The Pathos of God

We in the modern, secular age aren’t quite sure how to talk about evil.

Over the past of our human history, we’ve thought of those actions and events destructive of the human enterprise and flourishing in many ways.

One of the earliest can be summed up in the word “chaos” — where dark, overwhelming forces consume all we value.  One of the first of God’s Graces is to hem them in.  The sea, the waters above are given their proper place that the dry land might be a haven for human life.

The Flood is the first punishment to be visited upon us for our transgressions and noise according to the biblical writers.  Chaos let loose.  Pestilence, invasion by foreign armies, famine, plague – all forms of chaos which would consume us.

With more sophistication, we would look at evil in more personal terms.  Greed, mental illness, spiritual possession, blindness, disease.  All not good.  Contrary to flourishing.

So, it is in our gospel lesson from Matthew, that Jesus encounters a man possessed by an “unclean spirit.” 

Our family knew this experience.  My grandmother on my father’s side lived with us for several years while I was in my early teens.  Grandma Bertha’s husband, Jonathan Forney, died when my father was around ten years old.

After living alone, with the onset of dementia, it became obvious by her neighbor’s calls from West Virginia, that she could no longer live by herself.  Her home in Bethany was sold and she moved in with us.

Even as a young boy, I knew something was not quite right with Grandma in the head.  She told us that she had a man who lived in her radio and kept bothering her with all sorts of nonsense that he whispered to her at all hours.  Day and night.

My mother, who knew little about mental illness, would tell her, “Mom, just turn the radio off.”  “Just turn it off!” 

Mother thought that Grandma’s radio was actually on.  She seemed to have no idea that the voice was only in Grandma’s head. 

The biblical writer would have described Grandma’s torment as that of an “unclean spirit.”

Such spirits, demonic and canny, knew their opponents.  “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

In our sophistication, we would poo-poo such simple ignorance as the superstition of an ignorant age.  We, who know so much more now about mental illness and how to destroy the entire planet.  Yes, tell us about mental illness!

And yet, the behaviors arising from such mental disorder can be every bit as destructive to life as floods, enemies, drugs and invading armies.  A negation of all we value.  Evil, in short.

In our house, Grandma lived down the walkway in living quarters Dad had built for her behind the garage.  In the morning we could see her striding up the sloped walkway, jaw set, heading for breakfast.

After she had managed to get a huge family fight started by Mom and Dad, she would strut back to her room whistling a happy tune.  Satisfied with herself.  My family would be in turmoil for the rest of the day.  When everybody was thoroughly miserable, she was happiest.  She and the little man living in her radio.

An unclean spirit, indeed.  Family chaos rampant.

We as a nation are alike possessed by an unclean spirit.  Actually, several.  Perhaps, legion!

Last week my friend, Carolfrances sent me an article on the case filed in the International Court of Justice against Israel for genocide.  By our uncritical and total support of their prime minister Netanyahu, we are enablers of this wanton destruction of the whole people of Gaza.

Many evangelical Christians are complicit in the destruction in their belief that we must support Israel to reconquer all their former lands under the Davidic Dynasty of biblical times.  Utter Rapture nonsense!  This belief is heretical and demonic itself, in that it excuses this genocide.  Spiritual trash!  This belief aids, abets and covers up our role in this wanton carnage of the people of Gaza.  Now going on thirty thousand, mostly women, children and the elderly.  

The Heart of God aches.  Such is the pathos of God.  As Christ wept over Jerusalem and the daughters of Jerusalem, who were only to bear children for calamity, as God was in anguish over the slavery of the Hebrew people in Egypt, in Jim Crow South.  And at Treblinka and Auschwitz, Babi Yar. God now weeps.  As God surely wept along the Trail of Tears and at Wounded knee.   Bitter tears of deep pathos, unremitting sorrow, over what we now do in this land called Holy.

The blood of Gaza is on our hands, President Biden’s hands.  Shame to us all.  An unclean, devouring spirit, roams our land.  The maw of Hell.

What has this demonic spirit have to do with Jesus and the values he taught us, his followers, to live out?  Everything!  Might that this wretched spirit come out American politics, convulsing and with a loud voice!  Might that we join together to exorcise this corruption from our midst.  With power and authority!

This is a demonic spirit born of the idol of nationalism.

The fact is, WE the Church have been given full and plenary authority and power in Christ Jesus to expel, to utterly cast out this spirit of evil.

Authority?  If not us, then who?

Power?  Power as brilliant and as forceful as all the incandescent rays of the sun.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant of this sort of evil.  Sometimes takes a while to work.  Apply often and continuously, like voting in Chicago.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

One nation, a nation formerly complicit in crimes against humanity, South Africa, has now filed charges of genocide against Israel in the International Court.

Here’s what Carolfrances sent me – glorious sunlight.  This is the crux of South Africa’s filing: “So is it Genocide?”

“Over the two days of hearings, South Africa has alleged that Israel has committed genocide by killing Palestinians, subjecting them to serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. It argues that this has been done by the ‘sustained bombardment, forced evacuation without adequate shelter in which they continue to be attacked, killed and harmed’, and by ‘failing to provide or ensure essential food, water, medicine, fuel, shelter and other humanitarian assistance for the besieged and blockaded Palestinian people, which has pushed them to the brink of famine’”.[1]

Through our unconditional support, we are enablers of this wanton destruction and systemic starvation of the entire people of Gaza. 

And how are we affected?  Let me spell out one highly plausible scenario.

Millions of young people who find our actions of support abhorrent are planning to either sit out this election or write in Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or some other choice.  Millions of Arab and Muslim citizens and their families planning to likewise sit out the election in crucial swing states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota.  Places where Biden won only by tens of thousands.

It is quite possible that the Former Guy will be God’s chastisement for our complicity in this crime against humanity.  For God is Truth.  “Say it ain’t so, Joe. Say it ain’t so.”

A far-fetched scenario?  This last Friday in the swing state of Michigan, Arab and Muslim leaders refused to meet with “Genocide Joe.”  Canceled the meet-up.

And how will we prevail?  Through our solidarity with one another.  We will do the little things that preserve humanity and bring some small joy to life.

We will be agents of “necessary trouble,” raising a Holy Ruckus wherever possible.  I write sermons.  My wife writes postcards — for which I admire her.  She in her activism is my pride and joy.

I write letters, I bet some of you do also.  We are all part of God’s most powerful sunlight, as is my friend Carolfrances.  As are the citizens of South Africa.

We are given all authority to raise our cry to the high heavens.  And unbelievable power to do so.   This carnage in Gaza would come to a quick halt if Uncle Sam just turns off the money faucet to Israel.  Raises its righteous voice of indignation in the halls of the United Nations – and Congress.

Chris Hedges reports on the ruling of the International Court of Justice.  “It’s genocide – but they won’t order a stop to it.”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) “delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide…A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it.”[2]

Israel’s aims are crystal clear, the obliteration of the entire people of Gaza.  “Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant on Monday also ordered a ‘complete siege’ of Gaza, and said he would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to the Palestinian enclave.”[3]

“’I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege,’ the minister said. ‘We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.’”[4]  Collective punishment is a war crime.  Every bit as much a what Hamas did on October 6.  Will an-eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth mentality consume us all?

In the meantime, along with the people of South Africa and folk like Chris Hedges, WE are that Mosaic prophet promised in our reading from Deuteronomy.  If not us, who?

Just as possession by opioids and heroin or gambling is possession, we know the way to freedom from this unclean spirit, from the resultant chaos in the families afflicted.  We know the way to freedom — it is the path of recovery.  Sunlight. 

Stop the enabling.  Stop the lies.  Stop the “stinkin’ thinkin.’”  It was your best thinking that got you a chair in this room.  Now, listen up.  Sunlight!

That first ray is the dawning realization: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, and that our lives have become unmanageable.”[5]  The unclean spirit that possesses America is our addiction to violence.  And we would seem to be just as powerless over it.  We shovel money into our military budget until it’s now half of all our spending.  When is it enough?

As Stokley Carmichael inveighed, “Violence is as American as cherry pie.”

Brilliant sunlight shed on this scourge of our unconditional support of Netanyahu will eventually have its effect.  It will take a lot of post cards, phone calls, letters, emails…and not a few sermons.  We have the full authority in Christ Jesus to say, we compel you — “Be silent, come out of us.”  We, with full authority and power, my friends.  WE!  Amen.

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[1] Asia News Network, “Why South Africa is leading the legal and moral charge against Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza,” January 16, 2023.

[2] Chris Hedges, “It May Be Genocide But it Won’t be Stopped,” The Chris Hedges Report, January 26, 2024.

[3] CNN News, October 9, 2023.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The first step of the twelve steps to recovery in AA and NA.

January 28, 2024
4 Epiphany

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111;
1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28 “The Pathos of God”