The Fifth Sunday After Epiphany February 5, 2012
Be Silent The Reverend Dr. Howard J. Hess
I. Introduction: An Early Memory. Tucked deep in the back of a closet in a little used room of the house I grew up in was an old, forbidden object. My sister and I had been told not to go into this closet, but we often looked there to see if we could find early Christmas presents. Because it was forbidden, the closet held a special interest for us. One day buried in that closet we found a game box with a fortune teller’s picture and a strange word, Ouija, on the lid. The board inside had an arrow that would point to one or another symbol or a letter of the alphabet. We couldn’t figure out how to make it work, so we took it to our mother. When she saw it, she frowned, and with a very determined voice said that the game was evil and we shouldn’t play it. She took the game box, and although we thought she had hidden it in a new place, we could never find it again. I remember wondering why my mother had kept this game since it almost seemed to frighten her. I have since learned that we human beings have what would seem to be contradictory reactions to the forces of evil: we are fascinated yet fearful at the same time.
Early in my ministry, I was told of demon attacks upon one of the priests who had been involved in the exorcism upon which the movie “The Exorcist” was based. Missionaries whom I met in the Dominican Republic and Madagascar believed and claimed to be able to identify the work of demonic spirits. And, in my first parish, a young woman requested that I perform an exorcism of the demonic spirit she believed possessed her. What are we to make of our modern culture’s fascination with demonic forces and of their prominent place in today’s gospel reading? Demons are mentioned five times in our passage from Mark; and in last week’s Gospel, Jesus healed a demon-possessed man in the synagogue in Capernaum. Often in sermons we avoid the topic of demons altogether and focus upon other features of the readings. But avoiding this topic causes us to miss important teachings in the text.
II. Where did the belief in demons come from? The Christian belief in Satan and his fallen angels, called demons, grew out of our Hebrew roots. The common beliefs about demons are most fully described in the Apocrypha. Early Christians saw demons as fallen angels who were spiritual, immortal, and invisible creatures that engaged in ongoing efforts to induce people to sin. Some current Christians still hold this view, while others believe that demonic spirits do not exist.
A view that has always resonated with me is the theology of evil held by C.S. Lewis. He considers this topic in both Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. Lewis argued that it would be foolish to deny the existence and influence of evil. He saw the primary purpose of demons as distancing us from God. Lewis believed that we all have and struggle with our own demons. He believed it was therefore critical for us to be vigilant in our Christian practices. We should not be naïve about the nature of our own demons, and with God’s help we can name and oppose them. Lewis emphasized that we can make two serious mistakes in understanding evil forces. On one hand we can ignore them and do so at our own peril, or we can over-inflate their importance and thus take our attention off of the genuine source of power in our lives – God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
III. I’d now like us to focus on the references to silence in today’s Gospel. In the first, Jesus has the power to silence demonic spirits.. But there is a second silence. Jesus goes alone, early in the morning while it is still dark to a place of solitude to pray. He sought communion with his father to be revived and replenished. The Gospels tell us that Jesus prayed constantly. He praised God for who God is; he thanked God for guiding him; and he prayed for strength during times of temptation or distress. He prayed when he raised Lazarus from the dead, he prayed in Gethsemane, and he prayed on the cross. He also prayed for his disciples with great fervor as he demonstrated in John 17, and he taught his disciples how to pray, both in the Lord’s Prayer, and at the Last Supper. Jesus prayed because he needed to be empowered to undertake and complete his mission. His prayers were intense, intimate, and constant. He prayed with the knowledge that God could and would carry him on the wings of eagles. He knew that he could not do what he needed to do without his Father’s help. And neither can we.
As followers of Christ, we know the importance of prayer. We know that we cannot face our challenges and temptations alone. But how faithful are we in living lives of prayer? It know it is hard. I really do know, because it’s hard for me, too. Most mornings I get up and begin my day with prayer. On those days I am calmer and more peaceful; more open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit; less likely to give in to the temptation to judge others; and more easily see God at work in my own and in others’ lives. And there are those other days – the days when my actions fall short of my intentions. Those are the days I’m rushing to get here or there, and my prayers are what I can squeeze into the car ride from home to the church or the hospital, or wherever my first stop for the day is. On those days, something is missing, and Christ often seems further away. Those are the days when I try to do it all myself. I am more vulnerable to temptation, less aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit, more likely to be impatient, and at my worst, even unkind, to others.
IV. Some of us have found ways to ensure that our days begin with prayer. I invite the rest of us to join me in committing ourselves to begin each day of the coming week in prayer. This invitation is not intended to encourage anyone to give up his or her current prayer practice to do this instead. It is meant to unite us as a community in prayer. This invitation has some specifics:
I ask that each one of us will make an appointment to pray with God beginning tomorrow morning and to commit to keep this appointment with God no matter what tempts us to do otherwise.
Next, I invite each one of us to write down reflections about our prayers in a private journal or notebook. Nothing elaborate, just notes about our awareness of God’s presence; our thanksgivings; our confessions; and our requests.
Next, I invite each of us to put one of our prayer realizations into action – those ideas that come to us as we are in God’s presence – such as to call someone who comes to mind, or to keep a forgotten promise.
IV. Conclusion: You see, we do not need to fear or run away from evil.
Nor do we need to conclude that our demons will have the upper hand. Jesus has taught us that through prayer, all things are possible because the light of Christ, the love of Christ, and the presence of Christ in our lives is greater than any darkness that we might encounter. You can count on that. Amen.
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