Third Sunday in Lent, 2011

Tex: St. Luke 11:14-28

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“Renewing our Renunciation”

Throughout this Lent we’ve been meditating upon the ancient catechumenate as one of the primary sources that gave us the season of Lent so many centuries ago. And we’ve been looking at the catechumenate as way of helping us to refocus what it is we’re actually doing in Lent, and as a kind of model for our own journey to Easter and renewal in the new life we’re received in the resurrected Christ through our baptisms. You’ll remember that the catechumenate was a three-year process of preparation for baptism that would finally occur on Easter Even. And the last forty days was an intensification of the process. We’ve already meditated on the disciplines of fasting and prayer that the catechumens would have engaged in during this time, and which have also been reflected in our Gospel lessons these Sundays in Lent. But today the aspect of the Lenten catechumenate that comes into view is one that might seem the least approachable as a model for our own Lenten journey, and that was practice of exorcism that was so much a part of it. For forty days the catechumens would submit themselves to daily exorcisms.

Now as soon as said the word exorcism, I’m sure that those freeky images from the old movie “The Exorcist” immediately popped into your head. That’s not what was happening in the ancient Church. I highly doubt there was much head spinning and levitation going on. But the exorcism were a kind of ritual acknowledgement that these people were being translated out of the world and into the kingdom of God. And the world, to use the language of the Bible, is the place of the devil and of the evil spirits. St. Paul says that Satan is the ruler of this world, and he actually calls him the god of this age. And he says that it’s in the power of Satan to blind those who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should shine in their hearts (cf. 2:4:4). Jesus Himself said in His parable of the sower that some of the seed, which is the preaching of the Gospel, falls upon hearts that are like well-beaten paths, “then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. (Mt. 13:19;Lk. 8:12). Fearful words!

So the exorcisms of the catechumens where mainly prayers for protection against the spiritual forces of evil that in a very real sense they were engage in a battle with—just as Jesus was engaged in a battle during His forty day period of testing—lest they should be hardened in unbelief and come short of their goal of entering the new life of a Christian—as well, that they should be prepared for the change of ownership and occupation that was going to occur in their hearts.

St. John Chrysostem, in his catechetical lectures, explaines to the catechumens what was going on in all of this. He says, ‘You must understand why, after the daily instruction, we send you along to hear the words of exorcists. For this rite does not take place without aim or purpose. You are going to receive the King of heaven to dwell within you. This is why, after we here admonish you, those appointed to this task take you, and is they were preparing a house for a royal visit, they cleanse your minds by those awesome words, putting to flight every device of the wicked one, and making your hearts worthy of the royal presence.”

Even to this day, these ancient rites of exorcism are reflected in the prayers of modern catechumenal programs, like the Roman Catholic Church’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. There the priest prays:

God of power, you created us in your image and likeness and formed us in holiness and justice. Even when we sinned against you, you did not abandon us, but in your wisdom chose to save us by the incarnation of your Son. Save these your servants: free them from evil and the tyranny of the enemy. Keep far from them the spirit of wickedness, falsehood, and greed. Receive them into your kingdom and open their hearts to understand your Gospel, so that, as children of the light, they may become members of your Church, bear witness to your truth, and put into practice your command of love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The ancient exorcisms are also reflected in our own baptismal vows in the prayer book, the first of which is that we “renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of flesh, so that [we] will not follow, nor be led by them.” Cranmer didn’t just wake up one day and write the first thing that came into his mind. These things had a long history that preceded him, and most of them come out of the ancient catechumenate.

But even with all this explanation, still the idea of exorcism sounds to us 21^st century folks as somehow kind of superstitious and un-modern. But we must not let the pride of modernity—that is the idea that we’re so far advanced now in the way we thinks about things, especially like mental disease and personality disorders, which were attributed in days past by less sophisticated and more primitive people often as the result of demonic possession—we must not let that kind of thinking blind us to the spiritual realities of which the Bible tells us we are constantly engaged in. St. Paul says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). Things like demonic possessions still do take place. And if you don’t believe me, you should believe Fr. Paul Howden, who is a priest I used to serve with back in California, and who is about the most trustworthy person you could ever find. Fr. Paul told me of an encounter he had while down in South America as a missionary. You have to understand that parts of that continent are still enveloped in the great darkness of paganism and of things like witchcraft and voodoo. It is a dark place! And one day Fr. Paul was called with several other ministers to small village where it was reported that there was a young girl who was possessed of an evil spirit. And when he entered the room where this young girl was being held to assist in her exorcism, what he saw is enough to make chills run down your spine. For with his own eyes he saw this girl float across the room in mid-air.

So the very worst thing we can to do is give to the devil and the demons the power of our unbelief in them. That’s exactly what they want us to do. Because then we’ll be engaged in a battle that often is not the battle, and we’ll wrestle with flesh and blood, as if that’s all there is, when we should be wrestling against spiritual forces.

But now why do we not see more cases of demonic possession in our place and time today? I mean, if you open up the New Testament, and you start reading the Gospels, it’s like there are demoniacs walking all over the place, and not only is Jesus engaged frequently in the casting out of demons, but one of the powers He gives to His disciples, as He sends them out to preach that the kingdom of God had arrived, is also this power to cast out demons. And they come back to Him and report to Him that even the demons are subject to them in His name. And this is where we hear Jesus say, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven’ (Lk. 10:17-18). Well, I would say this is exactly why we don’t see so many demonic possessions in places like ours where the gospel has come. Because the gospel comes in and dispossesses the possessor of his possessions. One of the great evidences that the kingdom of God is now present and advancing throughout the world is that the demons are cast out before it. This is the point of our Gospel lesson today.

Jesus was casting out a demon from a deaf and mute man, and He explained the significance of what He was doing this way: He said, if I by the finger of God—that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit—cast out demons, then surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

Whether the Jewish authorities would recognize Him for who He truly was or not, He was in fact the Son of God, the King of glory, come into the world to destroy the kingdom of Satan. And casting out the demons was the first wave of the assault. And He further illustrated His point by giving a little parable. He said, “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his palace, his possessions are safe. But when a stronger man shall come upon him, and conquer him, the stronger man takes way his armor and gathers his possessions for himself.”

You see, Satan was the strong man, and through our sin, and through the fear of death, Satan in a very real sense held us captive and made us his possession. Mankind was the possession of the strong man. But Jesus was the stronger man. And we see Jesus all through the Gospels casting out demons, because He came to plunder the strong man’s palace and take back His stolen possessions. Ultimately He takes the devil’s armor of sin and death and destroys it at the holy cross.

Christ has conquered. The devil has been cast down. And in our baptisms the enemy has been dispossessed, and we’ve been translated out of his kingdom into the kingdom of God and of His Christ.

Yet even still, Jesus attaches a warning to all this teaching on the victory of the Kingdom of God over the evil spirits, lest we should come to have a triumphalistic view of the Christian life, and rest on our laurels, and not recognize that we are to be engaged in battle our whole live until that final victory has been won, when the Lord returns in glory to cast the devil and his angels into the eternal fire.

You see, our baptismal vows are something we need to live in and live out the whole of our Christian lives, including the vow to renounce the devil and all his works. So Jesus warns, “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, “I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

This describes the person who does not live out his or her initial cleansing. They may have cleaned up their lives for a time, but nothing more. They’ve experienced an outward reformation of their behavior, but they haven’t experienced an inward transformation. By the sheer force of their own will-power they’ve purged out of some of the evil, for a time, but they’re not living as being filled with the Holy Spirit and having Him as the operate power in their lives. And when we do that, Jesus says, our last state ends up being worse than our first.

Now does any of this mean that a professing Christian has to worry about the possibility of being demonically possessed? No. For the Scripture says,“He who is in you is stronger than he that is in the world.” So while we continue to persevere in Christ should not fear being possessed of the devil, we can still get caught up in his works—those “unfruitful works of darkness” that we were called to have “no fellowship with” in our Epistle lesson.

That’s why we have times like Lent to renew ourselves in our renunciation of the devil and all his works. But it also means that we should constantly be seeking not merely to be outwardly reformed by our own will-power, or by whatever wonderful new techniques the world has to offer, but to be inwardly transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the means He’s given us make Himself operative in our lives: the means of grace. Yes, one of those means is our own striving. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” says St. Paul in Philippians, “for it is God who works in you both to will and do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12, 13). “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit,” he says in Galatians (Gal 5:25 NIV). He tells us in Ephesians to “put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” But then he says we’re to put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our minds (Eph. 4:22, 23).

We need to practice the disciplines of abstinence and self-denial to be renewed in our renunciation of the devil and all his works, but none of these things should be done in a vacuum, but only in the context of seeking the transforming power of the Spirit and of being filled anew with Him, by renewing our minds in His word, and through prayer and meditation, and through the fellowship of the saints.

So seek to be renewed in your renunciation of the devil and all his works, but also seek to be inwardly transformed by the positive disciplines of study, and mediation, and prayer, and the fellowship of the saints. For Jesus says we dare not do the one without the other. +