Do Not Give Place to the Devil (Lent II)

Jesus Casts the Demon Out of the Canaanite Woman's Daughter in St. Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 15

By Bishop Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West) 

Introduction

Today is the Second Sunday of Lent, the Sunday when we remember Jesus’ healing of the girl possessed by a devil, St. Paul’s admonition against fornication as the opposite of holiness, and the continued importance of repentance over our sins. As a lenten theme, it is extremely valuable to remember, because it dovetails with this season’s focus on fasting, prayer, self-judgment and true repentance. It also reminds us of a truth that we have forgotten in our relation to Christian leaders, as we have seen so tragically in the post-mortem fall of Ravi Zacharias, who disappoint us when they fall into temptation and sin, and whose falls often undermine the faith of many who relied on their witness to come to Christ. We must never forget the dangers of the demonic world to those who seek to follow Jesus Christ, and we must never forget that the preeminent tool that Satan uses to ensnare and entangle us with the world is our own lusts and desires. Only in waging a war on our own, fallen, broken sexual desires and lusts, can we ever hope to win battles against our demonic foes. We must also realize that this is the true “underbelly” of what is going on within Christianity, which is merely a process of being made holy, and can never be separated from this reality of holiness and truth. Christianity apart from holiness and true love is merely an inferior form of philosophy. The outward triumphs, intellectual achievements, and massive church structures that are built on personal reputation and clever rhetoric are merely facades that on “outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27) 

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 - 

WE beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.

The Gospel: St. Matthew 15:21-28 - 

JESUS went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

The Problem of Porn

Today’s Epistle Reading shows us that the process of becoming like God, ἁγιασμὸς (to become holy) is blocked by πορνεία (sex for money, coming to mean any sexual activity outside of marriage). These sins are, un-ironically, named “to be sold,” referring to the ancient practice of prostitution, but even more pertinent today, as we see that all sexual expression outside of the blessing of a one-man and one-woman union actually sell those engaged and the fruits of such unions into a meat-grinder of a secular, unholy, spiritually deadening system called “the world.” Strangely enough, these ancient definitions now manifest in the widespread use of “pornography” on the “world-wide web.” The only constant in the world is man's fallen nature and God's glorious grace, which can redeem us from our sensual lusts and desires, and make it so that w can put away the works of the flesh and live in accordance to the Spirit. As St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." There is hope of transformation, but this hope can only come in the appropriation of Christ's Death, so that we may die to ourselves and live to the Lord. (Romans 6:1-11)

The Apostle Paul reminds us in multiple places that we are no longer slaves to sin, but that we are servants of God, and that we should no longer defile our bodies with the evil and reprobate habits of the world. The slavery analogy in Scripture is prominent in the question of habitual sin, and fits with the paradigm of slavery in the ancient world. Slaves had no rights to their own bodies, and were used in horrible ways constantly under Roman law, which stated that the master had power of the bodies of those whom he owned. While Christianity did not initially or universally call for the freeing of slaves, they did make it impossible for someone in the Church to use the bodies of their slaves for the purposes of fornication or immorality. This was a major form of emancipation that showed the equality of all human bodies as created in the Image of God. Canon law excluded those who abused their servants’ bodies sexually from Communion. In this way, slaves could no longer be treated as sexual objects, but as brothers and sisters, and the turning away from the rampant perversion of the Hellenic world to the purity of Christian asceticism and monasticism in the first few centuries of Christian experience, shows how the rejection of illegitimate sexual expression allowed for a revolution of freedom and brotherhood to establish the Church as a different place, operating on different rules, ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Demonic Possession

Our Gospel this morning about demonic possession shows us an oft forgotten reality of the “ground” of the soul, which can be sold, owned, inhabited, and used by those who hate us - the demonic hosts, who seek to work against God’s will for His good creation. These forces of evil have seen humanity throughout the ages, are dedicated to our destruction, and constantly try to get us to “sell out” to them and give them the right to control and torment us, through the use of sin as a “snare”, a trap from whence we cannot extract ourselves. If we allow Satan to take up residence in our lives through surrendering to sin, he takes up residence within our minds, to taunt, torture and torment us. The demonic servants of the adversary can even take over our thoughts and actions, and make it impossible to worship and please God by constant wantonness and debauchery. This is what we call “demon possession.” The hinderance of God’s worship, His work on earth through the Church, and the destruction of God’s chosen vessels is the only delight of the evil spirits and powers of this world. Christians are protected against this by the power of our initial exorcism, baptism and Chrismation, which seals us to God. But we can, by our own actions, open ourselves us to our enemies, and be tormented by the demonic hosts. But, it does not exclude the possibility of our fall from Grace and the offering of this initially clean vessel to the debaucheries of the evil one. 

Some Reformed Christians counter that Satan is already defeated and bound, or believing that since God owns everything (or at least owns the Christian, having been “bought with a price”) there is no way that demonic entities could interfere in the life of a Christian. This view misunderstands justification as something distinct from the process of transformation by the Holy Spirit that is the Christian life of sanctification, instead of the beginning of this process, and misunderstands the nature of our constantly vacillating human will, which due to our flesh, constantly wars against our souls, and requires watchfulness, fasting and prayer in order for us to conform our flesh to God’s will. As St. Peter warns us, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour...” (1 Peter 5:8) 

Giving Ground to the Devil

Ephesians 4:17-27 says, "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil."

This “place,” called τόπος in Greek, is the physical ground of our being - our created soul’s “garden of the heart,” so often mentioned metaphorically in the Scriptures and the Fathers. We must “keep our hearts with all diligence, for out of them come the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) And our “garden is walled, kept tight,” because “the thief comes in to kill, steal and destroy.” (John 10:10) As Mathew 13:3-23 and John 15:1-8 implies, great fruits can grow in the garden of our hearts, if we remain constantly connected to Jesus Christ, the source of all life and all good. But, as Matthew 13, Mark 7 and Proverbs 4:7 show, there are great dangers of thorns and tares, false and fruitless growths, rising up and filling this garden, choking out the fruit, and making the internal ground of our hearts a wasteland. Just as we saw a few weeks ago, in the Gospel Reading of Luke 8:5-15, in Our Lord's "Parable of the Sower," sometimes the Seed of the Gospel does spring up, but it withers or is choked out by our own lack of sincerity, humility, and true submission to the Spirit of God. 

The only way that we can keep this garden of our heart clean from all demonic oppression is through constant “weeding,” repentance and confession, intentionally identifying and getting rid of the things that grow within us from the seeds of our sinful nature and concupiscence. We must cry out as the Canaanite Woman did for her daughter, in faith, for salvation that comes from beyond ourselves, because Christ is the one who has all authority in Heaven and on Earth to command all of the spirits by the power of His Name. We must receive the water of God’s word (Ephesians 5:25-27), feeding those virtues within us that are constantly threatened by our evil nature, and can be so easily choked out if we do not protect and nurture them. Matthew 12:43-45 reminds us of the importance of vigilance: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” And we need to remember that this watchfulness is essential, remembering what 2 Peter 2:20 says about those who have received the Gospel, but ultimately reject it, becoming apostate and fallen from grace - “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” 

Hope for Freedom

In all of this, the Great Hope is that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9) We are not perfect, we will always struggle, but we can find refuge in repentance - that constant process of turning back to God, turning away from our own will, lusts and fallen desires - that we can truly dwell in Him and He in us! At every Eucharist, Christ calls us back to Himself, gives us a portion of His life and His grace, and ensures us that, if we truly repent, we are accepted by Him and given an eternity with Him. Because of this great grace that Christ extends to us, and the power of the Holy Spirit to energize us to do the Will of God through faith, repentance and communion, we do not have to be bound by sin or enslaved to evil lusts and passions that war against our souls. We do not have to submit to the tyranny of demons, or allow them to inhabit us and destroy our lives. We can live in the power of the Holy Spirit by confessing and forsaking our sins, and allowing God to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, so that we can be dead to self and alive to God. It is all possible through submitting our wills to God, ceasing from our own work, and allowing God to do His work in us. Remembering this, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Galatians 5:1)

Collect 

ALMIGHTY GOD, who seest that we have no power to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.