Giving Voice to the Silenced.

Luke 11:14-36.

I.

            Jesus is in Judea, on his way to Jerusalem.  He heals a man who has a demon that was making him mute.  The demon had taken away his voice; Jesus casts out the demon and the man’s voice returns.  This amazes the crowds. 

            First of all, it is always the power of evil loose in the world that takes away people’s voices.  And, when people who have no voice are suddenly able to be heard, it is not something that is universally celebrated.  Because a society often includes people who depend on certain others remaining voiceless.

            Democracy by definition means that everyone has a voice in the decisions affecting their lives.  Jesus clearly believes that people should have voices; God created us able to communicate and say our piece.  When that is taken away, either by illness, demonic possession, or political action, a system rejects God’s will.  Because usually the people who insist that we shut-up, are people who are doing something they don’t want anyone to hear about.  They impose “gag-orders,” or they disrupt communications, media, and journalism.  They demand that we “keep our mouths shut about” whatever is going on.  Most of the time the people who demand our silence have something to hide.

            So when Jesus’ heals a mute person, it upsets the established order.  If everyone is given a voice, the prevailing principalities and powers simply cannot stand.  So they dream up an accusation against Jesus, saying that he is not doing miracles, but dark magic.  His power to heal, they say, comes from Beelzebub, which is a name for Satan.

            Whenever the voiceless, the excluded, the rejected, the oppressed, are given a voice, it drives tyrants mad.  They know that if the voiceless are given a voice their whole profitable racket could fall apart.  Their power is based on the silent compliance of their victims.  And since they have identified in their minds their own status and power with goodness itself, any threat to that must be evil.  Ergo, Jesus, who is giving people a voice, not to mention healing the lame, the blind, the deaf, the lepers, and even raising the dead, has to be evil too.  “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons!” they hysterically cry.

            To which Jesus replies, in effect, “I am freeing people from Satan’s grip!  If Satan is giving me the power to do this then he’d better get his act to together because it means his dominion is falling apart!  Satan is all about keeping people enslaved.  How can Satan be giving me the power to set them free?  And if you guys are complaining about people being set free, whose side does that put you on?”

II.

            Jesus goes on: “You don’t claim that any other Jewish exorcists are working for the devil, do you?  Of course not.  So what’s so threatening about me? 

            “Well, I am proclaiming the Kingdom of God, that’s what!  If people are set free but not given a new way to live, they’re only being set up to be enslaved again.  The demon that got cast out just comes back to the clean and empty house, with its friends, and the situation is made much worse than before. 

            “But I am giving people a new way to live in freedom.  When I free people they stay free because I knit them together in a community, and that’s what is making you so angry.  I am giving people an alternative to being exploited and dominated by you.

            “I am gathering people together in unity and solidarity.  Anyone working on that task with me, even if they’re not part of my group, is my ally and friend.  You, however, are scattering them so they are more easily conquered, silenced, crippled, blinded, and made to stay in ‘their place.’  Those who are gathering are with me.  You scatterers are not.

            “My works show that I am Satan’s biggest enemy!  How can I be Satan’s tool?  I have Satan on the run!  That’s because God is stronger than he is.  Deal with it.”

            It must have left his opponents sputtering in frustration.  What Jesus is doing in healing people is undeniably good.  The people know this.  What, is it better to stay sick and in bondage than to accept free health care from Jesus because he is supposedly ‘of the devil’?  Seriously? 

            But what Jesus is doing is also very bad for the powerful, the wealthy, and the privileged.  Healthy, strong, vocal, visionary, united people cannot be dominated.  They don’t put up with low wages and no benefits, high taxes and interest rates, and having no voice in their lives.

            In response to this eloquent tirade, a woman is inspired to break out of her own silence and raises her voice: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!”  She blesses Jesus’ mother for bringing such a great preacher and healer into the world.

            But maybe Jesus smiles and gently corrects her.  “Don’t lose sight of what is important by venerating my mother, or even me.  The ones who are blessed in this world are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.  My mother’s virtue is that she obeyed God’s Word when it came to her before I was born.  My virtue is that I am obeying God’s Word by bringing healing and liberation into people lives, which was God’s purpose from the beginning.  Obey God’s Word.  Do what God commands you.  Live as free people in wholeness and blessing.”

III.

            “Don’t demand signs and proof!”  Jesus is speaking louder now because the crowds are increasing.  “The proof that God is working is not something for you to observe… it is something for you to be.  The prophet Jonah was not an entertainer.  His words demanded a response.  And even the people of Nineveh, who were about as evil as anyone with their injustice, oppression, violence, and conquests, even they came to see things differently and change their ways.  And the Queen of Sheba even made the trip all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to listen to the Word of God from Solomon.  And what’s going on right now is bigger than Jonah and Solomon!”

            Jesus pointedly uses the examples of foreigners who heard God’s Word and obeyed it.  By doing so he says that it is not our nationality or even our religion that God’s cares about.  God looks at our actions.  Do we hear?  Do we change our way of thinking or repent?  Do we obey?

            He identifies the problem with his own generation of Jewish believers; he says they are too eager to keep the good news of God’s love for the world to themselves.  It’s like he says, “We Jews have this Light from God!”  We have God’s Word!  Since we have this light we have to share it so as to banish the darkness of others.  God does not want us hiding the light in our basement, with our personal and family treasures, our memorabilia.  Light is meant to shine!  God doesn’t want the family Bible gathering dust in a cabinet or even under the coffee table.  Open it so its light, its Wisdom may shine into your home and even out the windows into the street!  That’s what Jonah did.  He didn’t want to.  But he did.  And that’s what the Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba heard.”

            Jesus goes on to say that: “The eye is the lamp of the body.  That means our eyes kind of shine within us, illumining our whole body.  If our eyes are healthy, our bodies are full of light.  If we are taking in from creation the light of God that shines in and through all that God has made, that is, if we are seeing reality, then our whole body is safe and secure.  Then we may proceed through the world and act in the world with confidence because we are seeing what is really out there.  But if our eyes are defective or diseased, we don’t see the truth, we don’t see God’s light, we don’t see what is really out there, and we can’t make informed decisions.  We end up going astray and crashing into things.  We end up crashing into each other.”

            Think about whether we can really see or not.  We all imagine we can see clearly.  But are we crashing into each other?  Are we living in violence and injustice?  Are we paralyzed by fear and motivated by anger?  Are we acting like people who have been and remain scattered?  Are our works in the world all about offense and defense?  Protecting what is ours and trying to get what belongs to someone else?  If that’s the way we live, Jesus suggests we can’t really see at all.  We are living in a horrible fantasy of our own invention.  We are living in darkness.

IV.

             But if we see clearly what is truly there, if that true light enters our eyes and illumines our bodies, then we become ourselves one with the light and able therefore to shine on others.  We become emissaries, witnesses, bearers, and reflectors of the Truth.  We illuminate the world for others by our good and loving actions, which are in accord with God’s will.  We light the way in the darkness so others can see what is really there.  And in this way they may also catch the light, have their eyes healed so they can see and do the truth themselves.

            And the gatherings of Jesus’ disciples are supposed to be places where individual lights gather to become even greater lights.

            Satan is called the Prince of Darkness for a reason.  The Evil One thrives and feeds on our blindness.  He wants us kept in the dark.  He wouldn’t even still have any power except that we give him power by deliberately cultivating darkness in our hearts.  Our fear, our anger, our shame are what keep us scattered, voiceless, blind, immobile, and defiled… all because our eyes are conditioned not to see the truth, but to see instead only the projections of our own egos.   

            So Jesus says, “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.”  “Let your light so shine before others,” he says more famously in Matthew, “that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  But the meaning is pretty much the same.  If we see God’s light in the world we will shine God’s light into the world.  The light shines through us by our actions, the good works we do with and for others. 

            To see God’s light is to be God’s light.  To see God’s Presence is to be God’s Presence.  To see God’s salvation is to be God’s salvation.  To see or discern Christ’s body is to be Christ’s body.  We are what we see.  We are what we perceive.   And if we attune our senses to receive God’s saving, healing, redeeming, blessing, and liberating Presence, we become that same blessing to others.

            Jesus Christ is God’s saving Presence, he is God’s Word, he is God’s light shining in the darkness.  Just to see him is to experience the fullness of God’s light pouring into us and shine with it so that through and reflecting off us that light can also touch others.

V.

            How are we serving as light in the world?  How are we showing the saving Presence of the living God?  How are we proclaiming and shining with the good news of God’s love for the world?  How are we revealing God’s goodness and blessing, mercy and healing, in everything God has made?

            Are we giving voice to people who have long been silenced?  That was the healing that Jesus does here that causes the leaders to erupt with such accusatory fury.  Do we also want all voices to be heard?  Or are there some we find inconvenient, too challenging, and even offensive? 

            Are we willing to listen to the Word like the Queen of Sheba and change our whole way of thinking and acting because of it, like the Ninevites?

            Are we willing to let the light enter us and change us, even if it means giving up everything we have ever been taught to depend on?  Even if it means giving up our fear, and putting aside our anger, and disregarding our shame? 

            Do we have the strength and the fortitude to gather and unify, when so much of society wants to scatter and divide? 

            For in Jesus Christ, liberation does not mean doing whatever you want.  That is actually Satan’s gig, and it is how we got into this mess in the first place.  True liberation, real freedom, is being a slave to God and a servant of the Truth.  To be truly free is to be shaped and molded into conformity with the light of God. 

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