Lord of the Flies – Thursday Midweek Communion

Reading Jeremiah 7

²¹ " 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! ²² For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, ²³ but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you. ²⁴ But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. ²⁵ From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. ²⁶ But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.'

Gospel Luke 11

¹⁴ Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. ¹⁵ But some of them said, "By Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." ¹⁶ Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.

¹⁷ Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. ¹⁸ If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebul. ¹⁹ Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. ²⁰ But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

²¹ "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. ²² But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder.

²³ "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Sermon

Both readings about where your allegiance lies. We cannot be ambivalent – we are either for or against Jesus. Worse than that, if we are for him we gather: but if we are against him, we are not just passive but we scatter – we don’t just sit on the fence, we break it down.

The prophet Jeremiah was saying the same thing. It was about burnt offerings and sacrifice. It was not about exactly how the sacrifices were conducted, but where your obedience lies. Those who obeyed God walked in obedience to him. Those who did not listen or pay attention were stiff-necked and more evil than their ancestors.

The exchange about Beelzebul came immediately after Jesus’ teaching about how to pray. He taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer. Then Jesus was involved in a healing or a man who was mute. Like many afflictions at the time, the man’s affliction was attributed to demon possession. After his encounter with Jesus, the man spoke and all were amazed.

Some of the crowd said Jesus exorcised by the power of Beelzebul and not the finger of God. Exorcism played a large part in the ministry of Jesus and indeed in the early church. Jesus was not criticised for carrying out these exorcisms – he was not the only exorcist around – but his power and motivation.

Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, is the same Canaanite or Syrian god Baal who was hostile to the God of the Children of Israel. Beelzebub is a corruption of the same title – it meant ‘Lord of the Flies.’ With a growing appreciation of the power of the one God, the alien gods were undeified and became associated with Satan. In other words, Jesus was accused of being an agent of Satan.

Unlike other exorcists, Jesus did not invoke powers in order to heal – he did so on his own authority, hence the accusation he was a godless person.

The argument is not a hard one to refute – it’s basically a non sequitur – you cannot do good by being bad. You cannot heal by engaging the forces of evil. The finger of God is a lovely phrase that comes from Exodus 8 and the plague of gnats.

Since the gnats were on people and animals everywhere, ¹⁹ the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the LORD had said.

The ‘finger of God’ reminds me of the fresco by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel where God’s finger touches that of Adam’s as he breathes life into the first man. This leads Jesus on to tell his hearers that if he exorcises, but by Beelzebul but by the ‘finger of God’ then what they are witnessing is the Kingdom of God coming upon them. It represents a new, effective power under which we can all live. Although not yet here in all its fullness, we are already living within its power and embrace.