Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
February 1, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Jesus did exorcisms. That seems quite clear from the Gospel record. Time and again Jesus encountered people who, in the understanding of the time, were possessed by demons, and he drove them out of the possessed person. Now, many of us modern people, or post-modern people, or whatever we are, have a good deal of trouble believing these stories. I’ve got a story about that that I want to tell you. Sermons are supposed to have stories, right? Well, this one has the virtue of being true.

Most of us know the hymn “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry.” I’m not using it this morning because it makes everybody cry, because I used it in our renewal of baptismal vows ritual just a couple of weeks ago, and because, at the request of the family, we are singing it during the memorial service we’re doing this afternoon. That hymn, which we’re not singing this morning, has the line in it: “I’ll be there in case you wander off and find where demons dwell.” Once, years ago, my daughter Mary was with me at a worship service where we sang that hymn. Afterwards she said to me: “Where demons dwell!? What nonsense! I don’t believe in demons!” A lot of us don’t believe in demons, not literally anyway.

Yet I had a different reaction when my daughter scoffed at that line from the hymn and said she didn’t believe in demons. I said to her: “Mary, I’ve been where demons dwell, and so have you.” She thought about that for a moment. Then she got it. “Oh, yeah,” she said. She remembered the hard times, the emotional struggles, the fears she had experienced even at that rather early time of her life. She got it that we all go where demons dwell at times. Not literal demons in the sense of evil spirits entering us from outside and possessing us perhaps, but demons nonetheless. We all have fears. We all have anxieties. We all have things that keep us awake at night, at least at times. I’m pretty sure all of us have experienced emotional pain at some time in our lives. I know many of us have lived in deep grief over the loss of a loved one. I suspect we have all lived in fear of what the future holds for us. We have all suffered self-doubt. We have all felt guilty about something or other in our lives. We all fear illness and suffering. We all fear death, or at least fear dying. These demons possess us because we are human. You may have had other demons that you’ve had to wrestle with in your life. We don’t all have the same demons. But we’ve all got demons.

That’s why all those stories about Jesus driving out demons or evil spirits from possessed people speak to me in a powerful way even though I don’t believe in literal demons. This story works for me, even though my worldview is very different from that of Mark’s first century CE audience. It works for me because I know from my own life experience that Jesus can help us deal with our non-literal demons just as in those Gospel stories he deals with literal ones. I know because I have felt it that Jesus can lift us up when we are on our knees in grief and despair. I know because I have felt it that Jesus can come to us through our fear and give us the strength and courage to do what we have to do. I know because I have felt it that Jesus can cut through our guilt and our self doubt and assure us that God loves us no matter what. To me this story and all the other Gospel stories about Jesus exorcizing demons speak that truth. Jesus can, metaphorically speaking, exorcize our demons too by coming to us in our darkest hours with an outstretched hand of grace and forgiveness, with a spirit of hope and courage that can lift us up and get us through what we must get through. I know, because I’ve been where demons dwell; and Jesus has come to me in those places and led me out of them.

Now, just so there’s no misunderstanding: I’m not being Pollyanna up here. Those of you who know me well know that I’m no starry-eyed optimist who thinks that just believing in Jesus magically solves all our problems, and I’m not going to tell you that it does The demons we face are real, and living in the place where they dwell truly can be hell on earth. Jesus comes to us in those places, but he’s no magic cure-all. He comes to us precisely in those places and helps us there. He gives us what we need to deal with the things we must deal with. He doesn’t magically make those things go away. My experience of deep grief, for example, is that Jesus’ presence in the abiding place of that particular demon makes it possible for us to survive the grief, not that his presence quickly or easily makes the grief go away.

Yet the help Jesus offers in our places where demons dwell is very real. He will come to us if we ask for him to come. That means that in those places where demons dwell prayer becomes our indispensable tool. Prayer opens our hearts to Jesus’ healing presence and lets him come in. So when times get hard, and I know that they are getting hard for some of you, turn to Jesus. Tell him about your demons. Open your heart to him. He won’t make all the troubles magically go away. That’s not how it works. He will, however, come to you and help you. He will help you live in the place where demons dwell, and he will help you find the way out. And for that we can truly give God our heartfelt thanks and praise. Amen.