A HOUSE DIVIDED

A SERMON FOR THE 3rd SUNDAY IN LENT

Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.

Without being blasphemous, I’d like to point out one similarity between our President, Donald Trump, and our blessed Lord.  There’s plenty more that is quite different between our Head of State and our Creator—believe me!  But in just one instance we can see something remarkably similar, and that is in the way they’re treated by their detractors.  Whenever either of them says or does something, no matter how good, his enemies take it and spin it to make it something bad, something that fits their own agenda.  We see it on the news every night, so I’m sure you all know what I mean.  The same thing happens to our Lord today—he casts out a demon, and behold his enemies, the Democrats of his day, instead of applauding his charitable act, instead of wondering in amazement at his miraculous success, accuse him of casting out devils in the name of the devil himself.  The attempt to make something good look bad is so blatantly ludicrous that any normal person would ignore it.  But unfortunately the world is full of people, now, as then, who are always ready to believe the worst about people they don’t like.

This is prejudice, plain and simple, and we must not fall into the trap ourselves.  If Hilary Clinton ever did something truly good, I hope we would all applaud her for it.  I don’t think she ever did, mind you, but we should always be prepared to examine each action before we assume there is a flaw in it.  We should never be content with our memory of someone’s past evil deeds to condemn everything they do.  It is morally acceptable to be guided by experience, but not to the extent that we refuse to acknowledge any evidence of goodness.  To do so would be to rob the person of his ability to change, becoming better.

In the case of our Lord, however, he obviously didn’t have a history of wicked deeds that might have affected and prejudiced his audience.  So why were they so ready to discount his miracles and teachings as coming from the devil?  There’s no sensible answer to this question, other than the one our Lord gave them.  He shoots down their accusation that he is casting out devils in the name of Beelzebub, explaining that a house divided must surely fall.  It is something we can apply to our own nation today, which is suffering its worst political divisions since the Civil War.  Political discussions today have turned into bitter, hate-filled and even violent arguments, and where there should be unity, we have instead policies based on nothing more than opposition for its own sake.  People have become so entrenched in their own positions that they even refuse to discuss any other possibility.  Instead of listening to an alternative opinion, college students today are more likely to take to the streets and overturn police cars.  We are turning into a nation where people regard it as their right to subjugate our rights.  We are one step away from pure fascism, and all that’s needed to take us over the edge is for good people to not vote.

Make no mistake, division is from the devil.  Not that the demons themselves are divided—on the contrary, they are united in their hatred of God, and in their bitter fight for our souls.  Division, though, is the chief means the demons use to win over those souls.  The division in today’s society is just one example of how they are winning their battle.  But it is not the only example.  Let’s turn from the nation to the Church, no longer just Catholic but divided into “liberal Catholic” and “traditional Catholic.” Once we allow such pretended divisions to exist, there is no end to it, as traditional Catholics argue among themselves and divide into so many different groups that we resemble more the Protestant sects than the one, holy, universal Church. 

And how’s your family doing?  The devil has been attacking the family not only on the political level, with divorce, abortion, same-sex marriage, and so on, but on the individual level too, splitting up spouses, parents from their children, children from their siblings, and so it goes on.  Watch out for these divisions and identify them for what they are—attacks by the devil designed to destroy the foundations of our life, and with them, the individual souls who are affected by this destruction.  Do we ever see the beginnings of division in our chapel?  Same thing—avoid serious arguments like the plague.  No good can come of division, and our chapel will fall if we let them happen, just as our families will dissolve if we give in to constant fighting with each other.

The worst case of division is where a man is divided within himself.  The author Robert Louis Stevenson gave us many interesting characters, like the pirate Long John Silver in his book Treasure Island, for example.  But there is none quite so fascinating as Jekyll and Hyde, not two separate people, but a man divided within himself.  Dr. Henry Jekyll came up with a chemical formula that would liberate his “demon within”, allowing it to take over the body of his normally good and well controlled personality with one so ugly in its violence and debauchery that no civilized society could ever accept it in its midst.  Jekyll’s alter ego, Mr. Hyde, was pure evil, that pure evil that the author wants to point out, exists in all of us, and which is normally controlled by our love of God, our will-power, our natural desire for goodness, and many other factors.  But it’s there, inside us all, that alter ego, that demon within, and there is great danger in ever wishing that we could free it from its cage of conscience, so that we could freely commit the sins and crimes we subconsciously desire.  What would we do if there were no hell to fear, no God to offend, no courts to punish us, and no conscience to hold us back?  Maybe we’ve already experimented?  It’s something we should ask ourselves now and again.  Have we ever deliberately drunk too much alcohol so we think we have an excuse for the sins we commit in our drunken state? Have we ever wished that evil pleasures could be forced upon us so that we might enjoy them without guilt, and be able to say with all sincerity “The Devil made me do it”?  Not all people experience such dangerous thoughts, but if you do, it is imperative that you place your trust in God and ask him to save you from such peril to your soul.  If you are a house divided, you will fall.

Finally, we should remember that not all division is bad—only the division of things that belong being united.  The Church should be united, the State should be united.  But it’s normal for two separate factions within the Church or State to have different opinions, different approaches to a problem.  It’s even useful and a good thing when several ways of addressing an issue are brought to the table for discussion.  It’s what the Jesuits did with the Dominicans on many moral and doctrinal questions, it’s what the Democrats should be doing today with the Republicans.  Even in our own family, it’s permissible to have different opinions on things which are open to discussion.  But we must always remain united on those matters that are indisputable, preserving that unity that keeps us true to our common goal.  Think of two rival football teams like Army and Navy, divided on the turf, but solidly united on the battleground.

Finally, there are those divisions which must exist, because it is God’s will they exist.  Let’s remember that great battle in heaven, when Lucifer and a third of the angels rebelled against God, and tore apart the unity that had existed until then.  And God placed a great gulf between him and Satan, between good and evil, between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of hell.  This is no longer a question of a kingdom divided against itself, but of one kingdom divided against another.  Such things must be, and when it happens, when we find ourselves on the side of one kingdom against another, we must always make sure we’re on the right side.  We fight to the death against the Hitlers of this world, we vote against the Clintons of this world, we act like a strong man armed, as our Lord says, against the stranger that would take from us all that is of God.  And in this, we must all be united, always with God and never against him.