Matthew 9 | On Keeping Us Blind and Mute

I recently had a dream in which I was outside on the streetcorner conversing with a friend. As we were talking, I was aware of another character in the dream, who was, oddly, an amalgam of my wife Kate and my ex-wife Cherrisa. Now, I can't imagine a more unlikely marriage of personalities to inhabit a composite character, but remember, this is a dream, and the oddest things are likely to happen. This composite wife character was sitting in our car, and whether due to impatience or just plain meanness, proceeded to turn on the car's PA system -- you'll remember that some CB radios have PA's built in-- and shouted embarrassing things about the life of the friend I was talking to. And because it was a PA system, of course, the whole neighborhood heard it. My friend was so humiliated and upset that he gave me an icy glare, got in his car and sped off.

Well, in the dream, I can tell you I was plenty angry at my wife! As I climbed into the back seat, I was hopping mad. In fact, I was so mad, that I was prevented from speaking. My entire chest and throat area were paralyzed. In a Herculean effort, which felt like trying to push a marble through molasses with a pipe cleaner, I forced my throat and chest into service. Though the words were barely intelligible I expressed my rage at her behavior. "You know what he's been through! How could you do that?" She flippantly shrugged and said, "Oh, well." "That was reprehensible," I continued in my voice that must have sounded either drugged or palsied, "And you're not even repentant!" She smiled at me, and turned to drive the car.

Although the dream was not a very surreal one, I had not expected to be struck dumb, especially at the very moment when I should--indeed, had to--speak. Kate said that that night she heard me talk in my sleep for the first time. No doubt the difficulty I had in speaking was the difficulty my dream-self experienced getting my real vocal chords to work.

Upon reflecting on the dream, the paralysis I felt was a familiar one. I remember as a school boy being pursued by the neighborhood bully. I've always been a geeky, intellectual kid who fantasized about verbally humiliating my opponent before he could lay a finger on me. Unfortunately, when I was actually standing nose-to-chest with the bully, my clever protestations failed me. I was so terrified I was struck dumb. And apparently the bully could not find the heart to punch out a kid who not only seemed to refuse to defend himself, but could not even answer his tauntings. I was saved--not by my cleverness, as I had fantasized, but by my dumbness.

This feeling is not solely relegated to ancient history and dreams, either. I still experience this kind of paralysis whenever I am called on the carpet by a superior. When one boss I had a couple of years ago questioned why I had performed my duties in a certain way, I not only was not able to answer him, but I fainted dead away. Most disconcerting, for him and for myself. I feel this same paralysis when I am called into Michael Hansen's/the bishop's assistant's office, or even sometimes when I pick up the phone and realize that it is one of my parents.

Now before you all get your steam going psychoanalyzing Fr. John, I'd like to point out a few things myself. In each of these instances, I am attempting to speak the truth to someone in authority. And married men, the dream in which I am attempting to speak to my wife will obviously feel like no exception to you! But in each case, there is something inside of me which prevents me from speaking my truth.

In ancient times we might have labeled this something a demon. In today's Gospel reading, Jesus is confronted with a man who was rendered blind and mute. And since the people can see no other reason for his malady, they assume that it is a demon who has done this to him. A demon--some internal spiritual force bent on his destruction.

Now, I'm not the sort of person who generally goes around being afraid of ghosts or evil spirits. I certainly don't believe in self-conscious personifications of evil like Satan. But perhaps these people's diagnosis was not far off. Surely there was some force lodged in that man's psyche which prevented him from seeing or speaking. I do not find it unlikely, because I have experienced such a thing myself. These people called it a demon, but Gnostic Christians of the second and third centuries, might have ascribed it to the power of the archons, the demonic powers which encircle the world bent on keeping humanity blind to their true natures and enslaved upon this prison planet.

Now, I have not to my knowledge ever met a demon in person, but I am sure that I have dealt with the archons. For in our time they are just as prevalent as the Gnostics perceived them to be in their own. For the archons are any beings who wield power over others, and who by means of their superior power or intelligence contrive to keep others imprisoned. The archons are the forces of apartheid who sought to keep a nation of Africans in poverty; the archons are the faceless multinational corporations who unflinchingly use children in their sweatshops in the third world until they use them up; the archons are parents who are so terrified of their own children's emotions or creativity that they shame them into silence and complicity; the archons are employers who take secret delight in the terror they inspire in their subordinates; the archons are bishops and priests who keep their flocks blind by withholding important theological information because such information might lead to a challenge to their authority.

The archons did not die with the Gnostics, my friends, they are alive and well and living among us, and are evident when anyone is held in thrall to someone who wields power over them. Demons are not antiquated boogey-men who got blamed for every inexplicable illness, they are real and operative in any one of us who quails for fear of our own extinction, when we come into conflict with authority, when we are rendered mute by our own terror, when we are willing to remain blind to protect some superior's power.

And of course, this demon is sent into us by design! The Archons have worked hard to instill in us a sense of our own powerlessness, to force us to doubt ourselves in the face of their evil, to corral us into silence and complicity when we are the victims of their designs. And this possession for most of us happens early in our childhood, when our powerful and godlike parents don't want to be made to feel uncomfortable by our questions, when they will not tolerate our challenge to their authority, and when we are punished if too much of our own soul shines through, because soul is always such a threatening thing to those in power.

Why is that? Why was my soul so threatening to my own parents? Why are my ideas so scary to my employers? Why is it that when the truth in me cries out to be voiced, the powers of the world clamp down upon it as if it were the evils of Pandora's Box threatening to bring an end to the world as we know it?

Because Soul IS Pandora's Box, and does threaten to bring an end to the world as we know it. What if authority were to be challenged, what if I were to let my real self shine through, what if I spoke my mind? Would the world really end? Well, someone is terrified that it will, and has instilled in me a fear of my own private apocalypse as a result.

Jesus knew these things, of course. Jesus had the courage to let his own soul shine through, regardless of who it upset, regardless of who it offended, regardless of whose power it undermined. The Romans perceived him as a threat to their civic authority, and the religious leaders as a threat to their religious authority. Both tried to intimidate him, and he would not be intimidated. The demon of silence and blindness and complicity found no haven in Jesus. He stood and spoke the truth to the powerful without flinching and without pulling his punches. And of course, he was killed for it.

But Jesus is not dead. He lives in every one of us who read his story and attempt to assimilate his life and teaching and love into our own lives. Jesus teaches us that it is not God who wants silence and complicity and blindness, but only those who pretend to speak for God. God's will is for every word of truth to be spoken, every act of love to be celebrated, every eye to be opened. It is God's will that every valley be exalted and every mountain be made low. It is God's will that proud of heart be pulled from their thrones and the poor of spirit be lifted up.

In the civil rights marches in the South only thirty years ago, the civic authorities said that the protests cannot be God's will, for civic unrest cannot be God's will. Civic unrest is very much God's will when the powers and principalities of this world attempt to hold any soul in their thrall. King David could have had the prophet Nathan beheaded for pointing his finger and saying "Thou art the man! You have taken another man's wife and committed adultery with her!" But God told Nathan to go just the same, to speak just the same. Jesus might have been intimidated by the religious authorities who said that he cast out demons by Satan's power, and yet Jesus had the presence of mind to tell them, "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters."

I recently wrote an article for a journal of spiritual direction on the subject of the spiritual needs of Generation X. It is a difficult article in many ways. I am emotional, I don't pull my punches, and in it I speak my truth as best I know how. I showed the article to Donna, and she told me, "This is going to make a lot of people angry. But it is right on." So now what do I do? I'm terrified of sending it to the reviewers for evaluation. I edit this journal--what will my boss say? What will my editorial board say? What will the readers say who have placed their trust in me? To tell you the truth, folks, I'm scared silly. But will I be able to speak my truth without flinching, without whitewashing my article in my second draft? Or will the demon of fear once again strike me dumb? Like my dream-self struggling mightily to make his voice be heard, I move my hand as if it is trapped in molasses to drop the article into the mailbox. An act of courage, an exorcism. And then I wait as Chicken Little tears through my consciousness shouting "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" Maybe the sky will fall, but at least I have the consolation that I will not have died mute.

Let us pray.

God of the poor and powerless,
You who sent prophets and judges into the world
to teach and to guide and to confront the powerful,
You do not call us to go gently into our dark nights,
But instead you compel us to speak the truth boldly to whoever will hear.
Give us courage for this speaking,
Bind whatever demons hold us in thrall,
And by your Holy Spirit give us the words to do your will
Setting free the captives and proclaiming good news to the poor.
For we ask this in the name of one who fearlessly spoke truth to power,
And who still speaks today through us, even Jesus Christ. Amen.