Jeremiah 20.7-13; Psalm 69.8-11[12-17]18-20*; Romans 6.1b-11; Matthew 10.24-39
WHO is Jesus referring to as “them” in Matthew 10.26? This reference looks like a way of making an impersonal observation in modern English. In other words, “They will do x to you” is another way of saying “x will happen to you”.
Before this Gospel lection, there are more examples of “they” (from 10.16) to help us clarify Jesus’s meaning. The essence of “them” is to be like wolves, predatory and lethal. “They” will bring, savagery, mistreatment, persecution. “They” will break up the safe companionship of the flock (10.21-22). Jesus is telling his disciples, “You will be persecuted, hunted, driven out.”
One reason for my interest in who “they” are is that I want to make sense of the second part of 10.25: “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!” For Jesus’s followers, being “maligned” does not sound as bad as being chased and ripped to pieces by ravening wolves (“ravening”, by the way, is an archaic word for “plundering”). But it turns out that the word “malign” is added in by translators, for the Greek simply says “If they call the master of the house ‘Beelzebul’, how much more the members of his household!”
Jesus is saying that those Pharisees who impugn his motives, undermine his call, and threaten his flock are not just misguided but actively dangerous. They represent a real threat to those who follow him. Our thoughts spring quickly — perhaps too quickly — to allegations made by the Jewish authorities against Jesus, and all that flowed from that. Knowing of the Passion, we can hardly fail to see, in this Gospel warning, a prediction of how things will turn dark, for teacher and pupils, master and servants, alike.
Matthew is reminding us of what he has said at 9.34: how the Pharisees claimed, when Jesus healed someone who was mute, that the power to exorcise evil spirits came from the ruler of those spirits. So, the real force of 10.34 is: “If they call the master of the house ‘Beelzebul’, how much more will they call members of his household ‘Beelzebul’!” The meaning of the first part of that enigmatic name is not disputed: “Beel” (or “Baal”) means “Lord”, a divine title. Various interpretations of the rest of the name have been devised. “Lord of the flies” is most familiar, probably because of the novel named after it. But “Lord of heaven” and “Lord of dung” have also been tested.
What we can say with certainty of Beelzeboul (the Greek spelling) is that the name stands for something (or rather someone) personal, supernatural, and (going by the context) evil. Also that it is rooted in the Canaanite religion which the Jewish people countered fiercely, yet also found alluring. No interpretation of the name has won universal scholarly support. Even the spelling is uncertain (older translations prefer “Beelzebub”). The name comes to be associated, even identified, with Satan: but this association mainly develops after Matthew’s Gospel was written.
Nowadays, the Pharisees are exactly as much of a problem for us disciples as the Romans — in other words, none whatsoever. So, we might assume that this criticism they level at Jesus is safely in the dustbin of history. I am a follower of Jesus, but no one has ever called me “Beelzebul”. Nor have I ever heard that name used as an insult (surely an offensive one). Yet that does not mean that the idea of Jesus’s followers being evil, or exploitative, has no currency among hearts and minds in our society. On the contrary, in our time, it has become uncontroversial to hold the view that the Christian religion itself is evil, or at least dangerous, and potentially exploitative. The self-evident good of faith in a benevolent creator, with Christians dedicating themselves to imitating divine goodness in their human relationships, is self-evident no longer.
Why is this sad realisation in my mind at present? Perhaps because I have just renewed my safeguarding training. That faces me with the uncomfortable truth that the institution which I experience as a God-given gift, and which has changed my life immeasurably for the better, is, for others, an agent of damage and abuse. But I take some comfort from 10.26: “Have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.”