just a stand-in for the concept of evil.

We all know that evil is out there—everywhere.

We feel it, we see it, we hear about it.

Ranging from seemingly minor failures of kindness

All the way to murder and genocide and torture.

Of course, evil acts ultimately come from within us, and people like us.

But where does that evil originate?  

What’s the source?  

Who’s transmitting it?

Who planted the idea that we should kill one another in the name of God?

An idea that began long before the Jews stoned Paul,

And still persists to this day.

We want to avoid adding any contribution of our own to the world’s evil.

We want to realize that peace that Jesus left us.
We want to show the Father and the world, as Jesus did,

That we love God and do as he commands.

As we struggle to stay on course toward those goals,

It does help to have a more concrete image of the force that opposes us.

To name it and personify it.

To acknowledge what we’re up against.

To consider our adversary to be just as Jesus presented him.

To give the Devil his due.

Tuesday 5th Week of Easter

Jn 14:27-31   Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Voices

They line their hats with tin foil.

To block the voices that try to invade their heads.

The tin foil hat has become a symbol of the paranoid.

Those who think the government or some evil force 
Is trying to control them.

Trying to transmit messages into their brains.

Or to read their thoughts.

When I worked for the courts, I’d see cases filed by some of these folks.

Asking the court to order the mind controllers to stop.

We all hear voices in our heads.

Voices that aren’t distinct speech entering through the ears.

But thoughts and ideas and beliefs that are triggered from within.

Drawn out from wherever we’ve stored them.

Perhaps first planted there by a speaking voice.

Or a written voice.

Or an observed voice.

Or some innate store of knowledge and wisdom.

Unlike the paranoid,

Most of us can usually figure out where that voice is coming from.

We just need to spend some time analyzing it.

My sheep hear my voice;

I know them, and they follow me.

No one can take them out of my hand.

That’s about half of today’s brief Gospel passage.

Words from Jesus.

But others could easily use those words today.

In a cynical, sinister way.

Those claims could be made by the media stars.

Who stoke hate and fear and division through their radio and TV shows.

And through their tweets and blogs and anti-social social media posts.

Their listeners do hear their voice.

And the speakers do know their listeners—all too well.

They’ve studied the demographics.

They’ve market tested their messages to see what sells best.

They know what those listeners expect to hear.

More of what the voice has conditioned them to believe.

And their brainwashed listeners do follow that voice—like sheep.

And the voice has good reason to believe 
That no one can take those followers away.

They’ve been locked in by anger or fear.

Of course, these speakers are free to say what they want.

They can preach division and polarization.

They can come at us from left and right.

They can rail against immigrants and political or economic refugees.

They can put grossly exaggerated labels on disagreements.
To try to convince us that others are victimizing us.

We're victims of the War on Women and the War on Coal.

They can encourage disdain and hate 
And even violence toward those others.

But no one has to listen.

We may have to hear the words.

Directly from the original voices, or echoed from their followers.

Tin foil hats won’t keep the poisonous voices out.

They get in.

But we control what we do with every voice that comes in.

What we do with the message it delivers.

We can add it to our store of truth.

Our beliefs, our wisdom, guidance and knowledge.

Or we can store it as a question. 
Or an idea deserving further consideration.

Or we can store it as untruth.

Added knowledge of the error and foolishness in this world.

There are a lot of voices out there in the world today.

We’re constantly bombarded with messages.

And we have to choose which ones we listen to.

Which ones we follow.

It’s true that many of those voices could claim half of today’s Gospel.

Being heard, knowing their listeners, and having a grip on them.

But there’s only one who can claim the other half.

That’s the voice we can measure all the other voices against.

The one voice we want to follow always.

The one voice that can say in truth:

I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,

And no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.

The Father and I are one.

4th Sunday of Easter

Jn 10:27-30   Read this Scripture @usccb.org

So Much to Share

If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,

How will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, a teacher and leader of the Jews.

To help him understand, or accept, the need to be reborn.

Born from above, born in the Spirit.

This understanding of earthly things and heavenly things,

Is possible only through that awakening, that rebirth.

And as with all of Scripture,

True understanding is rooted in the fundamentals Jesus taught us:

The Good News that God loves us and offers us eternal life.

And the two great commandments for our response to that love—

Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

That community of believers we hear about in Acts did understand.

They were of one heart and one mind.

Like Barnabas, they shared all they had.

Laying it at the feet of the Apostles for redistribution.

There was no needy person among them.

What happened to that utopian community?

Why wasn’t that model universally embraced,

And replicated throughout the whole world?

Clearly, it’s hard to bring a group to that level of sharing and selflessness.

And even harder to maintain that commitment over time.

Devoted parents might be that committed to their children.

Devoted friends might be that committed to each other.

But we seem to hit a definite limit to loving our neighbors as ourselves.

When we try to scale up to larger groups it’s even harder.

The whole system can be brought down by just one  who won’t comply.

Many have tried to describe or create an ideal society.

Thomas More, Karl Marx, the Shakers, many others

But no utopia has taken hold in this world.

And there’s one basic reason they all fail—

Our collective inability to love our neighbors as ourselves.

That failure is all too apparent in our world and our country today.

We’re definitely not of one heart and mind.

We’re deeply and bitterly divided on many issues.

As demonstrated by the incivility of our political arguments 
And nasty campaigns.

There’s anger over inequality, anger at the 1%.

Many of the wealthy and powerful greedily grab for more.

Many in the middle are similarly callous toward the poor.

Many want us to turn our backs on refugees and immigrants.

We can’t achieve utopia.

But surely we can do better than this.

As those reborn of the Spirit, we’re called to improve this world.

To demonstrate that love of God and neighbor.

To expand the Kingdom of God on earth.

But realistically, how much impact can we expect to have?

That will depend upon our time, talent and treasure.

And how much of that we’re willing to lay at the feet of Jesus.

Tuesday 2nd Week of Easter

Jn 3:7-15   Acts 4:32-37     Read this Scripture @usccb.org