Without God

What is the proximate setting for our Gospel lesson today? Jesus has returned from the lost Tribe of Gad, which, remarkably, has forced Him out, indeed, has driven Him back to His boat. He then goes to "the other side" of Lake Geneserret and, as we read,

The Lord of Life roams among the lost, healing the people root and branch. He heals them spiritually, and He heals them bodily.

What do I mean by, "He heals them spiritually"? This is explained in verse 36, which lies one verse beyond our appointed reading:

Isn't this the proximate reason for the Incarnation itself, about which Jesus is explicit just a few verses hence:

And in Chapter 15, He explains,

Jesus is sent by the Father to gather, to teach, and to heal the lost sheep of the house of Israel. God empties Himself of His Heavenly glory entering the horrible confines of our narrow humanity in order to gather the lost sheep of Israel, for "they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd."

But isn't this odd? For arguably the people Israel have never been so vigorously shepherded. They have the Temple authorities to shepherd them, including the Sanhedrin. They have those faithful sheepdogs, the Temple police. They have their teachers, the synagogue leaders. Has there ever been a time in Israel's fifteen-hundred year history when the people have been so thoroughly shepherded? Yet, they they do not see or hear God, who is standing right before them. You see, their blindness is a spiritual condition, a matter of faith:

And what did they see? They saw God.

The people do not have "eyes that see or ears that hear," Jesus says throughout the Gospels. For their shepherds are false shepherds — another theme of Jesus' kerygma.

Or look at it another way. The synagogue was an institution specifically conceived to promote Judah-ism, that hyrid Babylonian religion established by the returning Exiles. Before the Macabbees, roughly a century earlier, who made Judah-ism a central, rallying cry for their cause of nationalism, there were no synagogues. Whatever might have been taught there (and we do not know what that is), it was obviously acceptable to the Romans, for they permitted synagogues to be built throughout the Empire. Any why not? The Judean religion stood out for its well-regulated society elevating murder, robbery, and adultery to crimes against "God." Nor was the synagogue program of study offensive to the pagan gods. Yet, just a few, short years later, Christians would be thrown to the lions, not for promulgating their religion, for simply for believing in God. Now, how is it possible that the Christian God and this "God" of the Second Temple taught by the Jews was the same God?

The god of Judah-ism, for whom the Persians built a Temple, was called "Bel" or "Baal" or (by way of English translation) "Lord" — in Hebrew "Elohim" or "Adonai." You see the use of God's Name, YHWH, was forbidden, forbidden from the time the exiles returned. As I have written, this was convenient, for the Persians would have tolerated no rival to their Marduk.

We know that Jesus viewed the Ten Commandments as being essential to salvation (Mt 19:18-20). But He was absolutely clear that the "God" proposed by the Jews is not God. Most offensively, the sacrificial blood that was poured out and the prayers that were offered were all in vain. They did not reach unto Heaven, but fell back on the faces of those who offered them. Jesus spoke out at length concerning the abomination of blood sacrifice. And remarkably He taught grown men, pious men who were seeking the Messiah, how to pray! You see, if their prayers were sufficient and acceptable, Jesus would not be teaching them how to pray. He told them, "When you pray, say this, 'My Father, Who art in Heaven ....'"

All this because a great darkness had fallen in Judah. In fact, refugees from this darkness had fled to Elephantine in Egypt to erect their own temple — religious refugees fleeing this new religion from Persia. I say, a darkness had fallen, and people wandered aimlessly. Their eyes could not penetrate its heavy mists and fogs. They were utterly lost. For this reason the Father sent the Son into the world. And the Son is unswerving from His youth on one great principle: the Figure He calls Father is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His Father is the King of the Universe. And one last precept: He and the Father are One.

When we countenance the truth of this — that the entire Hebrew lifeworld had come to languish in a darkness cut off from God and that God has come to save them — we begin to appreciate what the world looks like without God and what God looks like to a lost world.

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The world Jesus enters at His birth is utterly lost. God cannot dwell in vessels that are defiled, so He sent His Son to dwell with them, showing them the way. They must have a change of heart. They must be transformed.

Small wonder that the first word of Jesus' kerygma is precisely this:

that is, "Be transformed!" Or as St. Paul would later express in his classic formulation,

An essential antagonism is implied here. We can become beast-creatures, men or woman who are ruled by their passions. Or we can become nous-creatures, men or women who share relationship with God. But we cannot be both.

Another word for becoming a beast-creature is possession. This is intuitive. When we act on impulses or passions until we simply cannot stop ourselves, who, can we say, is in charge? Who is in possession? It is an article of the Christian faith, certainly attested by the Lord Jesus and His Apostles, that demons are in abundance around us. They are purely spiritual creatures. They have no bodies. Like viruses, who are bodiless creatures, demons must seize control of our cells to have material existence. What is a virus if it has not taken over a body. It is nothing, a non-entity, and soon poses no threat.

Wherever and whenever God is absent, demons instantly flood in. And God is absent we when live by our passions. Our own parents would flee if they walked in on a vile, carnal scene.

If nature abhors a vacuum, then spiritual nature dismisses it entirely as a category. There is no neutral position: either we fill ourselves with the Divine or we shall be filled with the demonic.

Make no mistake about it: demonic possession is real. There are so many people who believe that it is not real or who believe it is not a threat. I suppose there is no parish priest who has not sat in a confessional and heard the penitent say, "God understands that I have these needs. We have an arrangement. He permits me to take of my needs." This is a sure sign that the penitent is possessed. For a person in his or her right mind not believe such things. A demon has written this script for the person to follow.

Possession begins by entertaining demonic thoughts in the imagination, stirring up the passions. And it finally devolves into complete loss of control until we do things that we hate and do them repeatedly until we become disfigured body and soul. Oh yes, it is obvious to all when someone consents to this life.

Atheists cite possession as proof that the Gospels are to be discarded as artifacts of a superstitious age. They say, "We have science which explains such things." But do we? I certainly do not dispute the advancements of science. For many years I carried out scientific work and at foremost institutions.

But I dispute that science can explain all things. For example, we now have a new word which stands in for possession. We say that it is scientific, a medical, term. The word is addiction. Now it is true that we have made great strides in showing how addiction works. Behavioral experiments with rats in the 1970s (Olds and Milner) and the advent of neuronal imaging have been key to understanding brain function and the role of dopamine. But does that signify that we understand it?

I'm afraid that this is a distinct example of the genetic fallacy, or the fallacy of origins. Wikipedia states the case succinctly: the genetic fallacy is

My favorite example of the genetic fallacy is the "God Spot." An Ivy League-trained doctor who was volunteering at our medical ministry in Haiti pulled me to aside to disabuse me of my religious beliefs. "We now understand God," he told me speaking as a scientist. "It is known as the 'God Spot' in the brain. If you stimulate it, you have a spiritual experience. So God is no more than that — a part of the brain than can be tickled to turn on or off spiritual experience."

I replied, "Doctor have you heard of Apple Pie Spot? When you stimulate it, you smell apple pie, you taste apple pie, you even feel apple pie in your mouth. But, doctor, this does not constitute proof that there is no apple pie."

Because we have a new word, addiction, or because we can observe the wet chemistry of neuronal activity does not constitute an advance in understanding addiction, much less possession. It is more accurate to say that we have simply discovered the how of demonic possession, not the what or ultimate why.

It turns out that the cure for addiction in the year 2024 is exactly the same as it was in the first-century A.D. The addicted person must have a change of heart. The experts, usually neuro-psychiatrists, will tell you that they there can be hope until the addict "hits bottom." They must look in the mirror and see what they have become. They must take hold of the principle of transformation — transformed into a demon-possessed monster or into the dwelling-place of God. This lies in their power alone.

I will add that without God, such positive transformation is not possible. The most successful program for helping people effect this transformation is Alcoholics Anonymous. And the basis for that program is God and the conduct of life that God deems acceptable.

I would say that transformation is a Jesus word. But that would not be saying enough. It is the Jesus word, and its aim is restored relationship with the Father, which is salvation.

His Forerunner bears the same message:

And he bids them be washed clean of their filthy, old ways as a ritual of transformation.

Exactly what does life look like under the old regime, under Judah-ism and blood sacrifice, from which the Baptist offers escape? The locus for this is Gad, which is Gad's function in the Gospels. It is a place of shadows, life among the tombs, where is heard, the furious madness of howling demon life. It is life in chains, for freedom of choice, of self-control, has been lost. Passions run wild as stampeding horses (Plato would say) or as the thundering hoofs of pigs leaping into the unruly sea, the ancient symbol of chaos. It is obvious that such pandemonium cannot also be a place of light and Divine peace. St. John leaves no doubt on this point:

Let us read this as a mathematical equation:

But the case is more extreme than that. For the Father will not accept union with worldlings. His angels will bring us along, but until we cease being worldlings, loving the things of the world, we cannot approach God. We cannot be part of His Kingdom until we become Heavenly. As St. Paul would say our nous must be transformed. For the nous is the organ of relationship. It is the place where we meet with the God Who loves us. And it is that place where we love one another in His wonderful Kingdom, lifting us high above the world .... but not till we are transformed. As Jesus would say: Metanoeite!

Look around you, my brothers and sisters. Darkness is again falling. The "God" that is taught is most American churches is not God. The values and (dare I use the word?) morals we teach are not moral. Public attack on Christianity has mainstreamed. And soon Christians will again be thrown to the lions (that is, arrested) as the Bible will be condemned as a form of "hate speech."

And seeing our collective blindness, Jesus-Who-saves will reach out in His compassion. He sees that our shepherds are few (and shepherds who will speak out, fewer still). We must call out to Him: "Son of David, have mercy upon us!" And He will ask us, "Do you believe?" And our reply must be, "Yes, Lord. I believe."

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.