A Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent

If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you.

—Saint Luke, 11:20

The Scripture lessons appointed for this morning grate somewhat upon the ears of twenty-first century people like ourselves. They have a terribly old fashioned sound to them.

In the Gospel, Jesus casts out a devil and then speaks a parable about the casting out of devils; some of the countryfolk who witnessed Jesus’s casting out of a demon accuse him of being in league with Beelzebub (Lord of the Flies), the head honcho of all devils. In the Gospel lesson, both Jesus and his accusers speak matter-of-factly about devils. There is none of the skepticism that characterizes twenty-first century thought. No one in our lesson doubts the existence or the power of devils.

One explanation, of course, is that all of those people in Biblical times, including Jesus, were just caught up in the superstition of their times—their scientific knowledge was primitive, they were ignorant of medicine and psychiatry. Another possible explanation is that devils roamed the earth in the first century, but they do not do so any more. In the last century, of course, it was commonly asserted that what Scripture calls “devils” were really physical or mental disorders, such as epilepsy or schizophrenia.

C.S. Lewis, whose book, The Screwtape Letters, is in many ways the best modern introduction to the demonic, has the devil himself say that his most effective weapon is the belief that he does not exist. And this is what we have convinced ourselves in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: that the devil does not exist. If he did exist, we could measure his mass and velocity, we could analyze him, we could catalogue him as a phenomenon and capture him as a specimen.

Nevertheless, it is not scientists and physicians and psychologists who have most destroyed our belief in the existence of devils and demons. Actually, the blame must go first to the artists. If we try to conjure up in our minds an image of the devil, we are most likely to think of a hideous figure, with red skin, and horns, and bat-like wings, and a long pointed tail, carrying a pitchfork. And, of course, none of us (or very few of us) have ever seen such a being.

In fact, there is every reason to believe that the devil, far from being hideously ugly, appears most often as beautiful. After all, the devil was created as an angel, as Lucifer, the bearer of light. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if evil presented always presented itself to us in all its grotesquery? The trouble is not that evil, when we first encounter it, is ugly, but that it is beautiful: that, after all, is why it tempts us.

Evil is not only real, it is personal, and it is powerful. And it is insidious; it catches us when we are off-guard and unprepared to resist. And how better than to keep us off-guard and unprepared than to foster the notion that there is nothing to be on guard against?

Jesus says that there are devils abroad in the world. In his earthly ministry, he confronted them again and again. He cast them out, and, as he says, he gave power to his disciples to cast them out. Who are we to deny that they exist?

In the Epistle, Saint Paul likewise speaks in an old fashioned way. He admonishes the first century Ephesians (and, therefore, us as well) to live virtuously. It is as if he had never heard that there is no such thing as good-and-bad, black-and-white, that there are only shades of grey. It is as if he had never heard that what is important is to be authentic, to do one’s own thing, to exercise one’s right to choose.

What Saint Paul tells the Ephesians in this week’s epistle lesson echoes what he told the Colossians in the lesson read last Sunday and the Corinthians in the lesson read two Sundays ago. It is a major theme of Saint Paul’s epistles, and also of the epistles written by the other Apostles.

The television preacher Gene Scott died last week, and in its obituary the Times found some good things to say about him. According to the Times, Dr. Scott did not tell his followers how to behave, he left decisions about what was right and wrong up to them. Nobody could ever have written such a thing about Saint Paul: he most assuredly told his followers (and, in his epistles continues to tell us) that there are right and wrong ways to live, and that Christians must live the right way.

Christians are meant to be saints (holy people), consecrated to God. As such, we must live saintly lives; because God has called us to holiness. We must avoid all forms of evil and unclean behavior. Specifically, Saint Paul warns against sexual immorality, covetousness, theft, fraud, idolatry, blasphemy, dishonesty, anger, and hatred.

It is no longer fashionable, even in some segments of the wider Christian community, to talk about sin. After all, the very idea that some things are forbidden is a limitation upon human freedom. Even conduct which has been universally regarded as despicable may be the result of a genetic predisposition. We are told that God loves us just the way we are, and that nothing is altogether wrong except intolerance and judgmentalism.

But that is a corruption of the Christian message. We know that if we lament our sins and acknowledge our wretchedness, we may obtain from a merciful God perfect remission and forgiveness. How can we seek forgiveness if we do not acknowledge our sins? How can we aspire to live a life of holiness, if we cannot recognize that some ways of living are unholy? Remember that Jesus, dismissing the woman taken in adultery, said to her, “Go, and sin no more.”

In our Lenten journey, we are going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man was betrayed, and tortured, and crucified, although he had done nothing wrong. Jesus died on the cross because of sin: not because of his sins, because he had committed none, but because of our sins. To deny the possibility of sin, or to deny the reality of sin, would be to say that Jesus suffered and died in vain.

We are going up to Jerusalem to watch him pay the price of our transgressions, and so to mourn for them, because of the pain they caused him. But we are also going up to Jerusalem to see him rise again on the third day, and so to be assured of the possibility of forgiveness. Even during our Lenten journey, we are Easter people, because, having been baptized into his death, we are alive in him whose life is in God. It is to us as Easter people that Saint Paul commends the life of holiness.

Jesus’s parable, toward the end of today’s Gospel, neatly ties together the themes of the lessons. A person from whom an unclean spirit has been cast out is like a house after a spring cleaning. The soul is swept out and spruced up, but it is empty. And unless it is filled with something else, the unclean spirit and seven of its closest friends will move right back in. It is not enough that the devil be cast out of our lives, it is necessary that we fill the vacancy with the virtues, with faith, and hope, and charity.

Lent is a time of spiritual cleaning up. The word “Lent” is itself an old fashioned word for springtime. And Lent is set aside for the spring cleaning of our souls. But if we keep Lent well, we will also cultivate virtue. It is not enough that we cast away the works of darkness; we must also put upon us the armor of light.

But Jesus also warns us not to trust in our own strength. A strong man armed can guard his house, but only until a stronger man, better armed, comes along. We are not strong enough or well enough armed to resist the devil by our own power. That is why we must rely, not on our own strength, but on him who casts out devils by the finger of God.

As the psalmist says:

Now know I that the Lord helpeth his anointed and will hear him from his holy heaven,

Even with the wholesome strength of his right hand.

Some put their trusts in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God.

They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.

Save, Lord; and hear us, O King of heaven, when we call upon thee.

Church of Saint Mary Magdalene

Orange, California

27 February 2005

Return to list of the deacon’s homilies

.