GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 3:22
Build up Your Neighbor
There is a phenomenon in which someone besmirches another person in order to elevate themselves. Apple, for example, often mocked Samsung in its ads for the removal of some features from its products. Facebook lobbied against TikTok as a national security threat to shift scrutiny away from its own privacy controversies. Elon Musk often attacks competitors or critics on his social media. Kanye West claimed that one of his songs made Taylor Swift famous. In the political sphere, one candidate belittles an opponent in order to display their own superiority.
This practice is not recent. St. Mark said the same thing happened to Jesus in Capernaum: “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzeboul,’ and ‘By the ruler of the demons he drives out the demons.’” (Mark 3:22) Even these ambassadors from Jerusalem, probably from the Sanhedrin, could not deny the effectiveness of Jesus’ ministry. Therefore, they chose to try to destroy it by describing it in the worst terms. “Sure,” they said, “he casts out demons, but he does it by the power of the prince of demons, Beelzeboul.” Or, to put it more plainly, he is possessed by the greatest demon of all. By describing Jesus in this way, they thought to display the superiority of their position.
These carefully robed, perfumed, and neat Jerusalem ambassadors provide a cautionary illustration. An opposite strategy is that by making one’s neighbor taller, one increases one’s own height.
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