In today's Gospel (Lk 11: 15-26) some people accuse Jesus of healing people (they call it driving out demons, but we would call it healing) through the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. They are raising the question of motive. They would acknowledge, if forced, that Jesus is doing a good thing by healing people, but they want to find a dark side somewhere, some reason to complain about Him and oppose what He is doing. Why do they do that? Or, more properly, why do we do that, because what we see in this Gospel is an example of a behavior we see a lot-- trying to find the hidden negative in what looks like it is a positive situation? Maybe we've just been burned too much. Too many people have pretended they wanted to do something good for us, when all they really wanted was to make some money. Congratulations, they say, you're the lucky winner, which turns out just to be the opening gambit of some kind of scam. We see it even in the healing professions. We read about medical providers who are scamming the system, doing unnecessary tests or procedures, just to make a bit of extra money. Pretending to heal for an improper motive, kind ofwhat some people said Jesus was doing. It can sour us on human nature, and make us skeptical of the most basic acts of kindness. Why are you being nice to me, we say. What's your real motive? What's in it for you? One sign of our Christian faith should be joy. Jesus has proclaimed the Good News. We are loved by God. We are all brothers and sisters. Let's remember that, because it is that joy, after all, that attracts folks to Christ, and to the Christian community. Not many people want to be around folks who are sad, skeptical, suspicious, always seeing the worst in others. Sure, we should be alert to scams. But if that is our "go to" reaction to acts of kindness from others, we're missing out on a lot. The folks in Jesus' day would even have missed out on being healed if they had thought that way. We might keep that in mind. Let's not be people who find the dark lining in every silver cloud. Let's be people of joy, healed by the love of God.