Mtr Mary Trainor

Dear friend,

It stopped me in my tracks. The last line from today’s Office Gospel, that is. My first thought was “It’s deja vu all over again,” recalling Yogi Berra’s famous redundancy. Only it wasn’t. It was familiar, but not the same.

Today’s last line? “Whoever is not with me is against me….” (Luke 11:23.) Just a week ago in this same space we explored the last line from the Office Gospel: “...for whoever is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:50.)

Not-with-me equals against-me. Not-against-you equals for-you.Jesus can easily confound us. Even if we weren’t separated from him by a couple of millennia and thousands of miles, even if we were able to tag along behind him as did those disciples of old, I suspect Jesus still might be mystifying.

And yet, what may seem to be confusion between the passages in Luke about “for” and “against” actually may be more straightforward than it first seems.

For one thing, the audiences are different. When saying “whoever is not against you is for you,” Jesus is talking to his disciples. They wanted to stop people who were healing others because the healers were not followers of Jesus. Leave them alone, he said. They are helping people. They are not working against us, which is almost the same thing as saying they are for us.

Today’s remarks target antagonists, accusers, and testers. A person was rid of a demon that had prevented speech. Now that person—male, female, we don’t know—is able to communicate. They could ask for food or drink, they could tell where they hurt, they could visit with neighbors, they could tell their spouse they loved them.

And the response of the antagonists, accusers and testers? Throw suspicion on the gift and the giver. He must be of Satan, some said. Prove yourself with a sign from heaven, others demanded. To these, Jesus said, if you are not with me, then you are against me.

Demons. Living where and when we do, we might dismiss as outdated the body- and mind-inhabiting evildoers of biblical times who robbed people of vitality, community, family, even life itself.

And yet, in our own time, the streets are full of people who wander; who talk to themselves, if they can talk at all; who have no jobs, no friends, no place to lay their heads at night. And others, able to escape the streets and live what passes for a normal life, nonetheless are haunted on the inside by demons of their own. All of them robbed of vitality, community, family, even life itself.

Jesus had no quarrel with those who tried to ease suffering. But he took serious exception to those who challenged the source of his power, the worth of his cause, the worthiness of those he healed.

Demons still destroy lives, outside on desperate sidewalks, and inside of lonely homes. Jesus affirms those who engage the desperation and pain and brokenness in others. They are the healers. They are “for him.”

Mtr. Mary