What does it mean, psychologically, when a person cannot speak — not because the body fails, but because something interior has usurped the place where authentic expression should live? These reflections explore the ancient connection between idolatry and muteness as a map of inner states: the way we construct false centers of gravity within ourselves, worship them, and find that they consume the very capacity for genuine utterance. This is neither theology nor devotional commentary, but an attempt to think carefully about what these texts reveal when read as descriptions of the human psyche.
First reading
Hosea 8:4-7,11-13
They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.
Your calf, O Samaria, hath cast you off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?
For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.
I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.
They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepts them not; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.
Gospel
Matthew 9:32-37
As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil.
And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spoke: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.
But the Pharisees said, He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
— Interpretation —
Let us place these two readings side by side and see what emerges. In Hosea, the people have fashioned idols from their own silver and gold. They have set up kings “but not by me,” says the voice of the Lord — that is, they have established authorities within themselves that do not come from anything higher. And then this devastating image: “They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal.” In the Gospel, a man is brought who is dumb — possessed by a devil, unable to speak. When the devil is cast out, the dumb man speaks. And the Pharisees, watching this, say: “He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.”
Now I wish to think about the relationship between idolatry and dumbness.
An idol, psychologically understood, is anything we have made from our own substance — our own silver and gold, our own natural capacities and desires — and then placed at the center of our inner life as though it were God. It might be an image of ourselves, a fixed idea of who we are, a cherished grievance, an ambition, a role. The essential quality of the idol is that we made it, but we then forget that we made it, and we bow down before it as though it had authority over us. Hosea is extraordinarily precise: “The workman made it; therefore it is not God.” The thing we worship was manufactured by us. And yet we serve it.
What happens when such an idol occupies the innermost place? Hosea says the people wrote off the great things of God’s law as “a strange thing.” That is, genuine higher meaning became foreign to them. They could not recognize it. And notice — they continued to sacrifice, to perform religious acts, to go through the motions: “They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepts them not.” The outer form persists. The inner reality has been hollowed out.
Now turn to the dumb man. He cannot speak. In the language of these texts, speech is not merely the physical production of sound. Speech is the capacity to express what is real, to give voice to meaning, to communicate from one’s actual being. The dumb man is someone in whom this capacity has been taken over — possessed — by something that is not himself. A devil, we are told. But what is this devil except precisely the idol, the false thing set up in the place where truth should dwell? When something false occupies the center, the real voice is silenced. We become dumb in the deepest sense. We may talk endlessly — indeed, people possessed by inner idols are often extraordinarily voluble — but we cannot speak. We cannot say what is true, because the place from which truth would emerge is occupied.
Christ casts out the devil and the man speaks. This is the moment of liberation — when the false center is displaced and the authentic voice returns. And it is described as something never before seen in Israel. That is, this kind of inner event, when it actually occurs, is always unprecedented. It has the quality of the genuinely new. It cannot be predicted from what came before.
But now observe the Pharisees. Their response is perhaps the most psychologically revealing element in the entire passage. They say: “He casts out devils through the prince of the devils.” This is not merely a theological objection. It is the characteristic response of the mechanical mind when confronted with something it cannot assimilate. The idol-worshipping consciousness — Hosea’s consciousness, the one that counts the great things of the law as “a strange thing” — must explain away any evidence of real transformation. It must reduce the higher to the lower. It must say: this new thing is really just more of the old thing. This liberation is really just another form of captivity.
This is the leaven of the Pharisees at work. It is the interpretive habit that protects the idol by making genuine change unthinkable.
And then comes the passage that, to me, opens everything: “When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” These multitudes are not merely crowds of ancient people in Palestine. They are the scattered, exhausted inner states of a person who has not yet found a real center — who has lived under the reign of idols and is now fainting, dispersed, leaderless within. The harvest is plenteous. The material for transformation is abundant. But the labourers are few. The parts of us willing to do the work of displacement — of removing the golden calf from the inner sanctuary and letting the dumb man speak — these are rare, and they must be called into being with great patience and care.
The idol swallows speech. But speech, once restored, swallows the idol.
Scripture: King James Version
