I remember a youth retreat I went on once led by Lutheran pastors. It was all about satanic worship and the threat it posed on our young faith. They scared me. More than ghost stories, they talked about supernatural encounters with possessed people, devil worship, and cultic practices. This was in the mid 1980's and these pastors had lived through the 70's. Satanic cults and black magic were perceived spiritual threats to people and churches, especially as young people tended to explore and dabble in the occult. We listened to evil rock music, even playing some records in reverse to hear the subliminal cultic messages brainwashing our impressionable minds. I actually wrote a research paper on the occult at some point in my academic life, largely because of the impact this one retreat had on me. We were taught that there were religious rituals and practices that were opposed to the powers of God, that threatened the faithful. I was taught to be afraid and to identify signs of cult participation or cultic behaviors. For rural white middle class folk, satanic cults were real threats. They were to us what gangs were to urban society.
Except that I never met anyone who dabbled in the occult, practiced witchcraft or worshiped satan.
We were taught to identify and avoid evil intent and demonic activity. Since I never encountered it as a youth, I wrote off that retreat as a bunch of Hollywood hype.
But then I read the gospels and I see Jesus confront unclean spirits, demons, and the Satan himself in a 40-day biblical showdown in the harsh desert. Jesus' ministry involved engagement with malicious powers that violently tormented people. He cast out demons, amazing people with his power.
In one such story, from the gospel of Luke chapter 11, Jesus confronts and casts out a demon that made a man mute. When he did this, the man spoke. Others in the community began to suggest that Jesus used demonic powers (the powers of Beelzebul) to cast out the unclean spirit from the man. Jesus says: "Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?--for you say that I cast out the demons by Beelzebul. Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his castle, his property is safe. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his plunder. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters."
Jesus is doing battle with a force, a power, that has taken control of the world. This is an apocalyptic worldview, suggesting that a great battle between good and evil is being waged on earth. Jesus has come to attack the strong man (Satan) and overpower him with the power of God.
I wonder aboutthe work of Satan. What is it like? What power does Satan wield and how is it manifested? This exorcism freed a man to speak. What are the forces at work in the world that prevent people from speaking up for themselves? What kind of oppression exists that silences men?
Was he told to shut up and work? Shut up and pay? Shut up and sit down? Living under Roman oppression as a Jew, was he threatened? Was he afraid to speak up for himself or others in his community, living under the constant threat of violent subordination? This man's power had been take away from him. Until Jesus gave it back to him. This was not a magic trick. This was empowerment! And notice that others in the community wanted to oppose what Jesus did. Did they also fear the risk of free speech? Were they more concerned to keep the peace, than fight for justice? Dr. King says, "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty of the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
As a Pastor in the trenches, serving my local community in Akron, Pennsylvania, I see Demonic possession every day. Addiction is demonic possession. Child abuse is demonic oppression. Mass incarceration and the voluntary slavery of those forced to work long hours for pauper's wages is demonic possession. Loss of dignity, loss of hope, loss of a will to live are all symptoms of the power of demonic possession over human life. We don't have to look hard to see how pain affects people. Possession is real. It demands our fullest attention. Calling something demonic was, in Jesus' day, and in ours, an excuse to avoid human contact. It was a way of dismissing the other, of demonizing difference. I do not intend to suggest that here. Quite the opposite. When one sees Jesus at work, he desires for people to be free from the things that are preventing them from living a whole human life. When he talks about the Kingdom of God or eternal life, he talks about life as God intends. He talks about the way things ought to be. He talks about justice, all being set right by God for the creation.
Demonic possession happens. We can stand by and watch it. We can judge it and the people that are being destroyed by it. We can avoid it, ignore it, institutionalize it away. Or we can go with Jesus and seek to set people free from it. Give people the power to identify their enemy and hand it over to the one who has power to defeat it. How do we do this? Have faith.
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