Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, January 20, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
It’s a common media trope. Some mysterious character shows up with Christ-like powers and convinces a growing number of people that he (or she) is a force for good and light and love. Then as the story goes on, more and more evidence is revealed of this person’s evil nature. The utopian future they promised becomes starkly dystopian. The people who question mysteriously disappear or turn up dead. In the end, it’s terribly obvious that this messiah-figure never did anything good—only created illusions of goodness.
The people who had it out for Jesus were accusing him of just such a thing. They saw his power and rather than seeing it as evidence of his God-sent goodness, they proclaim that he must be possessed by Satan—that the evil one is giving him the power to cast out demons.
Jesus isn’t having it. He’s not a pretender. He’s the real deal. He argues with a simple logic. If Satan attacks himself, how does it strengthen him? If Satan was a kingdom, and the kingdom was divided against itself, it would fall, just as any divided kingdom does. Nothing Jesus does in the entirety of his ministry causes harm. It’s all love and healing and wholeness, things Satan must be incapable of.
As human beings, we have a tendency to hide a bad motive (something self-serving) under a good one, even if we’re not aware of it. Our acts of goodness and love can be undercut by our need to take credit or control a situation or work for our own security at the expense of others. Despite our best intentions we might wind up like that media trope creator of dystopian chaos on some microcosmic level. But if we humbly ask, Jesus can help us act out of genuine love and service, and we can be his hands and feet bringing healing and wholeness to the world.
Have I ever done something “good” only to realize later my motives weren’t so great?