“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” is a quote that has been attributed to Euripides, Seneca, as well as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with some nuancing in each version.  The image is searing by all accounts.  There is the theme of destruction by gods and the implication that the destruction is accomplished primarily by driving those destroyed into madness.  It would seem from the image that the madness itself is what brings on the destruction.

There is madness in our world. Terrorist attacks are rampant and we struggle with how to address the terrorism in an effective yet humane manner.  At least, that is the hope for many of us.  This makes the matter very complicated, yet simple at the same time.  How do we breach the madness that takes such an insidious and devastating form?  How do we address it?  From where does it come?  Resentment, revenge, mockery, or malice?  How do we attempt to effectively engage in this reality, with authenticity and compassion without falling prey to the exact same attitudes that may be responsible for the horror in the first place?  How do we authentically and literally stop the killing?

Is there a possibility that the hopelessness and seeming inevitability of the realities of terrorism, racial violence, war, genocide and all the large-scale atrocities that exist in our world relate to our own personal lives? Could the world stage of such horror be saying something very important and dark about our own personal lives?  Are our own attitudes as we relate to each other in our civic and church communities, and even in our families and friendships, simply be micro-versions of the global picture?

Jeremiah (JER 20: 10-13) describes this madness characterized by fear and revenge with scathing accuracy:

I hear the whisperings of many: “Terror on every side! Denounce! let us denounce him!” All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine.

Jeremiah himself seems to fall prey to the same attitude as his enemies…

O LORD of hosts, you who test the just, who probe mind and heart, Let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause.

Jesus is in the shoes of Jeremiah when the Jews pick up stones ready to stone him in today’s Gospel (JN 10: 31-42)

The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”‘? If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be set aside, can you say that the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

How can a good work be blasphemous? Perhaps only to those possessed by an attitude of protective rigidity that prohibits caring and compassion.  The mere thought of healing and compassion are maddening when we cannot let go of the reaction that holds us in its grip – resentment, retaliation, and yes vengeance.  “Pick up your stones!”  Only know that the stones that you pick up to throw are in fact the gods or idols that hold us in our madness!  The seemingly indefectible attitudes that are perpetuated by running in tailspins around unquestioned bias ultimately share a home within the very things and people that seem to infuriate and attack us.  The circle of madness feeds off of a cycle that cannot be broken because it attempts to use the same weapons of combat as the supposed enemy.

Jesus is not taking the victim role in this Gospel passage. He is changing the game itself.  When Jesus points out that the law itself declares “You are gods,” he seems to be pointing out that we have exchanged our divine inheritance with the mad worship of the gods of our idolized attitudes.

“If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

The key to divinity is how we carry out the works of not ourselves, but of the One who created and loves us – GOD! As Jesus does the will of his Father, He is showing that service in care and compassion is what constitutes divinity.  And, yes, that does mean that we are all gods in that when we respond to the invitation to live differently than what the terrorist attitudes of madness dictate, as they exist in our own personal lives and relationships, then we are living in the life of God.  Dare we call ourselves sons and daughters of God?

The only thing that God seeks to destroy are those attitudes that lead to the idolatry of destructive and violent attitudes. But God does not use the same weapon, for this would be madness.  Instead, God simply invites us to come back to who and where we always have been, only we haven’t allowed ourselves to see or appreciate it.   This is transformation instead of destruction.  The only madness that God hopes to drive us to is Love.  But the madness of this love is that it is expressed in the strength of humility, endurance of patience, passion of peace, and willingness to be in the service of authentic compassion.  In this scenario, there are no real enemies, only those of us (all of us) in need of healing!

There is so much to do in our mad and quite violent world. But the doing is effectively accomplished on a global scale only when it is honored and supported in the personal and communal relationships of our individual lives.  This is where, as Jeremiah puts it, the lives of the poor are rescued from the power of the wicked, because we hold them both.  This is not a madness that seeks destruction, but a madness that participates in creation and incarnation, where we are transformed by the divine life that dares to embrace us as children of God!

Peace

Thomas

                                             (written April 7, 2017)