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The passage that we are looking at in Mark today asks, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan’ (Mark 3:23)? The Greek word for ’satan’, ‘satanas’ literally means ‘accuser’.[i] The question being asked directly here is how can accuser cast out accuser? It reminds me of Jesus addressing Peter when he says, Get thee behind me accuser! (Matthew 16:23)
It also reminds me of Job where, ‘satan’ (literally ‘opponent’, ‘adversary’; pronounced: saw-tawn) the Hebrew equivalent of ‘satanas’ is used. In the case of Job, God baits the accuser. He tells the accuser how good Job is, knowing full well that he would accuse him of only being good because God does so many good things for him. The whole story of great suffering, perseverance, and more unfolds from there.
The main name we think of when we think of ‘the devil’ is Satan (satan, satanas), accuser. This is important. I suggest that it is because his main attribute, almost his defining characteristic, is that he is one who accuses others of wrong-doing – and he may be accurate in his accusations.
Think about that. Think about the times people are being satanas, accusing others in the Bible, especially the New Testament, the Gospels and Acts. Those accusing are often people who want the rules followed. We think of Pharisees.
Pharisees are an interesting example because they are good, religious leaders. They are a group of people that emphasizes holiness – that we can be holy as the Bible does tell us we can be (1 Peter 1:15-16; cf. Matthew 5:48). Some of Jesus’ early followers were Pharisees: Paul and Nicodemus to name two prominent ones. But time and time again people aiming for holiness for themselves and others are shown to wind up instead as accusers. Accusers in Greek are satanas and in Hebrew are saw-tawns – and when we accuse, that is what we are.
I have had to fire people a few times in my role representing The Salvation Army as an employer. My mind was running over these incidents in recent weeks – in doing so have I been like the accuser, seeking someone’s downfall? (Sometimes we do need to fire people for their best interests, the safety of our other staff and clients, because it is time to part ways, or for other reasons.) I don't believe I have...
I have never removed someone’s Soldiership. I can’t even imagine that. That would be like if the pastor who married you called you up on your anniversary and told you that you weren’t being a good enough spouse and so you should leave your husband or wife and abandon your covenant. If an Officer in authority encourages a Soldier under their care to abandon their covenant that is what they are doing.
I think of the woman caught in adultery as relayed in the Gospel of John (John 8:1-11). Her accusers are standing before Jesus and the crowds ready to stone the guilty party – the legally prescribed punishment for her sins. Jesus did not accuse her. Jesus did not abandon her. Jesus restored her. Jesus saved her and Jesus instructed her to sin no more. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do?
Mark shows us in chapters 2-3 of his gospel that yes, Jesus cares about holiness and he does want us all to be free of sin, he does not necessarily care about the rules that were made to help us achieve that. They are means to an end not an end to defend. Jesus in chapter 2 heals on the Sabbath, forgives sins, and doesn’t fast. He has no problems breaking conventions if it leads to healing and wholeness and salvation. [ii] The rules aren’t what’s important: what the rules were meant to be - a part of helping people to sanctification - that is what’s important. Unfortunately some people still accuse today when a rule is not followed. They want people punished. We need to be on guard.
Even if the accusers say that a person is supposed to be punished, prosecuted, persecuted, abandoned, destroyed; aren’t we are Christians supposed to say ‘no’, on the contrary they are supposed to be restored, reconciled, encouraged to repentance. Helped towards holiness, not abandoned into the hands of their accusers. Can you imagine if when you messed up and/or were trapped by sin, you were handed over to your accusers? Can you imagine your guilt if you handed someone over to their accusers? Remember Pilate as he was handing over Jesus to his accusers – he didn’t want to do it. He tried not to do it but eventually he succumbed to the accusers. Do we sometime succumb to satanas, saw-tawns? Are we sometimes satanas, saw-tawns?
We work with a lot of people here who are struggling with addiction, mental health, poverty and other things. Many of these people are our employees and volunteers. Real questions, not rhetorical: Can I really fire someone struggling with mental health for acting in a manner consistent with someone struggling with mental health? Can I really let someone go who is acting in a manner consistent with their diagnosis? Can I really punish someone trapped by addiction for acting in a manner consistent with someone trapped by addiction?
I will be quite honest here. We have a number of people who have done some miserable things, some illegal things, some scary things because of their mental health, things that we could legally fire them for on the spot. Maybe we have to for safety and security -maybe - but I think we still need to be available to them. They are part of our team, our family; they are our neighbours. How many times must we forgive our neighbour who sin against us? Seventy times seven times!
Even more than that. We have people in our employ who are struggling with addiction. We have had more than one employee fall prey to alcohol or drug addiction while they were working for us. We have had people, more than once, break the law due to their addiction. They have robbed us, broken in, and more. I can think of three examples where they have stood before us as guilty as the woman caught in adultery, deserving of us to cast the stones. We resisted (in those cases) the temptation to be the one to cast the first stone! We opted instead to encourage people to get help for their addiction, to go to AA or other support groups; we have opted instead not to put temptation in their way – not to permit them in places and circumstances that could lead to further temptation. That is our responsibility to care for people under our authority, in our care. Everyday we walk with people who could fall. Many days we walk with people who stumble. Do we accuse them before HR, their colleagues and their families? When we go to HR wherever possible we seek to restore people. We help them when, if we can. That is our job as children of the light to help others out of the darkness. We are not to abandon them to their sins, not to encourage them to leave the work, their church, or their job. We would never want to be guilty of the sin of accusing; the sin of accusing is the work of satanas, not saints.
It is interesting in the text we read in Mark the Pharisees and Jesus family are the ones interfering with the work of God. His family is there to seize, to arrest him (literal translation of the Greek) and the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of beating the accuser by the power of the accuser. Jesus says that is not possible. Martin Luther King reminds us that hate cannot defeat hate, only love can do that.[iii] A firefighter once said that one cannot fight fire with fire – that only makes a bigger fire. Jesus asks how can accuser cast out accuser? He can’t.
As I have been reading through the Bible lately, I have been paying attention to where the word satana (or saw-tawn) has been used. It is becoming more and more clear to me that we are not supposed to accuse one another – when we do that we are like the devil who is called the accuser. What we are supposed to do is walk alongside someone who is stuck in anything – be it circumstance or sin – and help them out of it. That is our responsibility: to forgive and be forgiven, to love and be loved, to repent and to be reconciled, to be received unto repentance, to turn the other cheek, and to help one another. Anything less is of the evil one.
With that in mind, I encourage us all, in all of our activities with one another to do everything in our power to assist one another, to help one another, to love one another. Let us never be tempted to cast the first stone. Let us never fall prey to accusers, satanas, and saw-tawns; and let us never be the saw-tawns, satanas, and accusers ourselves.
Let us pray.
[i] Cf. NT Wright Mark For Everyone. P 37 : the word is not limited to a proper name
[ii] Cf. Donald H. Juel, The Gospel of Mark, p. 84.
[iii] Martin Luther King Jr. , A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. Ed. James M. Washington (HaperCollins: New York, NY, 1986)
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