Sunday Jesus Story: Demons and Dinner
The Good Book Club, Week 4
Sunday, March 4, Luke 11:14-54 (NRSV)
Jesus and Beelzebul
14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute; when the demon had gone out, the one who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed.
15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” 16 Others, to test him, kept demanding from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? —for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. 19 Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. 22 But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
The Return of the Unclean Spirit
24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
True Blessedness
27 While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”
The Sign of Jonah
29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! 32 The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!
The Light of the Body
33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”
Jesus Denounces Pharisees and Lawyers
37 While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. 38 The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?
41 So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.”
41 So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. 42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.”
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” 46 And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48 So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
53 When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
THOUGHTS FOR SUNDAY. Holy smoke! Good golly martin! As one accustomed to reading Bible stuff all the time, it seems to me that Luke, in his research that he bragged about to Theophilus, that Luke has gathered a lot of material, sayings attributed to Jesus, old proverbs Jesus may have used, gossip, rumors, people’s recollections from what their friends and neighbors remembered being told by their grandparents about the time more than sixty years earlier when Jesus was here, about what Jesus said and did; that Luke cobbled independent and sometimes non-sequitur material together at the end of chapter eleven (including some of it comes from Mark, some from Q, some from Luke’s own sources, some from totally uncontexted Sayings Gospel Thomas), and sets it all in sensible context. I think that is so because as I read through the various paragraphs, my mind keeps asking, “Say What?” as Luke jumps around. But that seems to be what we have here.
Nevertheless, okay, I’m good with it. In Luke’s story, Jesus has gotten really irritated, angry, disgusted. On his way from his home in Galilee down through Samaria to Jerusalem of Judea, he stops here to preach and cast out a demon for someone in this village, doing something kind and helpful, dynamis, using God’s power in an act of compassion as is his way in the synoptics, and he is met with all this rude, graceless pushback. If I were him I’d do an Elisha and call down fire from heaven, like YHWH almost did on the Israelites that day up on the mountain with Moses, when the Israelites fashioned themselves a golden calf and said, “This is our god that brought us out of Egypt,” that so enraged YHWH. Lucky for the Israelites, Moses talked the Lord back down to earth from his vengeful wrath. So here, “He casts out devils in the name of the head devil” indeed. Damn them all is what I’d have done, but I’m not Jesus. All his agape’, his chesed, lovingkindness is compassion, pure grace, the grace of his Father. But he surely does get angry at them.
After casting out the mute demon, enabling the healed person to speak, Jesus says something about cast out demons returning home to make things worse than ever, turning upside down the belief in those days that a cast out demon never returned. It might go to the abyss, into some hole somewhere, or a privy maybe, but Jesus says no, it just might return “home.”
His allusion to the queen of the South may mean the Queen of Sheba who came to visit the wise Solomon and pick his brain for wisdom. Jesus is a Sign greater than Jonah, Wisdom greater than Solomon.
Luke’s paragraph about the light of the body seems a somewhat puzzling mix of Jesus’ sayings; but this is Luke’s story and he can tell it as he will.
Now the supper! These things seldom go well for Jesus’ host and his other guests, do they. Enjoy your meal, bon appetit. Holy smoke! What a dinner guest! In my vision, you invite a stranger home for supper. It’s common Jewish hospitality, and not unlikely that whoever invites first gets the greater blessing. Apparently the women and other folks traveling with Jesus weren’t invited this time, and nobody comes in to cry and wash his feet. He’s a fascinating wandering preacher who preached in your village that day, maybe a revival tent was up and standing room only, every folding chair filled, a bit of excitement in what otherwise would have been another humdrum day of life in an average village on a hot, dusty day. So in Jewish hospitality you invite him home for supper. Maybe you’re kind. Maybe you’re curious. Maybe folks in your village always do this, why?
So, arriving, Jesus does not bother with the usual friendly washing ritual that brings friends together, I’m visualizing that drinks are served during the ablutions, they make a preprandial cocktail hour of it, neighbors and synagogue colleagues visiting, chatting about their day. Your guest is a stranger, he overhears some of the chatter, but isn’t one of them, and maybe is not all that much of an extrovert, so doesn’t bother, goes to the dinner table and takes his place. You are stunned. He is dirty and smells. You have taken in the king of the great unwashed, not an appealing dinner guest in your elite crowd. But he is not oblivious, it’s almost as though he’s done it on purpose, deliberately to thumb his nose at your values and start a scene. When he sees how annoyed you are that he snubbed your ritual washing convention, he lights into you with a vengeance, cutting you and your guests to ribbons. Your values are rubbish. Your obsessions with the Law, your religious fetishes (tithing the peas, for chrissakes) are garbage. Why don’t you do worthwhile things that actually help needy people? You are like unmarked graves - - to walk on a grave would make you ritually unclean in that culture - - Jesus says that your very presence on the earth defiles everyone around you. Then he attacks your lawyer friends with equal fervor, insulting and offending everyone in the house. He is more than irritated, you have hosted and experienced the wrath of God. Do you reckon they ever got around to the supper? Luke doesn’t say. The last thing that’s past around the table after this meal is not a bowl of pistachio nuts but a bottle of Zantac. Think about it. God's wisdom and values are the opposite of yours. Are you tithing genuine help to the hungry, unwashed, homeless; or are you, like the Pharisees and lawyers in Luke's story, tithing ten percent of your peas and carrots?