4 July 2018
Wednesday in the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time
The heart of evil is the question that the demons ask Jesus today: “What have you to do with us, Son of God?” (Mt. 8:29) They are convinced that the Son of God has no bearing on their existence, or on anything they do. They sequester God from their lives. Thinking this, the declarations of Satan “I will not serve” and “Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven” make perfect sense. If God has no bearing on some aspect of life, why would you owe God service or obedience in that part of your life?
Today, Americans celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. When the Founders made their break from Great Britain, they noted that people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” and that these rights had been violated. Americans prize religious freedom, and rightly so. But we should not mistake perfectly legitimate freedom of religion for a declaration that God has no place in a certain part of our lives, or no role in society. To do this is to sequester God from (part of) our lives, and in that sphere say “what have you to do with us, Son of God?”