Understanding

       I have to say that I love how Jesus takes on his detractors. They really haven't a chance. Isn't that a big 'duh!'  But hidden in this passage, right up front is a truth that we don't always tend to think about.

    That demoniac who is blind and mute. I wonder if he really was a demoniac at all or was it a lack of understanding? Just like the life we live today might seem like a magical perhaps even a demonic place to the ancients.  So too today, the things that are not understood often get derogatory labels.

      For example, in the time of the ancients the concept of Leprosy as Mycobacterium leprae would have made absolutely no sense. Leprosy was a term attached to more than the bacteriological disease we know today. A whole host of blemishes from warts, psoriasis, mold and the like were all lumped into the term 'leprosy'. Of course we seem to understand much more now, or do we?

      How do we handle things we do not understand? How do we deal with people that we do not understand? Cultures? Religions? 

       While Jesus healing is no less real, the man cured may not have been a demoniac  as much as someone misunderstood and easily labelled by the scripture writers. It gives me pause to think about the people who are different from the mainstream, especially since I am often considered one of them as a gay man. In a political climate which seems to thrive on scapegoating, how are we called to act, think and respond?

Matthew 12:22-32

Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see.All the crowds were amazed and said, ‘Can this be the Son of David?’But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, ‘It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.’ He knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.