Zion Lutheran

Sermon 2/22/09

Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Uncategorized, Pastor Judy Burgett Winzig (Interim 2009) | 1 Comment »

Transfiguration Sunday

Gospel: Mark 9:2-9

Sermon 2/15/09

Friday, February 20th, 2009
Uncategorized, Sermons, Pastor Chris Hagen (Interim 2008-2009) | No Comments »

Sixth Sunday After Epiphany

Gospel: Mark 1:40-45

Ousting Demons

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Sermons, Pastor Chris Hagen (Interim 2008-2009) | No Comments »

E5-09, Feb.8, 2009

Rev. Dr. C. E. Hagen

Mark 1:29-39

[there is no audio available for this sermon]

In the movie, Changing Lanes, Ben Affleck plays an attorney   whose life becomes inextricably tied to the character played by Samuel Jackson. Both men are controlled by demons. Jackson’s character is controlled by alcoholism and chaos. Affleck’s character is controlled by the unethical values and practices of the law firm for which he works. They struggle with their demons as they try to extricate themselves from escalating violence.  On March 20^th, join us for Film and Faith series here at Zion, when we will watch Changing Lanes  and then discuss what is necessary for rage to cease and healing begin. It is another opportunity to explore this year’s Lent theme of forgiveness.

The Gospel reading for today is still in the first chapter of Mark, The Gospel is fast-paced. The first 30 years of Jesus’ life are not even mentioned. The Gospel begins with Jesus grown and starting his ministry. Jesus has already gone from the Jordan River  to the wilderness to Galilee and on to Capernaum. Last Sunday we heard about Jesus teaching and casting out unclean spirits. Today Jesus heals, casts out demons and begins his ministry of preaching. His ministry rapidly increases in intensity and power.

Everything would be nice and neat if Jesus stuck only to proclaiming good news. It would all be so tidy if Jesus just stopped at positive thinking, if Jesus just declared happy thoughts  and promised good things by and by. But he cast out demons. He changed things. He disrupted things just when everything was calming down. Nice words were not enough.

The thought of demons offends our modern sensibilities. All of a sudden we are confronted with the supernatural, ghost stories, bogey man. It might be OK for tantalizing teenagers who delight in haunts and horrors, but the rest of us have grown out of such frightening fairy tales. We live in a “real” world where we must deal with the facts of life. Not demons and devils,       but debt and job loss and cancer and crime.

Let’s get real. Demons were the way to explain calamities before we had science. We have grown out of fairy tales.

While we no longer view reality as the ancient writers of the Bible once did, nevertheless, we face demons still Modern sensibilities quickly dismiss talk of demons by calling it mental illness. There is temptation to dismiss these passages on demons by reducing it to medical terminology. Jesus healed physical ailments and cured mental illness.       So his ministry was that of teaching, preaching and healing. Important stuff, but myopic and mild. Jesus is nice and comforting and kind.

But the demons won’t rest at that. Demons in the Bible are anonymous gods. Not illnesses to be healed, but powers to be overthrown. Demons are malevolent forces which would rule and ruin our lives. Demons posses, invade a person,   enter from the outside, undermine the authority of the One God who created us. Craving another drink is the demon of alcoholics. The craving consumes them, rules their lives,  controls their behavior. It is a demon that has usurped God’s reign over their lives.  Demons hold out no future but ruin. Demons are the agents of all manner of ills, causing disruption, affliction, chaos and, finally, destruction.

Do not call demons “mental illness.”  Demons infect far more than the minds of a few. In the movie, Changing Lanes, one of the protagonists is an alcoholic. But there is another demon inflicting carnage as well. It is the demon that has corrupted the value system of a law firm. The attorney in the movie has been corrupted by a moral environment that would cheat and deceive in order to win.

There are demons that poison a work environment’s culture and thereby infect all who work in that environment. The people are not necessarily bad or evil, but they are caught up in harmful activities shaped by corrupted culture. The law firm in the movie is really no different from street gangs. Both suffer from a value system polluted with demons.

A common value system in Christian congregations    is that everyone is nice to each other. We are a welcoming church and so we are always nice. The everyday world can be so mean-spirited and cutthroat  that we seek Sunday refuge. So we come to church where we can escape all that and for a few minutes be among people who are nice. I sincerely hope we all are nice to each other. But a value system founded on being nice is vulnerable to that which is not so nice. If all we are is a community of people being nice, we have to ignore those elements that are not nice, and end up tolerating the unseemly, the hurtful, the wrong. If our foremost value as a congregation is being nice, we can even end up perpetuating wrong doing. Or, a congregation that values being nice can face that which is not nice, contain the danger, correct the wrong, and redeem those harmed. An intense and intentional process of redemption can be practiced.

Jesus healed illnesses and said nice things to make people feel better. There is that. But Jesus also cast out demons.   Jesus confronted those forces that disrupt and destroy. Jesus was not always nice. Expelling demons is facing what has gone wrong and bringing to bear a different attitude and behavior. It is painful. Why can’t we all just forgive and forget? Because the demons remain.

Casting out demons means changing circumstances and situations. It means repentance. It means turning to a different god,  to the Lord of all lesser gods, turning to the One God who created us and still reigns over us. It is changing under whose authority we shall live. It is bringing to bear a different set of rules and laws and procedures. It is claiming a different perspective of right and wrong. It is creating a different  environment, creating a world of justice, right, and goodness.

Casting out demons  is the law part of the law and gospel Lutherans proclaim. It is stating that the ways of Jesus Christ shall now prevail, that someone else’s priorities no longer hold, that another set of values and rules no longer rule, that some other way of doing things is now over. Jesus now reigns and rules.

Demons are ousted when God’s rules are brought to bear. Casting out demons means bringing order  through God’s laws, protecting God’s people and God’s creation, ending injustice and mistreatment.

The forces of this world,  the circumstances and challenges in which we find ourselves, the deviant values of the environments in which we move, shall not prevail. The kingdom of God now rules. God’s ways are obeyed. Jesus not only brings comfort, but changes the way things work.

The prophet Isaiah writes in chapter 40 (verses 21-23),

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning?

It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers…

who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent for dwelling, who brings princes to naught,

and makes rulers of the earth as nothing.

These princes and rulers of the earth are not mere political leaders of nations, but the very demonic forces that disrupt and destroy.

The Lord God Almighty sits above the earth, and we-and demons, too-appear as mere grasshoppers before God. Pretense and puffed powers pale before the Lord.  Those demonic rulers who would afflict and disrupt are brought to nothing. Those princes of past abuses who would control our present have their hold on us abolished.

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth …

He gives power to faint, and strengthens the powerless …

those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,

they shall rise up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint (Is. 40:28-31).

Ousting demons is not a matter of proper procedures or personal commitment. Ousting demons is not a matter of organizational redirection. Ousting demons is looking to the kingdom of God to rule, turning to Jesus to lead, anticipating a different world.

Be careful to note that demons are not people.People are possessed by demons. People have their lives controlled by forces beyond them. People are puppets to addictions and conditioned behaviors and environmental circumstances. But people are not demons.

Ousting demons is restoring people to life-giving, gracious living, loving grace that God created the way things to be. Ousting demons is reclaiming people  from past circumstances that have a stranglehold on present living. Ousting demons is nothing less than redeeming lives through mercy, forgiveness and second chances that come through Jesus Christ.

You all have a nice church here. The Lord has done wondrous things through you in bringing about Zion Lutheran Church. The Lord is generous to provide so much to Zion, so many people, so much ministry activity, so much resources and talents in one congregation. This is a nice place to come to escape a mean-spirited, survival-of-the-fittest-world. This church as sanctuary is a gift from God.

Yet it is not all that God is doing with us. The Lord is calling Zion to be a church that ousts demons. We are a people who cast out demons and restore goodness. We are a community in Christ that does not tolerate disruption, affliction, chaos or destruction. We are the very presence and power of Christ that confronts those forces that disrupt and destroy.

Sometimes we are not always nice,   not when something is seriously amiss among us. Expelling demons is facing what has gone wrong and bringing to bear a different outcome. It is refusing to accept the way things are  in order to maintain a semblance of “nice and polite.”Ousting demons is redemption in the raw. It is reclaiming for God what has gone wrong.    It is restoring people to healthy, helpful community. It is reorienting oneself and others to God’s ways and God’s reign.

Do not be satisfied with a church that is only nice. Do not settle for religion that sugarcoats reality. Do not let faith be lip-service to noble ideals.

Declare good news. Heal the sick. And cast out demons.

Amen.

Sermon 2/1/09

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
Sermons, Pastor Judy Burgett Winzig (Interim 2009) | No Comments »

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany February 1, 2009

Gospel: Mark 1:21-28