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June 7, 2009 1 Peter 5:8-9; Luke 2:8-14 Angels and DemonsPastor Caroline Children naturally ask a lot of questions. What makes it snow? Where do the stars come from? Did dinosaurs eat people? Why aren’t dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? Are we there yet? Maybe because we’re tired out from answering the questions our children and grandchildren ask… or because we’ve learned to live with uncertainty… we tend not to ask as many questions when we “grow up.” Some of us have even come from traditions that discourage questions and questioning. Yet, asking questions is part of the biblical tradition and Christian way of life. As Rob Bell writes in Velvet Elvis,“A Christian doesn’t avoid the questions; a Christian embraces them. In fact, to truly pursue the living God, we have to see the need for questions. Questions are not scary. What is scary is when people don’t have any. What is tragic is a faith that has no room for them.” For these reasons, Pastor Brad and I answered your questions during worship one day last fall. We received so many questions in preparation for that day… and the day itself was so well received… that this spring we again asked for your questions about faith, theology, and the ELCA. This summer our worship is dedicated to the questions that you, the people of St. Paul’s, have asked to be addressed. Pastor Brad This morning we begin with a topic that has vexed humanity since the beginning of time; a topic that is the root conflict for most novels,TV shows, and movies. Good versus Evil. This summer’s movie blockbusters follow this formula:
10 and 11PM, and then destroy the Vatican in a burst of light at midnight using a vial of recently captured anti-matter If you’re like me, the only movies you want to see are those with a classic Hollywood happy ending. Right trumps wrong. Justice overcomes oppression. Good defeats evil. Angels conquer demons. The two questions dealing with good and evil… with angels and demons… had the highest cumulative vote total of the questions you would most like the two of us to address. So we begin this summer of questions with none other than “What do Lutherans teach about angels?” and “Do Lutherans believe in the devil?” Are you ready? Here we go! When you imagine an angel, what picture or Hollywood image comes to mind? I picture Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as the angels Bartleby and Loki in the movie Dogma. Others must like them, too. In a survey of the top five Hollywood angels, Bartleby and Loki were fifth. The remaining four:
Ah, Clarence; George Bailey’s guardian angel. Clarence rescues George and shows him that people’s lives in Bedford Falls are better off because of George. Had it not been for Clarence and his message, George might never have seen his life as important and meaningful. Pastor Caroline That’s how Hollywood portrays angels. What does the Bible say? Angels are mentioned as God’s messengers in 34 of the 66 books in the Bible, including all four Gospels and seven letters of Paul. But none are more beloved than the angels in Luke’s Christmas story. Most of us here know what those angels said; but what did they look like? We all have an image in our mind’s eye. I’ll bet that mental picture comes more from the images we’ve seen in artwork than from what we read in the Scriptures. After all, in today’s Gospel, Luke tells us what they said, but he doesn’t say anything about how they look. Our ideas about angels, then, have been influenced by sources other than the Bible. Western Christian art is certainly one of those sources; Hollywood is another. As much as I would like to think that I have a guardian angel such as Clarence in It’s a Wonderful life, there is no mention of such a thing in the Bible. Again, these beliefs have more to do with popular culture than they do with what we find in the pages of our Bible. What is found in the Bible, then? In Biblical Hebrew, the main meaning of the term angel is “my messenger/envoy.” Angels are God’s messengers; they appear at key moments (such as Jesus’ birth) and then get out of the way. They guide believers, but they are also known to appear to people of all religions, or even of no religion at all, when God wants those people to listen. Pastor Brad Apparently God hasn’t wanted me to listen enough to send an angel my way, but I have talked with people who have had that experience. As part of our seminary training, we are required to do CPE; Clinical Pastoral Education. During CPE, students are assigned to the Chaplaincy department of a hospital and are responsible for the pastoral care needs of the patients admitted to a particular unit. As for me, I was assigned to the ICU and the Medical Step-down Unit. One day I visited a woman who’d been in ICU for more than a week. I’d seen her before, so I very innocently asked her,“So, how we doing today?” “We’re both doing very well,” came her quiet reply. When I asked her who’s “we”, she said,“my guardian angel and me. She’s standing right beside you; she has a beautiful face with, long golden hair, wearing a flowing purple gown. Can’t you see her?” I didn’t have the heart to say no, so I asked,“what is your angel doing?” The woman said, “She’s telling me that everything is going to be all right, that I’m going to recover.” Was it real or imagined? I don’t know. But I do believe that she had experienced the presence of the Holy and that gave her hope. Pastor Caroline I don’t know if this would qualify as an experience with an angel or not, but my extended family has had what I would call a few mystic moments. For example, when my aunt was little, she had a very high fever. The doctor said that if her fever didn’t break soon, she may be in serious trouble. The next morning my aunt when to her parents, my grandparents, and told them that Jesus had come to her and told her that she would be OK now. Sure enough, her fever had broken. Pastor Brad As I said, I’ve never been visited by an angel, but I am open to the possibility that such events do occur. For me, the whole notion of angels and angelic messengers is part of the mystery and hiddenness of God. Pastor Caroline Personally, I haven’t had any mystic moments. I suppose I’m much too Lutheran… and heady… for that. But I believe that others have. Maybe that’s why I appreciate the ELCA’s approach. Officially the ELCA doesn’t expect everyone to have mystic leanings… doesn’t say you’re a better Christian if you do, but at the same the ELCA does leave a little room for mystery. Officially, then, for ELCA Lutherans angels are among “all that is, seen and unseen” in God’s creation. We simply accept that they are in the Bible and may well be part of the realities of heaven that we will not fully understand in this life. Pastor Brad You’ve just heard us say that with regard to angels: 1) I’m open to the possibility that angels exist and are part of God’s hiddenness; and 2) Pastor Caroline is apt to accept that they are in the Bible and may well be part of the realities of heaven that we will not fully understand. What then, shall we say about the angels’ foil; what shall we say about demons? When you imagine a demon, what hollywood image do you see? When I was in high school, someone in our youth group had a paperback copy of The Exorcist. The movie had just been released and there was a huge media buzz about church groups that were picketing theaters and trying to prevent movie-goers from seeing the film. The book was passed from one person to the other within the youth group. It was very hush hush and covert; the cover had been replaced with the cover from something like Withering Heights or Great Expectation, books that parents would be impressed that we were reading. The particular edition we read had still photos from the movie. One was an imagine of Pazuza, the demon who was tormenting child-star Linda Blair. That image made my reading of the Exorcist the scariest experience in my life. Pazuzu was a combination of animal and human parts with its right hand pointing upwards and its left hand downwards. It has the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, eagle-like taloned feet, two pairs of wings, and a scorpion's tail. Like Bartleby and Loki, my favorite angels who made the top five list of movie angels, so too, did Pazuza make the list of top five favorite movie demons. In fact, this frightening entity is the number one movie demon. As real as Pazuza seemed while I read the Exorcist, today, I’d have to say that I don’t think demons like that really exist. I think there’s evil, all right. But, like our understanding of angels has been influenced by classical art and contemporary movies, so too has our understanding of the devil, Satan, Diablo. In fact, the Halloween image of the devil… the red, two horned, forked tongue, pointed tail, pitchfork wielding bad guy… comes from the great art work of the Renaissance. Pastor Caroline Again, we have an idea of what classic art and Hollywood have to say about demons. What does the Bible say? The Hebrew/Arabic root for Satan primarily means obstruct/oppose. In the Old Testament, the word usually appears with the article “the” as in “the satan.” The translation of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) often renders the word as diabolos (accuser or slanderer), hence, the English word “devil.” In the Old Testament, the basic meaning of satan is as an accuser in a court of law (Job) or in the metaphorical sense of adversary. It isn’t until the period of time between the Old Testament and the New Testament that Satan began to emerge as a distinctive personality. In the New Testament, however, Satan is personified as a distinctive personality or as a dragon/ancient serpent. Pastor Brad So what does all this mean for me? For me, I believe that all the images we have for the devil, Satan, etc .Are simply that; images that personify evil. I don’t believe there is a living, hidden human-like being named Satan that’s on the loose in the world stirring up trouble. I do, on the other hand, believe that there is evil in the world. As a First Article Christian, meaning that I base my faith on the first article of the Apostle’s Creed...”I believe in God the Father,Almighty, maker of heaven and earth...” if you’d ask where evil comes from, I’d have to say that evil is part of the created order that God made. Maybe you’re thinking,“Pastor Brad...are you trying to tell me that you believe God create evil? Are you mental?” “yes” and “maybe.” Maybe the idea of God creating evil is so hard to take that we needed something or someone to blame, because we surely don’t want to blame God. So we create the devil, Satan, Pazuza etc, to let God off the hook, so to speak… or to let ourselves off the hook for what we’ve done or haven’t done. Wherever it comes from, I believe that evil exists as a force in our world. I believe this because, like you, we’ve experienced evil all around us:
This is the evil that opposes God and God’s desire for all of creation. Pastor Caroline Again, I haven’t had any mystic moments, but I have one friend who has… .and personally, I also think that evil exists. I think that, as with angels, we have personified evil in characters like Darth Vader, the wicked witch of the west, and the little red man with horns and a pitch fork. But rather than believe in one personification, I believe more in the Old Testament view of “the satan” as anything that opposes God and God’s will for all of creation. As for the ELCA, the website says,“We must begin by saying that there are ELCA Lutherans who understand Satan (or the Devil) to be a very real being, author of evil, prompter of sin, destroyer of humankind. Other ELCA Lutherans view Satan metaphorically—as the personification of evil forces in this world that oppose and obstruct God’s will in every age, be they human or spiritual.” Some people will critique this answer to the question about demons as wishy-washy. As for me, I wonder how anyone could say anything else. I’m grateful for an answer like this and for a tradition that doesn’t discount experience, that leaves a little room for mystery, and that allows for a difference of opinion about some of these tricky theological and cultural issues. Pastor Brad As we close our discussion about angels and demons this morning, I’m still in favor of the classic Hollywood happy ending. Right trumps wrong. Good defeats evil. God’s messengers (angels) come to silence all that opposes God and God’s will for creation (demons). That’s certainly what I believe in and hope for. Let us pray |
St. Paul's Lutheran Church § 824 N. Lewis § Waukegan IL |
