28 September 2020
Monday of the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s first reading (Job 1:6-22) offers us a conversation between God and Satan, the fallen angel that Ignatius calls “the enemy of our human nature.” The name “Satan” means accuser in Hebrew, and this same enemy is presented as a serpent and identified as “the accuser” in John’s Apocalypse (Rev 12:9-10). The insinuations of the serpent in Genesis 3 are full of accusations, most pointedly the suggestion that God was lying when God said that Adam and Eve would die on the day when they eat of the forbidden fruit (and they do die, by the way, for they taste the death proper to mortal sin). Once Adam and Eve begin to listen to the serpent, they exchange the filial trust that they had in God for a critical spirit that constantly accuses. When God asks Adam a simple question, “did you eat of the fruit which I forbade you to eat,” Adam does not respond with simplicity and trust, but with an accusation against God and neighbor: “the woman you gave me, she gave me to eat, and I ate.” Once we begin listening to the Accuser, we also begin to accuse, because we begin to believe that the true life is one where I hoard what I have as something threatened and fragile and accuse those who threaten it.
But the Accuser reveals nothing true about God, for the Accuser is a liar (Jn 8:39-47)! The name of Jesus reveals God’s true identity, and it is not that of the accuser. The name Jesus means “YHWH saves!” In today’s Gospel (Lk 9:46-50), when Jesus senses the rancor in the hearts of the disciple, he places a little child among them to help them understand that if they wish to be like God, they should not seek not to be the greatest, but the least. Then when John presents Jesus with an accusation against someone who was casting out demons in Jesus’s name without being one of their company, Jesus rebukes him. Enough of accusations! By casting out demons in Jesus’s name, that person was working for the good of the oppressed person. If we wish to save with the Savior rather than accusing with the accuser, perhaps we ought to ask the Lord to help cast out the spirit of accusation from our hearts as well.