"Everyone Deals With Demons"


Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – February 10, 2013

Centenary United Methodist Church

Exodus 32:19-25; Luke 9:37-43

 

    Our Scripture lesson this morning concerns the well-known story of the young boy that had epilepsy.  Try to imagine living in a day when there was no way to understand what was happening to someone experiencing seizures.  In those days, people interpreted many abnormal events and behaviors as though victims of such experiences were cursed by the gods or possessed by demons.   

    In the 21st century, having demons is a common reference to describe troublesome life-issues.  All of us have to deal with them because we all have them.   If we scan our lives and self-diagnose what life-issues bother us the most, we will find that our demons cover a wide range of circumstances. 

    For example, the longest steel constructed bridge in the world is near our home in Bowie, Maryland.  The span continues for 4.35 miles as it crosses the Chesapeake Bay.  Some people are so terrified of crossing the Bay Bridge that they pay someone to drive their car to the other side.  People will not face this demon in order to conquer it. 

    Just as our fears can grow to enormous size by our constantly feeding them, so can a host of other demons that have no relation to our fears.  Habits grow in people that enjoy comfort foods, playing video games, love gossiping, fault-finding, betting on sporting events, being competitive at the office and doing everything possibly to look young and fit.  A number of these activities and attitudes may be part of our daily lives, but when they become excessive, people often refer to them as one of my demons.

    Some years ago the television program 60-Minutes devoted a segment to what is happening in the world of plastic surgery. For a number of people, having cosmetic surgical procedures has grown into an addiction.  

    60-Minutes interviewed one couple with three children.  The wife was stunningly attractive.  Her attitude was, “I think people should do everything possible to help them feel better about themselves.”  The husband’s position was that she has never been satisfied with the results of her surgery. Since their marriage, the couple has spent over $275,000 on cosmetic procedures.  When we feed our demons with thoughts and feelings, we energize their growth.  Some demons grow so large they are called obsessive-compulsive disorder.

    People have wrestled with their demons since the beginning of recorded history.  The Exodus passage was selected as one of our lessons this morning because it demonstrated a demon which Moses had to deal with repeatedly for most of his adult life.  When he became disappointed with the behavior of others, his anger had few boundaries. 

    Following the story line in the Book of Exodus, we learn that God had already given Moses the Ten Commandments.  As Moses was returning to the Hebrew encampment, he saw a golden bull that had been fashioned by his goldsmith brother, Aaron.  The bull was a god the Hebrews knew from their days in Egypt.  

    Moses became so furious that he smashed the tablets by throwing them to the ground. He had the golden bull burned and ground up into fine powder.  Moses poured the powder into the drinking water and forced the Hebrews to drink it. (Exodus 32:19-20) That was not enough to soften Moses’ anger.

    Moses angrily exclaimed, “Everyone who is on the Lord’s side come and stand by me.”  Then Moses told those that had huddled around him, “The Lord God of Israel commands every one of you to put on your swords and go through the camp from this gate to the other gate and kill your brothers, your friends and your neighbors.”  They obeyed and three thousand men were slaughtered that day. (Exodus 32:27f)  When a person has power, unbridled anger can become a venomous demon that poisons their spirit for a long time.

    King David had demons.  David fell in love with Bathsheba, who was the wife of his best military general, Uriah, the Hittite.  Though having ten wives and ten concubines, David’s demon reared its head.  David had Uriah killed and took Bathsheba to be his wife. (II Samuel 11:15)  Very few people are spared from having to deal with their demons.

    As we return to our lesson, Luke describes an abrupt outburst of frustration from Jesus.  One wonders what happened to his lessons of love thy neighbor, forgive 70 times 7, and to turn the other cheek.  Without any obvious provocation, Jesus exclaimed, “How unbelieving and wrong you people are!  How long must I stay with you?  How long do I have to put up with you?” (Luke 9:41)     

    We can hardly imagine what evoked such an outburst.  Try to empathize how this father felt after being scolded by Jesus. He had no idea what he did or said.  This father said, “I begged your disciples to drive out my son’s demon but they could not do it.” 

    For some time, Jesus knew that people were not coming to him to learn how to transform their lives.  They were coming to experience or witness healing and that was not Jesus’ purpose!  Few people cared about his message.  This outburst may have resulted from years of feeding his frustration.  Even his dearest friends, Mary and Martha, both said at different times, “Master, had you only been here my brother would not have died.” (John 11:21)  Jesus had had enough! 

    We have to remember that Jesus, Peter, James and John had just come down from the summit of Mount Horeb, where the three disciples had a theology-shattering experience.  This mountain is known to us as The Mount of Transfiguration.

    What the four men experienced was life-transforming.  Peter, James and John witnessed Jesus talking to Elijah and Moses, two individuals that had lived centuries before and were now standing in front of him.  Think of the implications of this experience.  People do not have to hold any unique or particular beliefs about anything for eternal life to be part of their ongoing evolution of spirit.

    Jesus wanted to tell the world what the purpose is of the earth experience, but people continued to come to him for their own personal needs.  None of them understood his teaching that people could live in the Kingdom of God while they were still alive in this world.  He wanted his listeners to realize that this life is only the classroom where perfecting skills of spirit can take place.

    Jesus had to struggle to let go of his frustration.  Healing was like skim milk compared to the steak he wanted to give to them.  Jesus knew that all healing was temporary because death ends the physical experience for everyone. 

    His message was so revolutionary, that no one understood it. For centuries, the beliefs of the Jews were grounded in their obedience to the Laws of Moses.  This is why Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You are a great teacher in Israel and yet you do not understand what I am telling you?”  (John 3:10)   Toward the end of his ministry, Jesus gave up trying to teach what his followers simply could not grasp. He said to his disciples, “I have so much more that I would like to tell you, but right now it is too difficult for you to understand.”  (John 16:12)

    If we wanted to identify with Jesus’ frustration, try to imagine coming upon a group of blind people that had gone for a swim at Horseshoe Bay. Suddenly, out of nowhere, powerful rogue waves started to pound their bodies as riptides were tearing at their feet.  Sensing their imminent danger, people began screaming at them to swim toward the shore.  The winds, however, carried their voices in all directions.  The panicky group became so disoriented that they began to swim in all directions, most of them swam away from the shore, struggled mightily and drowned.    

This urgency to save people from drowning in their life-experiences is what fed Jesus’ demon of frustration.  What caused his message eventually to seep into the consciousness of the disciples was another experience like the one encountered by Peter, James and John on Mount Horeb.  It was their hands-on experience of Jesus after he had been killed on the cross that turned the tide on their understanding. 

    As we have discussed before, once people have an extraordinary spiritual encounter like the Apostle Paul experienced on the road to Damascus or like witnessing the appearance of Jesus after his death, they are never the same.  The next dimension of reality becomes so clear to them that their demons begin to lose their power.

    Can we learn something from our demons?  Yes, we can.  They have a purpose in the created order.  All demons are a teaching device.  They teach us how attached we are to this world and how unattached we are becoming to our ability to trust God. 

    We are all spirit-beings and our demons pinpoint the areas of our lives that we have energized and elevated above our trust in God’s presence.  Think about it.  For example, think about the demon of worry.  What has worrying ever done to enhance our lives?  The more we feed our worries, the more powerful they become.  They can flood our consciousness with thoughts that are useless.  In fact, they attack even the little trust in God that we still have left.

    Think about the demon a few young people begin to feed when they are young teenagers. A steady diet of thoughts like, “I have no friends,” “I am unattractive,” “I am not loved by my parents,” “I will never amount to anything” can grow to a point where the demon will receive its own label -- clinical depression.  What we feed grows.

    The story of Joseph in the Book of Genesis has the answer for confronting all our demons.  Joseph lived what Jesus taught.  The root thought that nurtured and protected Joseph throughout his life was that God was with him during every experience.  (Genesis 39:21)  There is no record of Joseph ever asking God to remove or change what was happening to him.

    Think of the directions Joseph could have gone.  After listening to one of Joseph’s dreams, his father Jacob said sarcastically, “Do you honestly think that your mother, brothers and I are going to bow down to you one day?”  (Exodus 37:10)  Jacob must have walked away just shaking his head.

    All kinds of demons circled around Joseph, but he fed none of them.  He was sold into slavery.  He was falsely accused of trying to seduce his master’s wife.  He was imprisoned for years and was forgotten by the Royal Wine Steward who promised to speak to Pharaoh on his behalf. 

    The possibilities are endless of what his very active and vivid imagination could have done to him.  Instead, his possible demons never entered his consciousness.  Why?  His root thought was, “No matter what I experience, God is with me and has a purpose for my life.” (Genesis 45:5)

    If we understood this truth without a single reservation, all our demons would be understood for what they are – illusions that are trying to convince us that we are alone in our bodies and that God is powerless to be with us.  

    The awareness that God is with us will eventually come to everyone. Jesus was trying to teach his followers that they do not have to wait until they die before they begin to live as the spirit-beings that they are.  Today, our task is to pass on this truth by becoming living examples like Joseph and Jesus.