Daily Reading
First Reading
2 Timothy 1:1-8
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, my beloved child:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God.
Psalm
Psalm 96:1-2a, 2b-3, 7-8a, 10
O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
Say among the nations, “The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
Gospel Reading
Mark 3:22-30
And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Reflection
Friends, in today’s Gospel, scribes accuse Jesus of driving out demons by Beelzebul—by Satan.
The two great names of the devil in the Bible are “the accuser” and “the scatterer.” Both are operative and visible in this story. And this helps us immensely to understand Jesus and his work.
We see in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus is known as an exorcist, someone who drives out the demonic. Jesus specifies that his work is in driving out Satan—which is to say, the accuser. The false way of organizing ourselves—present from the beginning—is through accusation, scapegoating, the establishment of us against them, insiders vs. outsiders.
The kingdom of God will be predicated on other assumptions—namely, love, nonviolence, forgiveness of enemies, the overcoming of division. When this vision of life comes into conflict with the powers of the world—which was more or less inevitable—Jesus becomes, himself, an accused victim, a scapegoat.
But instead of responding in kind, he takes upon himself that negative, satanic energy and swallows it up in the divine mercy.