"Deal(ing) with the Devil" - Luke 4:1-13

February 29, 2004
Rev. Rachel Cornwell, Bethesda UMC

In the last decade, data collected by the Hubble Telescope helped astronomers discover that our universe was rapidly expanding (at least in space science terms) due to an unexplained force that they named "dark energy". I am obviously not an astrophysicist, but to the extent that I understand it, "dark energy" is an energy force that fills an empty space between pieces of matter and speeds up the expansion of that space. An astronomer at the University of Washington, Craig Hogan, said this about "dark energy": "Frankly we just don't understand it. We know what it's effects are, but as to the details of dark energy we are completely clueless about that." And according to Dr. Hogan, the effect of dark energy will be that over the course of the next several billion years, space matter will distance itself more and more rapidly so that eventually the earth will be left very much alone in the universe.

Listening to scientists talk about dark energy reminds me of how we sometimes speak of Satan. Many Christians (and non-Christians for that matter) believe that Satan is a powerful force of dark energy, moving about in human hearts and forcing us to do evil things that are against our nature. Some people would say that we can't explain how Satan works, just that he does, and without Jesus Christ we are vulnerable to being pushed and pulled by Satan's dark energy until we are completely cut off from God. Although the dark energy that exists in space is neither benevolent or malicious, the dark energy that we attribute to the work of Satan is very malicious indeed

Satan is given a part in the Gospel story from the very beginning. The first Sunday of Lent always places us with Jesus fasting in the wilderness and being tempted by Satan. Jesus fasted to prepare himself spiritually for the journey ahead, and he is tired and hungry and he has already been fighting the Devil for 40 days when he goes to work on Jesus again. First the Devil tries to appeal to Jesus' physical need for food, daring the hungry man to turn a rock into bread. When Jesus refuses, Satan takes it up a notch, offering him all the kingdoms on earth if only Jesus will worship him instead of God. Again Jesus remains steadfast, so the Devil attempts his last trick, trying to get Jesus to test God by throwing himself down off the top of the Temple in Jerusalem to see if God will save him. But Jesus will not test God, so the devil leaves, beaten but not defeated, because the scripture tells us that he will come back at a more opportune time. And according to Luke, Satan did come back at the time of Jesus' trial and crucifixion, working through Judas who betrayed Jesus and eroding the faith of the disciples.

Early Christian mystics such as St. Anthony often referred to their spiritual struggles as being brought on by "demons". But another early Christian, Abba Poemen, claimed that ordinary people (and he included himself in that category) do not have experiences with the demonic because our experiences of temptation come from ourselves, our own choices, our own wills. Only truly holy people have to struggle with demons, he said, because the rest of us give in too quickly to our desires for the demons to bother with us.

Many of us probably agree with Abba Poemen. I know I do. After all, I don't know anyone who has ever had a Dr. Faustus experience like in that Charlie Daniels' song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" where the Devil shows up and offers us a deal: our heart's desire in exchange for our soul. For all of our trials of faith, we don't usually attribute our spiritual temptations or weaknesses to the Devil because most of the time we know that it's actually us who is the problem. Like Rita Mae Brown says, "Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

There is no doubt that the power of evil and temptation is real in this world, and that we, like Jesus, must remain steadfast when faced with a choice between what God wants us to do and other options that are not God-centered. But most of the time the choice is not between God and the Devil, it is between God and us. There are times when we encounter human-made evil, and we tack on a "d" to turn it into the devil because we are so ashamed of what we are capable of. We give hands, feet, a mouth, and a mind of its own to our sin so that we can distance ourselves from it. But to view Satan as operating autonomously from us gives Satan too much credit and power, and not enough to God. And it lets human beings off the hook somewhat, because Lord knows we are capable of plenty of evil all by ourselves.

We, like Jesus, have to deal with the devil. We have to look at the dark energy within us that pulls us away from God. We have to be accountable for the evil in the world that is ours, that we made, and that we contribute to through our actions, or become complacent with through our inactions. Would so many people have to deal with "the devil" of drugs or alcohol if they weren't so cheap and easy to come by? Would so many people have to deal with "the devil" of wasting their money on gambling if there weren't places to buy lottery tickets on every corner? Would so many people have to deal with "the devil" of pornography if we didn't have a culture that degraded the human body and cheapened sexuality? Would so many people have to deal with "the devils" of debt and greed if we weren't such enthusiastic consumers or didn't measure success by dollar signs?

A few weeks ago John Whitman asked me why Methodists didn't talk about the Devil. I said that I thought it was because we believed that the evil in this world was bigger than the work of a single fallen angel. And I am sticking with that answer. We can talk about the devil as long as we recognize that the devil is us, all of us together, all our sin, weakness, failures, aggression, hatred. Kathleen Norris, in her book Amazing Grace quotes her pastor who defined the anti-Christ in this way: "Each one of us acts as an anti-Christ whenever we hear the gospel and do not do it." And when there are a lot of individuals collectively acting as anti-Christs, it isn't long before that dark energy starts pulling on all of us.

But there is an answer to the devil: God. God's power to forgive and redeem, and our faithfulness to God - that's how you deal with the devil. Those early Christian mystics taught that demons were only as powerful as we allowed them to be, and so they fought them through prayer and devotion to God. And just like Jesus in the wilderness, we too confront temptation with faith. When the temptation is pulling on our physical selves, with desire, hunger, thirst, Jesus reminds us that we do not live by bread alone, that there is more to life than meeting our physical needs. When the temptation comes from a desire for power and glory, we think of Jesus' response to the Devil, "Worship the Lord your God and serve only him." When our faith in God falters and we are tempted to test God, just to see if God will respond, Jesus teaches us that God has a plan for us and we must remain faithful in order to understand it. We remember that Jesus was faithful to God's purpose, even to death, and maybe in comparison our temptations won't feel so overwhelming.

And that, my friends, is how you deal with the devil.