Sermon for August 29 Demons and Sin
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Did I ever tell you about the time I saw the devil on the subway in New York City?
My daughter and son-in-law used to live in NYC.. and I used to go there to visit them.
One day, I was sitting in one of those sub-way cars .... enjoying people-watching.
The doors slid open at the Times Square station
and a group of people entered the car.
Among them was the devil… dressed in a shiny, red, full-body suit,
tail swinging from behind and horns sticking out of the top of his head.
He took a seat on the bench across from me
and looked vacantly into space, as people do on the City Subways.
Other passengers sat down next to him. No one noticed.
The guy next to me continued reading his newspaper.
The woman who was standing and holding the overhead bar,
was reading the advertisements above the windows.
I seemed to be the only person who noticed
that the devil was riding on the subway.
Well… I guess in New York City, you can see almost anything.
He traveled with us for 5 or six stops,
and then left the subway car as quietly as he arrived.
Well… that got me to thinking. Who is the devil? Is he a personal character ....
or is he a personification of evil?
Does he or she ordinarily travel by subway?
Do we need to protect ourselves?
Do some people have trouble seeing the devil?
There is an old, old story about Satan and God’s fallen angels.
It is a story that tries to answer that question:
“Where does evil come from?” Do you remember that story?
Before God made Heaven and the Earth and all life on earth.
God made the angels...archangels, cherubim, seraphim,
and lots of other kinds of angels in heaven.
Some names of the most famous angles are:
Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Uriel and Satan or Lucifer.
Early Christians connected the name of Satan with the name of Lucifer.
Archangel Lucifer was so beautiful that the other Angels called him
the Son of the Morning. The name Lucifer means, “light-bearer”.
Lucifer was proud and wanted to take God’s place in heaven.
Lucifer recruited 1/3rd of heaven’s angels to join in a rebellion to depose God.
God responded by calling the Archangel Michael to lead a great army.
There was a great and fierce battle in Heaven.
And, eventually, God’s army, led by Michael won.
They drove Lucifer and all his bad angels out of Heaven.
They were driven to Hell or earth, I’m not clear which.
It’s an Interesting story… but it’s all made up.
Lucifer is a figment of somebody’s very inventive imagination.
This story does NOT occur in the Bible
although similar stories do occur in ancient Persia.
and the story of Lucifer sounds a lot like the reading that we
heard from the Book of Revelation.....
but that story is about the end of time...
and the apocryphal story of Lucifer takes place before creation!
The name “Lucifer” occurs once in the King James Version of the Bible
where it is mistranslated as the name of the King of Babylon.
The word LUCIFER does not occur anywhere in modern Bibles.
BUT .... WE WOULD BE MISTAKEN TO CONCLUDE THAT SATAN IS NOT REAL.
He may or may not dress in a red suit.
Some people understand Satan to be an individual person.
Others understand him to be a personification of the power of evil in our world.
That’s my preference.
But... make no mistake... the power of evil in our world is fierce and dangerous.
A hallmark of evil is that it blinds us. It is a very effective tactic.
When we are blind... we do not see the need of our neighbors
we do not share our wealth, visit the sick and imprisoned,
or otherwise act as the people of Christ.
We don’t feel guilty.
We don’t strive to do better.... because we do not see that anything is wrong.
We have been blinded.
Jesus said.... I came to open the eyes of the blind.
He was not talking about trying to heal every blind person on earth...
he was talking about healing the souls of you and me....
who in our selfishness, are gladly blinded so we don’t have to the hard work of loving.
A signal, modern example of this kind of blindess was seen by all of us
when Tiger woods admitted his unfaithfulness to his wife.
He said, “I did not think the rules applied to me.”
Well, you can be sure that you won’t meet Lucifer on the subway. He’s a hoax.
But.. the Devil… on the subway? That’s a real possibility.
The devil will turn up .... usually ... where you least expect him.
We certainly do need to protect ourselves.
The forces of evil are formidable and dangerous.
We protect ourselves by growing deeper in our faith...
and therefore closer to God. And we protect ourselves by prayer.
The devil’s first line of engagement with us is to blind us.
Engage in every form of spiritual and psychological growth...
for the purpose of maturity is to open our eyes...
to learn to look fearlessly and truthfully at ourselves..
Any smidgen of hiding is evidence of lingering blindness.
Redemption is a process... a process of seeing ... of opening our eyes to the truth.
Do not let yourselves be sidetracked and delayed. AMEN.
