Binding the Spirit of Accusation
“Binding the Spirit of Accusation” Genesis 3:8-13; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35
“How can Satan cast out Satan?” Jesus asked. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
We saw in the Scriptures a couple weeks ago that the Hebrew word Satan means “the Accuser.” So Jesus is asking: Can the Accuser be cast out by accusation?
In our first reading today from Genesis, we drop into the middle of the story, after Adam and Eve have eaten the apple. The disobedience of Adam and Eve does not change God; God still comes looking for them, God still wants to find them, to be in relationship with them. “Where are you?” But the Accuser is out in full force. It’s her fault! She gave me the apple. It’s the serpent’s fault! It tricked me. It’s your fault, God! You gave me this woman.
As we resume our gospel readings from Mark, we drop back into Chapter 3, in the middle of the story. Jesus has been teaching and healing and drawing enormous crowds who are enthusiastically receiving his message that the kingdom of God is at hand. After calling the 12, Jesus returns to find a house overflowing with people ready to change their lives and believe the good news of God.
But the Accuser is out in full force. The family of Jesus arrives saying that Jesus has lost his mind and they have come to take him home. The scribes from Jerusalem arrive saying that Jesus is possessed by a demon himself, that he’s dangerous and should be stopped.
All of us are always arriving in the middle of a story. We were born into a story that’s been going on for thousands of years, in which the Accuser is out in full force. Human societies have always defined themselves as being not like “those people.” The Accuser always flatters us by thinking the fault is always somewhere else, with someone else.
And now, Jesus is accused of being in league with the Accuser. Jesus has been casting out evil spirits, setting people free, healing broken lives and broken relationships. And now Jesus’s own family break their relationship to him, accusing him of having lost his mind. The authorities of his own religious community call him a broken person, someone possessed by an evil spirit who needs to be driven out.
And Jesus looks around the crowded house, and asks a rhetorical question: Can Satan drive out Satan? Can the Accuser be driven out by accusation?
Well, when you put it that way, Jesus, clearly not. And yet haven’t human beings been trying for thousands of years to get a handle on the evil in this world, to drive out Satan, by finding someone to blame and to accuse and to punish, thinking that this will work? Since Adam and Eve, really, haven’t we tried to use accusation to drive out the Accuser? It hasn’t worked yet, after all these centuries and generations, yet we seem to keep trying.
In times of crisis, especially – the urge to solve the crisis and find peace and healing through accusation is especially strong. Is there racial tension in the community? Well, whose fault is that? Everyone has a theory about who’s to blame – it’s police, it’s critical race theory, it’s Robert E. Lee, it’s looters and troublemakers. As if finding the right person to accuse is, by itself, going to change anything. We’re just coming out now of Covid – more than a year of painful disruption to our lives, of trauma we’re just beginning to recognize. Why was it so bad? Listen to the discourse and you’ll hear: It’s China’s fault, it’s the former President’s fault, it’s Dr. Fauci’s fault, it’s those dumb people who won’t wear masks. The urge to find the culprit, to find healing and peace by accusation, is powerful. And that at least some of those whom one wants to accuse really did get things wrong makes the temptation to think accusation will fix everything all the stronger.
In fact our both of our major political parties seem to have adopted the platform – You may not like us, but the other party is horrible, it threatens everything you hold dear, so you have no choice but to vote for us. This is why we say the church is not political – it’s not that we are afraid of controversy. Jesus was deeply controversial – loved by many, feared by many, and we see Jesus in today’s gospel reading not backing away one inch in the face of determined opposition. But Jesus has no interest in using the tools of the Accuser to drive out the Accuser. Because it doesn’t work.
What will work? What do you do when the Accuser is firmly in charge, when the Accuser is running the house and holding countless people in bondage to the way of accusation and blame and punishment? If you want to free those the Accuser is holding in bondage, Jesus says, the thing to do is to sneak into the house at night and tie up the strong man. And then you’ll be able to liberate everything – and everyone – that belongs to him.
This is the image Jesus uses to describe his mission. He is not going to use the tools of Satan to drive out Satan. Instead God is going to stage a home invasion. Jesus has come to sneak into Satan’s house and tie him up, bind him so he can’t accuse. And when the Accuser has been restrained, that’s when Jesus can set people free.
So when Jesus says he’s coming like a thief in the night – that doesn’t just mean his coming is a surprise. He really means it – but the house he’s coming to rob is Satan’s house. The Accuser’s house. And we are the captives there. We are so used to living in the house of the Accuser – since the days of Adam and Eve, really – that our default is to use the methods of Satan to try to drive out Satan, even though it doesn’t work. But Jesus tells us not to be fooled – he’s come to do something completely different.
If we don’t see this – if we think that Jesus is one more person trying to use Satan to cast out Satan – then we’re doomed to be caught in Satan’s snares forever. That is how I understand what Jesus says about the “unforgiveable sin” – an expression that has scared a whole lot of people who are afraid they might have committed it. The sin against the Holy Spirit is not a sin that’s so horrible and offensive to God that God just can’t get over it and can’t forgive it. There is no sin that God can’t get over. But if we cannot imagine any other way to resist Satan than using the tools of Satan, we will be trapped forever in Satan’s house.
But Jesus is promising us something completely different. Jesus intends to break the cycle of accusing and casting out – to tie up and bind the power of accusation. And he does this by willingly inhabiting the position of the Accused, without fear and without shame. The religious leaders from Jerusalem, still trapped in a model of accusation, accuse me of being in league with Satan? What’s the worst thing they can do – crucify me? It’ll be OK. My family, filled with fear of change and things getting out of control, accuse me of having lost my mind? I am surrounded by mothers and brothers and sisters, by everyone who has been set free to live in God’s love.
Martin Luther knew a thing or two about facing opposition. His most famous hymn celebrates the God who in Jesus invaded the realm of Satan to bind and restrain the Accuser and so to set us free. It’s our hymn of the day, #505, A Mighty Fortress. Let’s sing it together.