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Years ago, I heard Bishop Parsley, then Bishop of Alabama, tell this poignant parable:
Satan is waking up after a long sleep, the result of Jesus’ victory over sin and death on the Cross. Because of his defeat, the devil expects, on waking up, to see his kingdom in shambles.
The opposite, in fact, is the case. Demons are bustling and running about every which way. Satan is confused. He grabs one of the demons and asks, “what happened?”
“My liege”, the demon says, “when you were defeated, we thought all was lost. Everything was going downhill for us. But then some of our number got an idea. When the Son’s followers gathered, each of us whispered in their ears ‘you are right.’ Conflict resulted and we have been in business ever since.”
“A house divided cannot stand”, as Jesus tells us. There is more to His words than what we first hear in them. Division often leads to us following our own way over everything else. Following our own way means we are not following God’s way.
That, as we see in our readings this morning, is the chief sin throughout all time. Following ourselves over God is what leads to the very first sin in Genesis. The original sin is believing we knew better than God concerning what to do, even when it came to understand what is Good.
The eternal sin Jesus mentions is what we see in the scribes today. They are so focused on their own word that they have failed to listen to God’s word. In fact, they fail to even see God working in the world anymore. To them, the works Jesus does, which are clearly in God’s name, are so different from their expectations, that they go so far as to attribute them to the evil one. They are so focused on their own way that even God seems wrong to them.
Really when we allow ourselves to be divided, whether from God or from each other, we make ourselves into a god. That only breeds more malice and discontent. That only brings us further away from God.
Scripture shows us time and time again that we are all unique and have our own specific gifts. Scripture celebrates these differences in the lives of the Apostles, the Prophets, and all others who served God before. All these people, in spite of their uniqueness, had one goal: to do God’s will, not their own. That is the very thing we must always remember. As our Psalm shows us, we must call upon the Lord, even in the depths of our sin. As Paul reminds us, we are called to be a “we” that looks not to ourselves, but instead looks heavenward.
The world around us is always rife with division. It has led to fall of countless empires and civilizations, including Ancient Israel as Scripture tells us. We see that divisiveness alive in the world around us today.
As Paul reminds us in the call to be a “we” this morning that we are not to set our minds on the same things as the world. We are not, as Jesus points out, called to be divided. Don’t let our differences lead us astray from God. Don’t let the church follow the same path as the world. While we may differ from one another in the church, we have something that unites us, just as we saw last week in the unity the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are united in our Faith through the love of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. That Faith seeks to unite us in one singular purpose: to do God’s will in the world. Don’t let division destroy us. Continue to be united in serving God’s will, not just our own selfish wants and desires. Strive to be untied in relationship to God always.