Authority Over Demons

Deuteronomy 18:15-20                                                          January 29, 2012

Mark 1:21-28                                                              Russell Eidmann-Hicks

There was a man who owned and drove a hearse for his job as a funeral director. It was also his family car since he couldn’t afford another one.   One day he was driving his hearse and was getting ready to go past the town’s other funeral home. He saw that a funeral procession was getting ready to leave. He had his radio turned up fairly loudly, so he turned it down and slowed up a bit as he went past the funeral home so that he would not offend anyone.

Once he got past the funeral home, he then turned the radio back up and headed on to where he was going, which was the local Taco Bell.  But as he pulled into the parking lot, he looked in his rear view mirror, and to his horror he saw that the funeral procession had followed him by mistake right into the Taco Bell parking lot.  You have to be careful what authority you are following.

 

We need authority, but we also need to be careful what it is that has authority in our lives, what controls us and motivates us.  In our culture that has so many powerful influences, so many temptations, so many possibilities; it is vitally important that we be very careful about what it is to which we give our allegiance.   If we’re not careful we may end up heading in a very negative direction.

 

In the Gospel of Mark Jesus began his ministry by going to teach in a synagogue, a house of worship.   The people were astounded because he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.  His message was not dry and academic, but taught with compelling clarity and conviction, from the heart.  His actions went even beyond his words.   “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”  And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.”

Jesus had authority.  He began his ministry claiming one life from the devil,  carving out territory for the Kingdom of God.   He established God’s way with the authority of his presence.  There are plenty of people or groups claiming authority in our lives: the corporation for which we work or the shows we watch or the labels on clothes we wear or stocks we own or movie stars or rock bands or football teams.  It may be Google, Apple, or Verizon.  Or it may be Rush Limbaugh or Jon Stewart, or the Giants game or Hustler magazine or that chocolate cake in back of the freezer.  There are lots of things that speak to our hearts and want to control our thinking.  The question is, which voice do we listen to and follow?  Which might be demons, seeking to control us in terrible ways?

 

What are demons, do you suppose: evil spirits, negative things that control us, powers of darkness?   My sense is that we all have demons of one sort or another.   They are the things that possess us, and cause us to do what we know is wrong.  We wrestle with destructive patterns in our lives, habits of self-gratification or self-denial or self-righteousness, inner demons of arrogance, fear, or low self-esteem, or cycles of elation or despair.  They catch hold of us, take over our will and make us self-destructive.

 

Demons can be very powerful.  Alan Lang, in a report to the National Academy of Science: “Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior,” identifies nine characteristics of addiction: Impulsive behavior, Difficulty in delaying gratification, Sensation seeking, Antisocial personality, Nonconformist values, Sense of alienation, Deviant behavior, Heightened feelings of stress, Little regard for goals generally valued by society.  These are indicators of being possessed by this particular demon.

Here is a story from Alcoholics Anonymous that illustrates this:  “A few years ago I lay desperately ill on a motel floor in a southern city.  I learned later that within a few hours, if left unattended, I would have gone into alcoholic convulsions and might have died.  At that point in time I did not know I was an alcoholic.

         I crawled to the telephone, but was shaking and quivering so badly that I could not dial.  Finally, I managed one digit and got the operator.  “Please help me,” I pleaded.  “Call Alcoholics Anonymous.”  She took my name and address.  Within ten minutes a man walked in the door.  I had never seen him before, and he had no idea who I was.  But he had the breath of the Father on his face and an immense reverence for my life.  He scooped me up in his arms and raced me to a detox center.  There began the agony of withdrawal.  To avoid bursting into tears, I will spare the reader that odyssey of shame and pain, unbearable guilt, remorse, and humiliation.  But the stranger brought me back to life.  His words might sound corny to you, like tired old clichés.  But they were words of life to me. He told me that right now the name of the game wasn’t guilt and fear and shame but survival.  He told me to forget about what I had lost and focus on what I had left….Above all, he affirmed me in my emptiness and loved me in my loneliness.  Again and again he told me of the Father’s love; how when his children stumble and fall, he does not scold them, but scoops them up and comforts them.”

 

A word of authority can cast out demons.  Truth spoken to us with love can transform our lives.  Even though we may be powerless against the demon or addiction or fear, we have a Savior who has power over evil.   A word from Jesus casts out demons.  The word of God is called a sword in scripture; and like a sword, God’s word cuts through lies, delusions, and demonic voices.   With the light of Christ within us, we can cut through demonic ideas or voices or influences When a demon appears, we can shout with Jesus:  “Be silent, and come out!”

 

This is not always easy; not all sweetness and light.  As it says, ” the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.”  It can be a gut-wrenching, soul-searching, heart breaking experience.  It has to do with admitting our worst, showing that part of us we want no one to ever see.  But if we have to courage to name the demon, to admit the darkness, then healing can occur.

 

In our reading this morning, it is very interesting that the first demon Jesus casts out in Mark appears right in the middle of a worship service.  On the one hand it causes us to remember that demons are quite at home in church, they are not necessarily left behind when we step in the church door.  We are, after all, a gathering of common folk, and we are all capable of the best and the worst of human behavior.    Negativity, mean-spirited labeling, calls for hatred can be found in churches as well as outside.

 

Louise Fratto gave me the review of a new book about the Inquisition in the church in medieval times.   Actually there were about three inquisitions, filled with torture, brutality and lies; yet wrapped up in extreme piety and self-righteousness and faith.   It is a scary thing that the most triumphant expressions of religious fervor can also be the most dangerous, filled with violence, lack of compassion and cruelty.   We can find this tendency in our own day, when we target certain groups of people based on their religious or ethnic background.  We saw it in the McCarthy era and the “Red Scare.”  We saw it in the civil rights movement, as those speaking up for freedom and equality were demonized by our society.  We see it ways many groups are targeting the Islamic religion and surrounding it with layers of fear and distortion and violent rhetoric.  We hear it in distorted and outlandish calls to hatred in the political arena.  Demons of destruction and intolerance are still with us, and can reappear if we are no careful.

 

The writer, Adam Gopnik, writes:  “What makes a civilization lose the inquisitional tendency?  The truth seems to be that abundance helps – the more goods there are, the more purely symbolic the struggles over them tend to become – but the idea of decency matters most.   The values of tolerance are one of the most difficult lessons to impart, not because people are naturally cruel, but because power is naturally fearful.   We’re slow learners.  The Inquisition has become a byword for cruelty combined with state power and superstition because it was.”     Authority comes with the compassion of Christ.

 

With faith we cut through demons of fear and brutality .   Religious or political institutions can be vicious and cause great conflict.  Yet, worship in the church is one of the best places to deal with the demons in our lives.  In worship we are encouraged to look into our hearts, to re-direct our lives to pathways of life and health, to seek to grow in wisdom, compassion, community, and inner strength. We listen to the authority of the Word of God and preaching that takes us inside of that word.  We confess our sins; we receive pardon. We look into the dark places in our hearts, to face the demons that control us.  With God’s grace, we find our own voice of authority that can cast out evils within our own hearts.

Over the centuries our tradition has developed ways to face our demons, with God’s help.  Prayer and meditation are ways to deepen our souls, to give us greater inner strength and resources to fend off the darkness.  Study and preaching give us greater wisdom and insight to spot the demons at work in our lives.  Helping others pushes us past our small selves to allow the spirit of love to shed light inside our souls.

 

A beautiful parable of this power offered by Jesus is found in another story from Mark.   The disciples decide to row across the sea of Galilee, but are caught at night in a raging storm.  The waves and wind threaten to swamp them. Ancient superstition was that demons lurked below the surface of the waters causing the waves.   The disciples seeing Jesus walking over the surface of the waters; he had authority even over waves.  They call to him, he steps into the boat and immediately, the waves and wind cease; they find they have arrived at their destination.   The meaning is clear. When Jesus gets in to the boat with us, we find stillness, strength and a holy direction.  Without Christ, we are lost to the demons.

The role of our faith and worship is to name the demons; to help us to see them clearly and then to throw them out.  In worship we hear the word of God spoken with authority and with love.  That Word casts out evil; it makes demons flee; it reclaims our true selves.   Let us celebrate Jesus’ authority to heal and protect and transform.  Amen.