There’s a cute little cartoon floating around the internet these days. It shows a “typical” mom and dad and their – maybe 9 year-old-son exiting church on a sunny Sunday morning. Congregational crowds are behind the threesome and the “typical” pastor is shaking hands at the church door. The little boy is looking up at his parents and saying “Just when were you planning to tell me about hell?”
The cartoon struck a chord with me because of its truth. We spend a lot of time around here emphasizing the graciousness of God, the unconditional love of Christ, and the inclusiveness of the Holy Spirit and conversely we do not say very much about Satan, demons, or Beelzebub. If you’re anything like me you squirm a little when you hear scriptural language like today’s Gospel lesson and say to yourself – quaint, archaic language.
I think about this every time we have a baptism as we did two weeks ago on Pentecost when we baptized Cody Bilbeau and his parents and sponsors spoke their renunciation of “Satan and the all evil powers of this world (BCP. P. 302).”
Certainly Jesus takes seriously the realities of Satan and other demonic powers, including Beelzebub, whose name means “lord of the flies.” Jesus – living on earth when he did – may have believed that a personality named Satan actually existed, but you and I probably don’t. Yet we should look for the reality signified by the name “Satan.” Satan does not necessarily mean a personality with horns and a red tail, but it does name a demonic power that is actively engaged against the compassionate and reconciling love of God. This is the reality that Jesus names here, and whether we believe in a being named “Satan” is not as important as hearing about our captivity to the powers of evil signified by “Satan,” powers that continue to seek our allegiance.
Stated in this way, the reality of Satan and Beelzebub become disturbingly clear. They name the forces and configurations of power that capture us and cause us to hurt ourselves, to hurt others, and to hurt God. To name a few of these, there is the power of race, which tells us to believe that one group is superior to another simply because of skin color or cultural heritage. There is the power of patriarchy which tells us that men should dominate women. There is the power of materialism, which roars at us that money gives us life, and the power of militarism – the belief that weapons and war bring us peace and security – that causes us to kill one another, often in the name of God. And there is the power of addiction that tells me that my particular drug of choice will bring me escape.
In December of last year Heather Cook, suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit and possibly texting, at 2:30 in the afternoon, struck bicyclist Thomas Palermo, a 41-year old husband and father of two, near Baltimore, and killed him with her automobile. Miss Cook, who at the request of the Maryland diocese resigned her position, has been stripped of her Holy Orders by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jeffers Schori, has been charged with more than a dozen charges including manslaughter for the hit-and run accident, is out on bail awaiting trial which last week was postponed until September. She has undergone resident addition treatment.
Now the diocese has appointed a new assistant bishop, The Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, retired bishop of the Diocese of Maine, herself a recovering alcoholic. Bishop Knudsen has made addiction counseling a key part of her ministry.
I am finding that there are lessons for me personally and for St. Stephen’s in this sadder than words can convey story of “Satan and all the forces of wickedness.”
Bishop Knudsen says “social drinking is a part of the culture
we live in. And for some of us,” (read ‘in the Episcopal Church’) circumstances lead us to do a little more social drinking and a little more social drinking, and a little more social drinking until the alcoholism is triggered. Tell me the last time you attended a social event at St. Stephen’s when alcohol was not available?
The Episcopal Church is actively looking at its policies about alcohol use, policies adopted in the 1980’s. You can be sure this topic will be front and center at this summer’s General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City in late June. Pastor Willie, who is first clergy alternate deputy and will be attending the convention proceedings, promises to give us a report in the fall when she returns from her sabbatical leave, and we will be offering an adult education session here about General Convention in a couple of weeks.
You and I are wise enough to know that this is not a clergy-only issue, and we are wise enough to know that hidden and denied alcoholism is nowhere near the only “evil” we are battling.
In the verses in Mark’s Gospel we heard this morning Jesus indicates the power of these demonic forces must be recognized and confronted in our lives if we are to experience the gracious and stunning love of God. He uses the metaphor of tying up the strong man in order to plunder his property. In using this parable, he speaks of the need of the gospel to expose our captivity to the “strong men” in our lives. In doing so he seeks to free up our imaginations, which have become the property of Satan. Our captivity to Satan must be exposed in order for us to begin to discover the glorious freedom of the children of God (as Paul puts it so powerfully in Romans 8:21).
We began today’s Mass with a prayer which called us to think those things that are right, and by God’s merciful guiding inspiration, do them. I can only add my assurance that I am confident that we will each and as a church family be there for each other as each of us finds the courage and the patience and the wisdom to face and confront the truth of our own demons. Amen.