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The reality of evil can almost seem surreal to us
especially in contemplating its genuine existence in our daily lives. It is
almost as if we see ourselves reading a fiction novel or watching an
interesting horror movie about good versus evil. The C.S. Lewis acclaimed novel of the ‘Screwtape
Letters,’ is just as fantastic as hearing today's Gospel text where Jesus is
literally duking it out with the devil in the wilderness! In the C.S. Lewis
novel we have the devil talking and mentoring to his favorite nephew through a
series of letters Lewis’ has us a spectator to…
Speaking of being a “spectator,” once again, the TV
networks are coming up with another glamourized series around the Devil and his
exploits in the world. Mind you I
watched maybe something like 3 minutes of it because it was typical
Hollywood. Here’s this handsome
20-something year old introducing himself jokingly or almost self-mockingly as “Lucifer…” The TV show before it, I have been watching
which is actually fascinating in concept to someone of faith… “Second Chance” is the name of the show. The show is literally about resurrection via
scientific progress that is.
In the series, “Second Chance,” a 75 year old man is
brought back to life by a group of scientists seeking to find cures for cancer
and whatnot. In the midst of their
amiable “resurrection” of this elderly former sheriff, they inadvertently assist
him to investigate his murder and pursuit of setting things right with his son
who is an FBI agent. The Hollywood
element here beyond the beautiful scientist who restores him, is that he and
his estranged son begin tackling investigating several crimes.
At the end of the day, the former “old man,” has to hop
into the “life-giving/restorative goo,” that the scientists have formulated to
keep him “going.” Kind of sounds like
the human equivalent of those plug-in ports for an electric car… Wild and amazingly inventive!
Meanwhile in the wilderness of our “junk-food-style”
culture, we have political circuses with people talking about anything and
everything except the issues of accountability and what really matters. Meanwhile yet again, a blip on the screen a
bomber uses a notebook to slip by security and blow a formidable hole in the
side of an airplane. Thanks be to God,
there wasn’t more destruction than it could’ve caused. And still, meanwhile, in an unassuming Ohio
town, a man now suspected to have terrorist roots diabolically attacked people
in a restaurant with a machete.
Do you or can you truly see the pattern here? Do you want to see the pattern? It isn’t pretty, it isn’t just a matter of
circumstance… When Evil genuinely takes the heart—that 1st church
hostage and burns away the work of God in order to do the work of the ruler of
this world—Satan… We have a real problem.
It goes beyond justifying our sins to being what a colleague wonderfully
phrased as the reality of: “We’ve lost our sense of evil.” We have lost, sensing evil. We have lost the
notion of taking it seriously and being prayerfully accountable to the daily
battle!
But perhaps we don’t want to go there… It’s too much for us to want to make the
effort in handling… We’d rather live into a greater sin and victory of evil’s
temptation in the world, that is being and becoming indifferent. Being consumed
by indifference is the opposite of Grace.
Being graceless supports socialized control, the absence of God and the
idolatry of the self. As disciples of Jesus, we have to go there, into that
worldly wilderness to truly see and realize what we must do what we are called
to do. For instance we've heard very
little about the exploits of ISIS recently and their activities in the world
for the media probably feels there's been too much said already.
The media probably feels there's been too much said or
has been pressured to not say enough because of purely political reasons when
this has nothing to do with politics and has more to do with the reality of
evil unchecked and rampant in our world. The reality of evil actively working
in one's heart to blacken, turn and hardened away not only from God but to the
victory of the Evil One's purposes in the world, which is death.
It is not only the death of the flesh or our eventual
earthly death but it is a death of the Spirit to contemplate the good and
genuinely live into the good, the gracious, the loving reality of the kingdom
of God that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gave to us! Our faith is the armor we are to hold
together and fight with!
I would love to take a census poll to know out there who
can genuinely say they have seen and experienced terrible evil... I know none
of us here have experienced anything like what we've seen or what little we
have seen accomplished by ISIS as well as with other small movements in the
world but this is interesting for us to think about none the less.
I must confess as a Lutheran person I do have great
difficulty in wrapping my mind around the concept of “tribulation” I really
don't like the word actually. I think we've been in an era of testing for quite
some time now. Where we are currently and culturally would say that our fall
from grace has become insurmountable... but never say never. Which at this
juncture brings us to prayerfully hear St. Paul’s lesson to the Romans today: “The
word is near you, on your lips and in your heart, (that is, the word of faith
that we proclaim); 9because if you confess with your lips that Jesus
is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will
be saved. 10For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and
one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”
It is ironic that today is also Valentine’s day—the day
of love and so forth. True, it is about “Eros”
love or romantic love more that the kind of love Our Lord Jesus exampled and
gave to us as a New Law—agape love.
Unconditional love that bears the fruit of a life lived in, with and
through Grace. St. Valentine in real
time history was horrifically martyred—he was beaten, beheaded and quartered
for aiding other martyrs imprisoned for their faith… I highly doubt a
historical blip on a box of Valentine’s day chocolates would do too well for
sales… but such is the reality of battlefields—spiritual warfare and actual
warfare for something prayerfully better…
The reality of living Grace—the Kingdom of God.
We all have the capacity for good and evil as well as we
all were commissioned to serve within the priesthood of all believers. This takes faith, hope and a sense of
justice. Not for the world of the self
however, it is not a consumerist “good” to exchange but it is a happy exchange
as faith naturally lived in a daily process of believing, receiving,
incorporating and sharing. This process
never ends and we are never to feel as if we’ve arrived but are always to know
that we are on a prayerful journey.
This past week I was making a prayer cross for a friend
and colleague, what was beautiful about reflecting as my fingers were busily
beading is praying for this person as I put on each bead. There was nothing to compel me to DO this but
it naturally flowed from the spirit to love my neighbor, love, extend “Philos”
Love to my friend (brotherly love in Biblical Greek). Another natural moment purely fueled once
again by the Holy Spirit working through my heart was leading an Ash Wednesday
house church service to a prayerful few.
Ash Wednesday services across the board have for a number
of years been on the decline. Not just
for one group of Christians versus the other but in general because people don’t
want to hear about the suffering of the cross of Our Lord and our inevitable
and genuine calling to pick up OURS.
Some of it is perpetuated by the established church to make us merely
feel guilt or shame. The truth to be told,
however, is that the time of Lent is so much more hopeful and prayerful than
anyone could ever imagine!
When you come to think about it actually, today’s Gospel
text comes literally after Jesus’ Baptism by John or technically His ordination
into the role He knew He had to take for the sake of the world. Literally after drying off from the Jordan’s
waters, Jesus journeyed into that wilderness…
Satan, in our “hard-to-imagine” minds, came boldly up to Jesus and kept
tempting Him over and over. Would Jesus
break & use His Divine powers for me?
How weak is Jesus? Is He up for
my testing? Jesus obviously shut the
devil down in every instance…
Now take in for a moment, or what we must remember as a
powerful historical note—Luke was a companion of St. Paul, composing the Gospel
and the Book of Acts inspired and instructed by the Holy Spirit to testimony to
something he himself did not see with his own eyes in some instances… but saw
with the eyes of his heart shaped by Grace through faith!
As a culture or society that now prides itself or centers
around the self in thinking that it is intellectually superior and politically
in control of “ethics” or rightness… How
could we understand the reality of good and evil if we assume we are in control
or have perfected being and doing “good?” Good is understood here as a
self-righteous, socialized justice that elevates the self and diminishes the
reality of the gift of Christ Jesus and the magnitude of His reality of Grace
imparted to the world.
In saying that, have we really “progressed?” Can we really use the term “liberated?” If
love is purely the tool of agenda, propaganda for “the church” and progress is
merely the fruit of a life lived out for the self and its preservation alone… I
say NO! We are living into Satan’s hands, a victory to his reality’s success in
the world… Well, hey if we can now come up with glorified Hollywood TV series
with a handsome 20-something year old playing the good-guy version of the devil….
That’s scary!
I’ll leave you with one last story that I can only
carefully share of evil, evil I genuinely experienced. Every time I would journey down to that
place, I used to jokingly play the Grateful Dead’s hit” “Friend of the Devil…”
on my phone’s MP3 library. That place
which is all I will reveal in calling it, I felt Evil, plain and simple. The evil became so toxic that after a while I
couldn’t take it anymore I left it for good going somewhere else… thanks Be to
God!
Not too much longer after I left “that place,” a young
man there, fell prey to that place’s toxic imprint and killed himself. A week or two ago, I received an email from
someone who is still attached to that place.
The email was a call to prayer for a horrific event that took place through
the hands of another person effected by that place—they murdered their family
and killed themselves!
This is the grisly and gory TRUTH of Satan’s work in the
world when the heart is turned lose into a wilderness it cannot escape nor
wants to escape from. A wilderness of darkness,
all things negative, graceless and bereft of hope! How awful! The ashes of a
life destroyed by evil, there is something so much more to live for! His name is Jesus Christ! Our Lord and Savior—something to truly live
for and die for. In order for us to live
for Christ, love is the most powerful tool the Gospel gives us to use against
evil.
This love is a selfless, liberating love that aspires to
be given unconditionally and beautifully not only back to Our Loving and
Gracious Father in Heaven but to all our neighbors without politics, agendas,
strings attached and soul-crushing restraints upon a spirit we have yet to
fully understand! If we cannot own up to the truth of the battle; than we fail
the gospel and are aspects of the Evil One’s victory in the world.
Lent is supposed to be a time of reflection, going over
those lessons taught from the Heart and Cross of Jesus to rebuild us, transform
us into the children of Grace and Promise we were born to be and become! Amen
February 14th,
2016; First Sunday in Lent; Year C; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM
Psalm 91:1-13;
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
A video from this morning's delivery at the Grace Hub Lutheran Orthodox Church's house service at 8am: https://youtu.be/P8xTLakecn4
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