Demon Possession

 

Luke 8:26-39

 

            When I began serving here at Salem, we had all kinds of problems with the computers--in my office and in the church office. As soon as one problem was cleared up, another would appear—sometimes with e-mail, sometimes with memory, sometimes with the system locking up. For seemingly no reason, and at random times, the computer simply did not do what it was supposed to do. This resulted in what the Bible would call considerable gnashing of teeth when trying to get bulletins and newsletters ready on time.

           

            At one point, after yet another setback, frustration reached such a peak that I remember suggesting we look into performing an exorcism on the computers. Of course, I meant it as a joke; I wasn’t seriously contemplating that as an option. It was merely a reflection of the bewilderment and anger we felt at being thwarted at every turn by these computers. It almost seemed as though there was a diabolical presence in the machines that was determined to ruin our work here at Salem. As though the computers were possessed by demons.

 

            I suppose in light of today’s Gospel reading, we should reflect on whether it is appropriate to make light of exorcism and demon possession. More importantly, we ask what God is saying to us in this story of demon possession that contains a perspective on illness that is foreign to us today.

 

            If you read the medical and psychiatric journals and textbooks, and attend counseling seminars, you don’t find a great deal of information on demon possession. Health care professionals are not in the habit of diagnosing patients as being possessed by evil spirits, nor do they commonly prescribe exorcism of demons as the cure. The medical community to which we all entrust our health and our lives and which has nearly doubled our average life span in a single century, has never asked me to heal someone by performing an exorcism of an evil spirit, nor has anyone I know in the ministry been asked to do that. 

 

            We do hear about violent criminals who claim to have heard voices in their heads, demonic voices telling them to commit terrible deeds. But the criminally insane are as likely to claim that it was the voice of God telling them to kill as they are to insist it was a demon, which makes the whole thing suspect.

 

            Back in Jesus’ time, there appear to have been demons all over the place, causing health problems everywhere. How do we explain the huge influence of demons back then compared to their marginalized status today?

 

            There seem to be four possible answers to that question. The least plausible is that the world was crawling with demons back in Jesus’ time, but those beings have pretty well disappeared from the world today. Its hard to imagine that demons once thrived and now have gone the way of the dinosaurs. I’ve never seen anyone argue, seriously or otherwise, that some environmental or behavioral factor has put demons on the endangered species list.

 

            A second answer is that references to demons in Biblical material are an inevitable result of the limited understanding of science at that time. There is certainly some truth to this. People in Biblical times knew nothing of the causes of illness. They would have been astounded to learn that the world is filled with invisible-to-the-eye microbes that are responsible for disease. They knew nothing of chemical imbalances that effect behavior, of the intricate nature of the electrical grid in the brain. They had no idea that biological malfunctions in nervous system activity could produce an epileptic fit.

            Lacking rational explanations for the sudden appearance and sometimes disappearance of strange behavior and deadly diseases, they really had no choice but to attribute these occurrences to the behavior of unseen forces. The sheer destruction caused by these health failures would certainly steer people in the direction of labeling these unseen forces as evil, demonic.

            It could be, in fact is likely, that in some of the Biblical stories of healing through the exorcism of demons, people misunderstood what was happening in medical terms. It is no coincidence that widespread focus on demons continued through the Middle Ages, through Martin Luther’s time, through the Renaissance, right up to the time that the age of science pulled back the curtain on what is really going on in the natural world.

 

            A third explanation for the demon gap is that our culture is so materialistic and fact oriented and logic oriented that we have lost access to the spiritual world. In clinically treating symptoms without regard to the spiritual world around us, we in the modern world are the ones who are blind and ignorant. There is certainly some truth to that.

 

            Most of the medical community has come to the realization that there is more to healing than prescribing the right pills. The best approach to overall health is a holistic one that involves taking care of ones mental and spiritual well-being. In many ways we have returned to the wisdom of older cultures, including that of Biblical times, that have long known that health and happiness can best be achieved by restoring balance and equilibrium with the world in which we live.

 

            Furthermore, tragic events around the world have destroyed the smug modern assertion that there is no such thing as evil in the world—that there are only mistakes and ignorance—bad choices and bad information

 

            We have seen evil in our time and have trembled at its ferocity. The staggering coldbloodedness of the Nazi holocaust. The brutality of ethnic cleansing in Serbia and the Sudan. The religious fanaticism that fuels suicide bombers. The demented glare of the serial killer as he sits in a courtroom showing not an ounce of remorse. The lowlife drug lord who lives in luxury by destroying  lives of the young and gullible. 

 

            Those are not just mistakes and bad choices. There is something else going on there. There are powers working in the world; powers that scares us. We cannot put our finger on what these forces are, or how they come to be, how they grow and consume and destroy, but we know they are there. People who dabble in the occult often find that there’s far more there than they bargained for, and it is terrifying.

 

            I don’t pretend to be able to resolve all the issues and questions regarding mental and physical health and demons and forces of evil.

            What I would like to do is propose a way of looking at this issue that will bring us what the Bible intends to brings us: new life lived in the light of the God of love and justice.

 

            I propose that we combine answers 2 & 3, and separate the truth that the Bible reveals about demon possession from the rather primitive understanding of health issues at the time. So unlike last week, I’m not going to go into the details of the story, because those details make it harder to separate the issues.

 

            What happened in today’s Gospel story from Luke? We can only say this with certainty: Jesus ran into a fellow who was seriously ill, criminally insane. The only explanation available at the time for behavior so terrifying and bizarre was that he was possessed by a demon. The only solution they knew of was to put him in chains so he could not hurt anyone when these violent fits of insanity took hold of him. But even that did not always work—when the fits came upon him he would rage with such fury that he could break out of his chains.

            It’s likely the diagnosis would be different today, and the treatment would be different, but that doesn’t change the situation that confronted Jesus.

 

            Here was a man who was clearly out of control. He could not longer take responsibility for his actions. His life was controlled by an outside force. And whatever you want to call that outside force, it was certainly demonic.

 

            We know that humans were not meant to live that way. We were not designed by our creator to be controlled by forces outside of us. We were not meant to live enslaved by forces of evil. We were meant to live free and responsible for our lives in the light and grace of God, to bask in and reflect God’s love. This is the gift given to us by the God of the Bible, revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

            At the same time, there are forces in this world that coopt us, that corrupt us, that seek to enslave and control us. Are these forces actual beings? They could be, but they don’t have to be. Evil is a force and forces do not require individual identity or even consciousness.

 

            I clearly remember a time in the early days of computers when I experienced the presence of evil in these inanimate machines. Our aquatics biology class was assigned to use a computer to analyze some data. Back in those days, computers were so far from user-friendly it wasn’t funny. You had to type in reams of code instructions to get the computer to do anything.

            These instructions had to be incredibly precise. If you made the tiniest error in entering any of these many instructions, the computer would type out 3 question marks. It would never tell you what you did wrong or needed to change. Just a cold, impersonal ???  I spent hours one night trying get the instructions right, and all I ever got were these ???

            Eventually I got so mad at the computer it was all I could do to keep from picking it up and slamming it on the floor. The machine was so heartless, so indifferent to humanity, so smug, so arrogant. I was trying my best, I was desperate, and it just mocked me, with those stupid question marks. I don’t know that I have ever been any angrier at a human being than I was at that inanimate object. I was bursting with hatred for that computer, wanting nothing more than to smash it into a thousand pieces.

 

            Impulses of hatred and destruction are forces of evils. I experienced this demonic force, felt it grow until it very nearly controlled me. And what created this evil force: an object that had no identity, no consciousness. Forces do not need individual identity or even consciousness. An impulse of hatred and destruction becomes demon possession when it controls you, when you become like the sick man in this story who cannot resist it. 

 

            The author C.S. Lewis had a similar experience. He wrote a book called the Screwtape Letters, from the point of view of a senior devil mentoring a junior demon. When asked about writing a sequel to this best-seller, Lewis replied that he could not. The experience of writing the first book had left him shaken. Just putting himself in the character of a being filled with such malice and spite affected his spiritual health, his sense of well-being. Never again would he open himself up to that influence. He felt the power of evil and its power to control and he wisely put distance between himself and that power.

 

            My computer experience, and Lewis’s experience, have taught me not to try and pinpoint or define exactly what the nature of these forces are; all I know is that they exist, and they are deadly. When they take root in us, they seek to control us--to rob us of the freedom of living as God intended.

 

            In this country we have come to recognize, somewhat belatedly, that slavery is a sin against God. It is simply wrong to own another person. Being owned by another person means that they control what you do, and so assume all the responsibilities and privileges of your life. In effect, they rob you of your life.

            It is bad enough to be owned by another person, but slavery becomes especially tragic when the slave owner is evil, when he mistreats the slaves, causes great suffering, pain, and death.

 

            In our story today, Jesus comes face to face with a person who is not in control of his life. The poor man is owned by the illness that consumes him. He is owned by a force beyond his control of understanding, and that force is evil. It causes great suffering, pain, and ultimately, death. You can view that force anyway you want; you can personify it or not--what matters is that it controls him and it is evil. 

 

            Jesus comes to him and gives him back his life. He releases him from the control of the demonic force so that he is free to live in the light and life that God intended. That’s what Jesus does. That’s why Jesus came.

 

            The question to ask this morning is what are your personal demons? What owns you? What steers you in directions you do not want to go, or should not go. What causes you grief and hardship in your life? What is it in you that causes grief and hardship in the lives of those around you. What has you in its control that prevents you from being the person you know God intended you to be?

 

            Evil is a powerful force in the world, and we are all susceptible to it.

 

            We acknowledge this when we repeat the prayer that our Lord taught us to pray, we say, “Deliver us from evil.”

 

            The Gospel for today tells us that Jesus came to release us from the control of the forces of evil, in whatever form that evil takes. To give us our lives back again. It is what we call salvation.

            Thanks be to God!