When Jesus Sets Us Free

[This message was shared during worship this morning with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 8:26-39

Our son Philip was in Haiti on a mission trip a few years back. One evening, his group had several free hours. Their translator, a young man who aspired to be a doctor, gave Phil a tour of the community. They ended up at the young translator’s home. Among his family members was his sister, a young woman, who Phil said, had the most terrible vacuum in her eyes: there, but somehow disconnected and isolated from everyone else. The translator later told Philip, “She has a demon.”

We who live in a Western post-modern world hear stories like that and have our doubts. We deem ourselves too sophisticated to believe that there's such things as demons.

But listen: The book of Genesis tells us that the serpent was the most subtle, the most sneaky and sly of all creatures. If Jesus' encounter with the devil in the wilderness tells us anything, it's that the devil is a master marketer. In some cultures, he puts people under his thumb with overt demon possession. In others, he convinces people that he's not around and so gains free rein to wreak all sorts of havoc to nations, communities, families, individuals, even churches. I am firmly convinced that there really is a devil and that there really are demons.
Luke, the writer of our gospel lesson for this morning, Luke 8:26-39, has traditionally been thought to be a doctor, an educated person. Of all the New Testament writers, who all composed their books and letters in the first-century world's second language, Greek, Luke writes with the greatest vocabulary and the most precision. 

When Luke writes of someone who has a physical ailment that causes them seizures, he makes it clear that the person is suffering from a physical ailment. 

But when Luke reports on someone who suffers a spiritual ailment like demon possession, he gives that information as well. Luke identifies people’s problems with specificity. 

In today’s gospel lesson, Luke 8:26-39, which recounts an event that occurred in Gentile territory on the eastern banks of the Galilee, where steep cliffs meet the sea, Jesus and His disciples encounter a man possessed by demons. 

Not just one demon, but a legion of demons. Legion was a term used in the first-century world for a 5000-man unit of the Roman army. So, a regiment of demons had taken hold of this young man. Luke doesn’t explain how they came to take up residence in the young man. But he does explain what happens when Jesus takes on the evil of the world, the devil, and our sinful selves that can engulf us. 

And he does show us the appropriate response of those set free from evil by Jesus. 

It's these two things we see in this passage.
In verses 26-29, Jesus and the disciples come ashore in the region of the ten Greek cities established in territory once conquered by Alexander the Great, the decapolis. They encounter this demon-possessed man. Of him, Luke says, “For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.” (Luke 8:37)

When evil or sin holds sway in our lives, it isolates us from God and others. The great commandment in which Jesus summarizes God’s will for human beings calls us to love God and to love others, to live in community with others. This doesn’t mean we should never have times of solitude, times when we seek out the Lord in Scripture and prayer. Jesus needed such times and we do too. 

But God made us to be communal beings. God created Eve, you’ll remember, because He said that it wasn’t good for Adam to live alone. “How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!” David wrote in Psalm 133:1. The demon-possessed man lived among the tombs of the dead, in “solitary places.”

The legion of demons possessing the man, as spiritual beings, fallen angels, immediately know who Jesus is. 

Jesus sets out to free the man victimized by this demonic occupation, calling the demons out. The demons are afraid that Jesus is going to send them to “the abyss,” the place of the dead and the damned, what we call hell, a place of isolation from God, a place devoid of life and love. 

Since they’re in a Gentile enclave, a place not constrained by Jewish dietary laws which prohibited eating pork, there’s a herd of 2000 pigs nearby. Jesus sends the demons into the pigs, who run over the cliffs into the sea below.

Jesus has set the man free! That should have been a cause for celebration in the community. A man had been set free from evil. But all the pig herders see is that Jesus used some sort of supernatural power to send their business assets to the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. They run into town and the surrounding area to report this outrage.

One of the worst traits of our fallen human race is how readily we accept sin and evil, how easily we see the suffering of others as “normal.” As Canadian rock musician Bruce Cockburn says, “The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.” 

Instead of being concerned for the demon-possessed man, the pig herders (and the other people of the nearby town, as we’ll see) had come to accept his affliction as a permanent state of being. 

Are there people whose suffering we simply accept? 

Are there people subjected to injustice and mistreatment about which we say nothing because we don’t want to rock any boats, especially our own? 

Are there people to whose daily walk with sin and death we have simply become resigned, with no thought of praying for them, or sharing Jesus with them, or helping them?

When the people of the town go out to the fields to check things out, finding all the pigs dead and the once demon-possessed man clothed and in his right mind, they’re terrified that Jesus had disrupted their “normal.” 

“Then,” verse 37 of our gospel lesson tells us, “all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear.” 

Do you know why most people, even people on the membership rolls of churches, don’t want to have too much to do with Jesus? Because they’re afraid (we all can be afraid) that Jesus is going to change our lives, our “normal”. 

Set eternally free from sin and death by what Jesus has done for us, we’re afraid that He might call us to live differently, to think differently. 

He might call us spend our time and money differently. 

He might call us to love the unlovable, serve the needy, help others to know Jesus, fight injustice, pray for the spread of the gospel.

“Please, go away, Jesus,” the people of town beg Jesus. 

Jesus will never go where He’s not invited. Which is why I make it a point on many Fridays at the end of my office hours, to walk around this building, going into every room, to invite Jesus to come and be Lord over this place and over the people who enter it. 

I ask that Jesus will make the presence of God’s Holy Spirit unavoidable when people come here. 

I touch every seat in the sanctuary, as well as  the pulpit, the piano, the altar, the baptismal font, the music stands, the keyboard, the drum, the mixer board, and the video equipment and I ask Jesus to be Lord of everyone who sits here and of everything that’s in here that we would live in the confidence and hope of knowing that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus and that we will go into the world filled with the Holy Spirit, empowered to share Jesus with others, ready to welcome Jesus into every part of our own lives!

When Jesus leaves the Decapolis at the request of the villagers, the man from whom Jesus cast out the demons wants to go with Him. But Jesus says that the man needs to stay. “Return home and tell how much God has done for you,” Jesus says (Luke 8:39). 

Jesus calls some people to be witnesses for Him as missionaries in South Africa, like Claire Brown, who will be speaking here on July 14. 

He calls others to take mission trips to Haiti; others to visit and pray with folks at hospitals; others to help and to share the Bible with victims of tornadoes; others to meet privately with people around God’s Word to nurture them in the faith. 

All of us are called to share the good news of new life through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus in our everyday lives. 

We’re to share what God has done for us in Jesus, even with those who want Jesus to go away. 

Luke tells us that, at Jesus' command, “the man [once filled with demons] went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him” (Luke 8:39). 

One day, believers will be with Jesus. 

But for now, our call is the same one given to the man by Jesus that day: to live for Him and share Him with people right where we are. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Great Demon Debate

Yesterday, over on Facebook, I posted a link to an intriguing article by a psychiatrist who also teaches psychiatry at a New York college, on a controversial subject. Titled, As a Psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. And sometimes, demonic possession. It appeared in the Washington Post.

The title is somewhat misleading because in the article itself, Dr. Richard Gallagher says that he doesn't diagnose people as being possessed, only certifies for those who come to him that the cases in question don't lend themselves to a medical diagnosis of mental illness. But Gallagher, like the late M. Scott Peck, also a psychiatrist, is convinced of the existence of demonic possession.

That's provocative enough, of course, coming from a man of science who looked into possible demon possession with skepticism. But Gallagher writes:

The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist — open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people — led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions.

He condemns those who engage in quackery, treating the mentally ill as though they were demonically possessed. And he claims to know the difference:

A possessed individual may suddenly, in a type of trance, voice statements of astonishing venom and contempt for religion, while understanding and speaking various foreign languages previously unknown to them. The subject might also exhibit enormous strength or even the extraordinarily rare phenomenon of levitation. (I have not witnessed a levitation myself, but half a dozen people I work with vow that they’ve seen it in the course of their exorcisms.) He or she might demonstrate “hidden knowledge” of all sorts of things — like how a stranger’s loved ones died, what secret sins she has committed, even where people are at a given moment. These are skills that cannot be explained except by special psychic or preternatural ability.

I have personally encountered these rationally inexplicable features, along with other paranormal phenomena. My vantage is unusual: As a consulting doctor, I think I have seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.

Most of the people I evaluate in this role suffer from the more prosaic problems of a medical disorder. Anyone even faintly familiar with mental illnesses knows that individuals who think they are being attacked by malign spirits are generally experiencing nothing of the sort. Practitioners see psychotic patients all the time who claim to see or hear demons; histrionic or highly suggestible individuals, such as those suffering from dissociative identity syndromes; and patients with personality disorders who are prone to misinterpret destructive feelings, in what exorcists sometimes call a “pseudo-possession,” via the defense mechanism of an externalizing projection. But what am I supposed to make of patients who unexpectedly start speaking perfect Latin?

I approach each situation with an initial skepticism. I technically do not make my own “diagnosis” of possession but inform the clergy that the symptoms in question have no conceivable medical cause.

The article is, as I say, provocative and it has provoked some discussion over on Facebook.

Andrew, a one-time neighbor whose parents are dear friends of ours and who grew up with our son Philp and served as Phil's best man when Phil and his wife were married last year, probably speaking for many, wrote the following:

The people who are being diagnosed as demon possessed aren't getting their mental illnesses treated. Highly highly irresponsible of this charlatan "psychiatrist".

I responded:

I wonder, Andrew, if you read the article. I agree that what you're describing happens. So too, would the author, a psychiatrist and man of science who appears to be open to the facts speaking for themselves.

And also:

Incidentally, the late M. Scott Peck, also a man of science and psychiatrist, was led to a view similar to that of the author on these things. He details his experiences in 'People of the Lie.'

Andrew replied:

I did read the article. And the author obviously doesn't agree with me since he is "diagnosing" people with demon possession. Anyone he decides is demon possessed is not getting the psychiatric help they need. As someone who suffers from mental illness I find it incredibly irresponsible that you're promoting this. You can't pray away depression or anxiety or especially personality disorders and schizophrenia. When I was in the church my treatment was delayed because people in authority told me I could pray it away or that I must be sinning. The church has a horrible history in helping people with mental illness and this kind of unscientific bs just makes it worse.

I responded:

Andrew, he specifically said he doesn't do the diagnosing, but lets others know that there is no scientific explanation for some of the cases he's run up against. He says that in the overwhelming numbers of instances, scientific diagnoses can be made. And he would concede, as I would, that you cannot pray away physiologically rooted instances of anxiety, depression, personality disorders, and schizophrenia.

Quacks who say otherwise are destructive and irresponsible. The evidence would indicate to me that this guy is no quack.

Andrew joined (see what a good relationship that we have, that we can talk about something like this and keep talking to each other!):

We don't know what's causing this mental illness - therefore demons seems like a textbook definition of quackery.

My response:

But to the open-minded, other explanations are worthy of consideration.

Andrew's answer:

Being open minded means looking at all the evidence and then coming to the conclusion that that most closely fits that evidence regardless of your previous position. There is zero evidence for demon possession. The author doesn't even bother to present any. He even goes so far as to try to explain away the lack of evidence by talking about how demons are too smart to be recorded on video. In skeptic circles this is called the shyness effect. The same sorts of explanations are given to explain why there are no pictures of Bigfoot or UFOs. So I would ask you to be open minded and follow the evidence where it leads and to acknowledge when there is no good evidence for a claim you're making.

At this, Jeff Schultz joined the conversation, writing:

"Being open minded means looking at all the evidence and then coming to the conclusion that that most closely fits that evidence regardless of your previous position." With respect, I believe that's what this psychiatrist is doing, and what you're unwilling to do. It seems your assessment is based on a purely materialistic view of reality. In that case, then what this psychiatrist is doing is indeed quackery. But what if we don't live in a purely material universe? What if there is a spiritual dimension to reality that can't be scientifically explained, measured, and controlled? The unwillingness to consider that possibility seems like another kind of close-mindedness which would lead to another kind of malpractice.

Andrew replied to Jeff:

What if we don't live in a purely materialistic universe? What if there are Demons? Psychic powers? Faith healing? Show me the evidence for any of these phenomenon and I'll believe it. Seriously. Show me.

But there isn't any, as the excuses in this article suggest. I was a Christian once. I've assessed the evidence. It is lacking. I'd ask you to attempt to do the same.*

Jeff responded:

I don't wish to be difficult or argumentative. You've stated there isn't any evidence. I took that to mean there is no evidence that would satisfy you, especially as you've stated that you also concluded that lack of evidence led you to abandon faith in Christ. Since we see things from such different perspectives, there doesn't seem to be much sense in putting forth reasoned arguments or evidence.

You maintain that believing in the supernatural is baseless and foolish faith that leads to quackery. I maintain the same thing about materialism. But my contention is no more close-minded or inherently dangerous than yours. That's all I'm asking you to consider.

Andrew answered Jeff:

But it is. People are being treated for demon possession by exorcists instead of for mental illness by doctors. You really don't see how that's not inherently dangerous to people?

I answered:

Andrew, I feel that you're arguing against a straw man. At the outset of the piece and in my remarks, the author and I both have said that there are irresponsible flim-flammers treating physiological or emotional disorders as though they were demon-possession. They're to be condemned. And that has zero to do with what we're talking about here.

The psychiatrist who wrote this piece and, as I mentioned earlier, M.Scott Peck, are/were people of science. One came at the subject of demon possession skeptically. Peck was a Buddhist when the reality of demon possession began to impress itself upon him. Both warn that demon possession is rare and that in the lion's share of cases that have been presented to them, the people in question were suffering from psychiatric disorders. (I recommend Peck's book, 'People of the Lie.' By the time he wrote this, he was a Christian, in part because his encounter with the demonic had convinced him of the existence of a non-material world.)

And I agree with Jeff, that the author of the 'Washington Post' article did present phenomenon inexplicable by traditional scientific means.

As to the existence of a non-material world, I commend a book to you: 'Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine' written by a medical doctor, Larry Dossey, not a Christian, who refers to many studies done at places like Harvard Medical Center, in which persons who did not [know that] people were praying for them, experienced markedly greater rates of recovery and lower rates of mortality than persons for whom no one was known to be praying for them. Many dozens of such studies have taken place over time and are highly suggestive of the existence of the non-material.

Just anecdotally, here in Dayton [there's] a hospital where the surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists often ask [if] they can participate in prayer[s] I offer for surgical patients and [attending] medical staff before procedures. The doctors' experiences over the years have convinced them of the efficacy of prayer.

Of course, the only way for a person to believe is to be open to it. Erickson rightly said that the first and most fundamental issue we must face in our lives is trust v. mistrust. I believe that this issue is with us our entire lives. Much about this life can delude us with the notion of self-sufficiency or that we must be self-sufficient. The fact is that it is difficult for us to believe either in the God we cannot see--but who, I believe has been revealed definitively in Jesus--or in the dark powers at work with ferocity in our world.

When I was an atheist, I refused to trust in a God I couldn't see. But, in the people of what became my home church in Columbus, I saw the evidence of a higher power acting in the lives of ordinary people: the man who had dealt with a lifetime of emotional issues who drew uncommon and inexplicable strength--despite setbacks--from Christ as he underwent treatment; the devoted husband who lost his wife yet could say on the day of her funeral how good God had been to him; the seminary student who described the encounter with Christ that led him to go to seminary.

I realized that God is a gentleman. He wants love to be real [to love Him back voluntarily, not because we have to]. He will not force us to acknowledge His lordship or His call on our lives. I came to the God wasn't the Allah of Islam. Nor was He either the indulgently passive deity or the harsh cruel master of popular opinion.

While taking a class called 'Life with God,' trying to understand why the Christians I met in that congregation were so real and so together, I realized that I could only know the God revealed in Jesus Christ by letting Him into my life. I didn't yet believe. But I wanted to believe. I still struggle to believe, [to trust]. I've found that as I open myself to Christ--not the Christ of my imagination nor the Christ of popular preference, but Christ as He revealed Himself to the apostles--I experienced life differently. Christ in me [empowering me and inciting me to do things I can't and am not inclined to do] was and is evidence of a non-material world.

I myself have had to be treated for anxiety over the years, occasionally requiring prescriptions. Members of my extended family have suffered from depression and anxiety and have received treatment for it. I have met people in my counseling through the years who clearly suffered from mental or emotional issues that required the healing God provides through the medical profession.

I agree with you--I think that Jeff Schultz does too--that it's far more likely that someone displaying some behaviors is medically ill than that they are possessed by demons. But when people exhibiting symptoms similar to the mentally ill also manifest the ability to speak a language they've never known or to see...events in the lives of persons they've never met, common sense, experience, and God's revelation all suggest that something else is going on.

You may choose not to believe it all, of course. I did once. But that doesn't give you license to say that the evidence that has been compiled through the centuries and even more recently in rigorous scientific studies doesn't exist. I think it does exist.

I love you, boy! There's always a place in my heart for you. And, whether you want it or not, I pray for you. Be happy.

Here's Andrew's answer:

I'll just leave this here and leave it at that then. This quote sums up my feelings on the article well:

"By accepting their delusion, you are reinforcing it, making it even harder to treat. You are victimizing the people you are supposed to be helping, by failing in your primary duty as a professional to be detached and evidence-based."

Believing and propagating the lie of demon possession causes real harm to real people.

http://theness.com/.../a-psychiatrist-falls-for-exorcism/ NeuroLogica Blog » A Psychiatrist Falls for Exorcism theness.com

That's where the "demon debate" stands at this point. I believe that it's been conducted with love and respect, as it should be.

I'm thankful to Richard Gallagher for his article and to the Washington Post for publishing it. It addresses an important topic.

*Andrew evidently didn't remember that I was once an atheist. It was the people of what became my home church who caused me to investigate the truth claims of Christian faith. I had previously seen them as irrational. But I realize that atheism is even more irrational. It argues, basically, that scientific observation, giving, as it does, information on the processes of life, means that all truth is scientifically observable. Science is important; it answers questions about the what, how, and (maybe the) when of the universe. But it cannot and we cannot reason our way to answering questions of why and who. Nor can it tell us definitively if there is or isn't non-material (spiritual) life.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio.]

Facing Evil: When We Can't, Jesus Can

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Mark 7:24-37
I was a young pastor. I’d received what I thought was a solid seminary education. I believed in the Bible. And I accepted the Lordship of Jesus with all my heart. But whenever I ran across passages in the Gospels telling about Jesus casting out demons, I didn’t know what to make of them.

I had never met anyone that I thought to be demon-possessed. And many Bible scholars who comment on such passages say confidently that those people the Bible describes as having demons really were mentally ill or suffering from some other affliction.

Then, I met a husband and wife missionary team supported by the first congregation I served. The couple was in the States on furlough and had come to speak at our church’s annual outdoor mission festival. They served in India and most of their work was with a leper colony they had founded there. One day, while speaking with them privately though, I was surprised when, after they told me about worship services, many conversions to Christ, and the medical clinic they ran, this couple also said that occasionally, they performed exorcisms.

I tried to conceal my shock behind a poker face. “Exorcisms?” I thought. “You mean, like in the Gospels, like in the movies, you cast out demons?”

I guess that they could see my unspoken questions and began to explain that sometimes, people would be brought to them who displayed a cluster of symptoms that might include depression, violence, self-destructiveness, convulsions, or explosive rage. When medical treatment and counseling proved ineffective, the missionaries told me, they were fairly certain that the problem wasn’t psychological or medical; they were dealing with demons.

It was then that they would call on the Name of Jesus to cast evil from the people brought to them. They told me about people whose lives were totally turned around, all their former disturbing symptoms gone, because their demons were exorcised or removed by the power of Jesus Christ.

I found that I had to believe them. They weren’t nut cases. They were well-known to all the people of my first parish; the wife, a nurse, had been raised there. And they claimed to have met demon-possessed people and seen Jesus cast the demons out.

So, I thought, trying to make sense of it all, demon possession and the possibility of exorcising demons from people must be real. But, I reasoned, this whole phenomenon must be something that in today’s world only happens in primitive settings more like first-century Judea where the Bible tells us that Jesus cast out demons. The teeming, impoverished section of India where those two missionaries served would have been more like that than would the United States.

That line of reasoning, I suppose, was comforting for me. Nobody wants to run into a demon. So, I told myself that they weren’t to be found in the good old US of A.

But truth be told, I think I was only whistling in the dark. If you believe in the existence of evil—and who can watch a TV news report or read the news online and not believe that there is evil?—then how can you deny the possibility that evil may so fill a person’s mind and life that they become possessed by that evil?

And besides, if I believed in the Bible and if, when reading it, I ran across incidents like the one recounted in today’s Gospel lesson, in which a desperate woman asks Jesus to cast out a demon from her daughter and Jesus, in response to her faith, does just that, how could I keep whistling in the dark?

I soon learned that it isn’t just Christian preachers who wrestle with such issues. Psychotherapist R.D. Laing gained prominence in the late-1960s with his cutting edge thoughts on human psychology—some of it kooky, some of it right on. In his book, The Divided Self, published in 1964, Laing noted “a…curious phenomenon of the personality…is that in which the individual seems to be the vehicle of a personality that is not his own. Someone else’s personality seems to ‘possess’ him, finding expression through his words and actions, whereas the individual’s own personality is temporarily ‘lost’ or gone…”

But even if references to demon-possession sound like way-out psychobabble or kooky preacher talk to you, I think you’ll agree that evil—active opposition to the will and commands of God, refusal to reverence God, and resistance to loving others—is increasing in our world today.

That’s because evil fills up the vacuums, the empty places of our lives, our institutions, and even our churches.

In the New Testament’s last book, Revelation, the risen and ascended Jesus tells one church that though their congregation is commendable in lots of ways, the members had forgotten their first love.

In other words, that congregation had become a social club, not a family of believers who sought to give God thanks for Jesus’ death and resurrection through changed lives.

It didn't seek to share Christ with others.

Churches that forget that Christ is to be their first love stop being churches and seem not to pray, “Change my heart, God,”* but, “God, You need to change with the times.”

We leave room for evil when we put ourselves first in life and when we forget that Christ is to be our first love.

People also leave room for evil when they fail to maintain personal contact with God.

Week before last, I went to Columbus to have lunch with my best friend from high school, a fellow I’ve known since the fourth grade, who lives in Arizona and only gets back this way once a year. On the way up to Columbus, I wondered what his mood would be. He’s going through the breakup of his marriage of thirty years.

“I’m keeping my life simple right now,” he told me. “No TV. A one-room apartment. I go to work. I read my Bible and pray every day. I go to men’s Bible study at church. I go to worship on Sunday. [And pulling out a card, he told me] I’m an agent of the FBIC, Mark: Fully Believing in Christ.”

When I left Bill that day, I knew he would be OK. He had invited Jesus to participate in his life. His relationship with God is personal.

Evil goes where Jesus Christ has not been invited. That’s why it’s so critically important for you and me to pray for our spiritually-disconnected friends, neighbors, coworkers, and classmates.

That’s why it’s central to who we are as Christians to invite those who aren’t in relationship with Christ and the Church to get to know Jesus Christ, to worship with us, to dig into God’s Word with us.

It’s why you and I need, in the words of Martin Luther which you’ve heard me cite many times, to live in daily repentance and renewal, daily surrendering to Christ so that evil cannot get a decisive foothold in our lives or in the lives of those for whom we pray.

And it’s essential that we pay attention to who hasn’t been worshiping with us lately, to pray for them, and, in simple Christian love and friendship, call them up and find out how they’re doing.

Just how the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman in today’s Gospel lesson came to be possessed by evil isn’t said. Of course, she was, like the deaf mute man Jesus also heals in the lesson, a Gentile, a non-Jew, who may never have heard the story of the God of all creation who had made the Jews His chosen people and, over long centuries, had prepared them for the arrival of the Messiah, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

But the actions of this mother should be a lesson to all of us. She didn’t give up hope. She went to Jesus on behalf of her demon-possessed daughter. As Luther reminds us in A Mighty Fortress is Our God, “hordes of devils fill the land, all threatening to devour us.” But we can, as the hymn also says, “tremble not, unmoved we stand,” knowing that evil cannot overpower us.**

Once, I met a Lutheran pastor who told me about his childhood and youth lived in North Dakota, near a small town that had little for young people to do and offered few opportunities for the future. He had more than a few run-ins with the law and his life seemed to be spinning inevitably toward dysfunction and evil.

One day, he passed the bedroom of his grandfather, in his nineties, then living with his family. The old man was praying for children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, and neighbors. He prayed for blessings, guidance, and healing.

Then this troubled teenager heard his grandfather begin to pray for him. The grandfather’s voice choked and the boy could see that he was sobbing softly as he asked God to intervene in the young man’s life, to guide him, to help the boy follow Jesus and live, rather than give in to the sin of this dying world.

At that moment, the teen thought his grandfather was silly. But, as the years went by, increasingly, when he contemplated doing wrong or stupid things, something or Someone, seemed to steer him elsewhere. His grandfather’s prayers were answered. That’s how that felow ended up following Christ, ended up in seminary, ended up a pastor.

The power of evil is huge in our world today. But as the Syrophoenician woman in our Gospel lesson learned when she prayed for her daughter, Jesus is able to overcome all and give us new life.

Today, tomorrow, everyday, put your life—put the life of the world—in the hands of Jesus.

When we fall, Jesus lifts us.

When we die, Jesus gives us life.

When we can’t, Jesus can. Always.

AMEN

*"Change my heart, O God" is the opening line of the praise song featured in the video below. It's based on imagery of God as the potter to whom the believer is called to willingly submit, allowing God to make them new. Check out this list of Scripture passages (and their contexts) to see how the terms "potter" and "clay" are used in both the Old and New Testaments.



**Below is a performance of A Mighty Fortress is Our God by the Pacific Lutheran University Choir of the West.

"Welcome back, pastor. Watch out for the demons."

So, you're a mainline pastor, part of that group of Christians often dismissed as "God's frozen chosen." You could be Methodist, Lutheran, UCC, or Presbyterian...whatever. You've just come back from sabbatical when a woman you've never met approaches you on the church parking lot to say that she's come from far away to strengthen you against demons.

Now, demons aren't really something you talk about much in mainline circles. But this woman doesn't care about that. She holds your head in her hands and begins to shout prayers. Then, after a few words with you, she gets into her rented car and drives off.

You might think to yourself, "That was weird." And you'd be right, I guess. But if you were this particular mainline pastor, you might remember a previous encounter you'd had with someone striving to fortify you against demons just as you'd ended a previous sabbatical.

Presbyterian pastor Jan Edmiston writes about this experience on her blog and concludes:

I believe in demons. I hesitate to say this because people tend to ridicule or peg those who talk this way. Mainliners tend not to talk about Dark Forces unless we are talking about old Star Wars movies.

But I believe that when God is working in amazing ways, dark forces are going to come out and mess with us. I'm not saying that people who disagree with me in ministry are evil. Not at all. But I do know that when personal power gets in the way and people become confused . . .

So, I'm girding up against the demons confident that God always wins.

When you see God doing great things in your church or in the lives of those for whom you've long prayed, bank on it: Satan and the demons of hell will attack.

That's why Paul tells us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).