A House Divided
Homily for June 9, 2024; the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
One of my all-time favorite political cartoons, from a few election cycles ago, depicted a Catholic priest, with the assembled candidates in the primary election, all gathered around a baptismal font. This cartoonist was at least Catholic enough to know the proper liturgical context for the scenario he was presenting.
The priest said to the assembled candidates: Do you reject Satan? And all his works? And all his empty show?
The candidates all respond, I do. But I will support him if he is the nominee.
Our political parties, like most associations of worldly power and ideology, understand the basic truth at the heart of today’s Gospel: that if a house is divided against itself, the house will not be able to stand.
Jesus expands on this, saying that if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him. Then he goes on to imply that we should not count on that. Evil will always hold tight to its own self-interest.
Jesus’s words also serve as a warning – the Devil creates division. It’s his best, most effective, and the oldest trick in his book.
 We see this in the first reading, with Adam and Eve and the consequences of their disobedience. Anyone who has had children might recognize the pattern. First, they try to hide. Then they pass of the blame to someone else.
And we might ask ourselves, how often do I do the same? Deflecting the blame? Ducking my own responsibility? Letting fear keep me from seeking forgiveness from those I’ve wronged? Letting shame keep me from going to God for the sacrament of reconciliation? The Devil puts a lot of work into isolating us from one another, and especially from God, and fear and shame are his greatest tools.
The Gospel tells us how the crowds and the religious leaders begin to turn on Jesus – to say he is out of his mind, or that he is possessed by Beelzebul. Even his own family is caught up in this popular uprising, in the sense of shame for what people are thinking of him and fear for what might happen to him.
It’s worth noting here that the Blessed Mother and the rest of Jesus’s family are acting out of love, out of concern for his well-being. Their fear, their concern for what is happening, is not sinful in itself.
But scripture tells us that perfect love casts out fear. And we could say too that perfect fear casts out love. Our fears are an indication of where we fall short in our trust of God. The more we dwell on our fears, the more we give in to them in our lives, the more it can keep us from the truly loving relationship with God and with one another that we are called to.
 Fear divides us one from another but it can also give the illusion of unity. When we unite one group against another; tribe against tribe, nation against nation, us against them. This is Satan’s unity which Jesus warns us against.
And He offers us a different sort of unity. A different sort of community.
 For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. And what is the will of God, but to love God with all your heart, your mind, and your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Where the unity of Fear walls us off from one another, Christ’s community of Love opens its arms in welcome; as Saint Paul says, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.
Jesus refers to Satan as a Strong Man who has made this world his home. And Satan well understands the truth at the heart of today’s Gospel message: that a house divided against itself can not stand. This is why we see the worldly powers around us try so hard to turn us against each other, or to unite us into factions one against another.
But Jesus assures us that he has overpowered that Strong Man; tied him up so that we can reclaim this world that God created for us. This gift, which Adam and Eve turned away from in their disobedience, their shame, and their fear.
Jesus reclaims the world on our behalf. We no longer need to fear the World, so long as we unite ourselves in Love to Christ and to one another. This is where we gain the strength to overcome the world, the devil; to overcome even death itself — leaving us with nothing to fear.