Dear Friends,
In the readings of the previous two weekends, we heard Scriptural stories of God calling people to follow, to listen, to act in new ways. This week, no more stories of call. This week, instead, we find the challenge to everyone called. The name of that challenge is the demon.
The historian Adolf Harnack once noted that “at the time of Jesus, the whole world was thought to be filled with demons. Every phase and form of life was ruled by these evil spirits.”
Archeologists have found evidence of how extensive belief in demons really was in the world of biblical times. Ancient cemeteries contained remains of human skulls which had been trepanned. Trepanning is a process by which a small hole was drilled through the human skull. Its only purpose was to provide an escape mechanism for the demons what were believed to live in human beings. The willingness of primitive surgeons to bore such holes, and the willingness of people to accept such surgery leads later generations to conclude that belief in demons was intensely real.
Our own society is divided about demons. Stephen King novels, films about the occult underscore our culture’s curious fascination with the demonic. On the other hand, some fundamentalist groups place a great deal of emphasis on exorcising demons in their newly converted members. People sometimes have their homes exorcised of demonic spirits. Still others would consider the subject a tribute to unenlightenment.
Yet, if the truth be known, you and I experience the demonic in life. Anything that seeks to harm, destroy or obsess us, to overwhelm our peace of mind, our families, our relationships are manifestations of the demonic. The forces that possess groups of people, incapacitate them, distort their humanity are demonic.
One day, early in his public ministry, Mark tells us that Jesus came face-to-face with a man taken captive by a force outside human control. The demon was clever. He made the man cry out “Jesus, You are the Holy One of God.” But Jesus would not accept this seemingly positive acclamation from the demon. While the words said one thing, the demon was bent on the destruction of the man and the destruction of Jesus.
“Be quiet,” Jesus said. “Come out of the man.” The demon convulsed the man violently before leaving, but the important thing is this: he left.
The only authority Jesus had came from his Father, his loving heart and welcoming ways. He offered people alternatives to the destructiveness they experienced. Life could be different.
Today, we have a share in the authority of Christ. It’s up to us to confront the readiness to do violence, the need to possess more and more, the need to give in to disordered appetites. We are called to see beyond the demonic that distort and destroy people who suffer the ravages of demonic power.
Today’s reading from Genesis reminds us that, surely in life, good will be in conflict with evil, but just ask surely, God is with us as we face the demonic. Demons have never overcome our God.
~ Sister Joan Sobala
