How do you deal with your addictions? Do you recognize that you have any? And if so, do you fret when they appear again and again despite your best intentions and beat yourself up over their domination in your life? I know that my habitual ways of thinking about things and the behavioral pathways that this compulsive thinking takes me down can seem quite dark and lead me to look at myself with less than compassionate eyes. This is a type of demonization that is not only the result of addictive behavior but even more insidiously it becomes the negative and degrading outlook that we have upon our “failures” to the point of identifying ourselves (and others) with our addictions and our failure to overcome them. Addiction is communal.
The Twelve Step process has been heralded by so many wisdom teachers as not simply a helpful manner to holistically address addictive behavior and its demonizing character upon the individual and the community but also a tour de force practice in spirituality. The humble and honest assessment of our lives and the acknowledgement of how our thoughts and actions affect others can only be done within the shadow of Divine Love that does not turn away. There is no stinginess in the courageous power of Divine Love to transform our demons into angels. We have but to ask and receive.
Jesus tells us so many times in the Gospels this very thing – seek and you shall find. In today’s Gospel, however, we have the curious episode where it appears that Jesus is in fact acting in a rather stingy manner when it comes to doling out the healing power of God ( Mk 7:24-30).
“…a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit
…came and fell at his feet…a Greek…by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
A ‘foreign’ woman has approached Jesus asking for healing on behalf of her daughter, and Jesus initially points out that what he has to offer is meant only for the children of Israel, but at the woman’s bold response to this, Jesus remarks that ‘the demon has gone out of your daughter.’ The first reading today (1 1 Kgs 11:4-13 ) also has the Lord, who is unhappy with King Solomon’s failure to keep the covenant, telling Solomon “I will deprive you of the kingdom and give it to your servant.”
The temptation here is to immediately go to the question of how the Lord in the Hebrew Testament and Jesus of the Gospels sound so stingy in these scriptures. This does not seem to coincide with the notion of a divine love that welcomes all. Perhaps, this is not the real focus of what could be going on in these stories. What if these stories are more about how pervasive and dangerous hard-set cultural mindsets can be? What if the Gospel story today is about how we hold onto familiarity, comfort, and culturally prescribed mindsets and attitudes with a death grip that demonizes everyone and everything? We are then faced with the question of how we can be liberated from this. What amount of courage must it take?
It takes a naked and hungry heart to truly see the meager scraps of grace that act as divine leaven, which can grow into a feast. This is the woman of the Gospel. The foreign woman in the story is not put off by being referred to as a ‘dog.’ There is even a hint of what could be called nonviolent protest in her response to Jesus. Would it be too far-fetched to consider that even Jesus may have been challenged by the tenacious spirit of those he encountered? Indeed, the healing encounters with Jesus in the Gospel stories are always couched in the responses of both Jesus and the people he encounters.[i] Note that in this story, we are not told that Jesus healed the woman’s daughter, but simply that “the demon has gone out of your daughter.” Who or what is responsible for this healing? In a way, it seems that the encounter itself manifests the divine healing in this human story.
The deep desire to be liberated from the burdens of life, to be healed of the addictions to stale thoughts and patterns of self-centeredness that lead nowhere – that pure desire itself can drive out demons. Isn’t that human desire also God’s desire for us growing up within our own hearts? The staunch confidence of a desire for healing that is not just for yourself but for another – as in the Gospel story, for the woman’s daughter – has the power to heal. This is the divine healing manifesting itself in the simple yet powerful courage that can break through addictive notions of cultural privilege and false power that relegates some as ‘heirs’ and ‘children’ and others as ‘foreign dogs.’
Is Jesus asking us to ‘follow Him’ in this story by recognizing the dignity and real power found in confident compassion for another, as exemplified in this ‘foreign’ woman. The bold concern for another has the power to wake us up out of our sleep of complacency. When we express authentic love and concern for another and at the same time ask the assistance of another in the process we are placing ourselves in a posture of vulnerable receptivity that engages others and fosters solidarity. And this interaction has the power to heal, to drive out demons. Isn’t this the power of Christ?
Oh, if only we could only see our demons! If we could only see that we hunger for the same food, whether it’s on the table or under it. If we could see that one person’s ‘demon’ belongs to all of us, until we drive it out by loving interaction. If we could only see that each step we moves everyone somewhere!
Ah, yet, we can see. We can awaken. We can ask. We are caring! It is happening already. So, may we continue to wake each other up by joining together to care for one another, as the woman in today’s gospel asked Jesus to help her daughter. May we grow in our awareness of and engagement in the shared brokenness of our lives and our world, and so activate through our participation the courage of Christ that fiercely longs to heal!
[i] The human and divine encounter in today’s Gospel story is not so different from the story of the woman suffering from a hemorrhage who touches Jesus cloak unbeknownst to him and is healed (Lk 8). Recall that in this story, Jesus asked about WHO it was that touched him because he felt power go out from him.
Peace,
Thomas