31st August 2014
THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST/Trinity 11 (Proper 17)
St Mary’s Cyffylliog
Jeremiah wants to serve the Lord. It is the latter half of
the seventh century BC and under Josiah, as king,
Judaism is undergoing irrevocable change and reform.
The struggle between the powers of Babylon, to the
North, and Egypt, to the South, is creating great
political tensions in Judah; which is stuck in the middle
of these super powers. Jerusalem was not safe, and
Jeremiah was being ostracised for saying so. He was
seen as a traitor to his country and his religion for
saying that the Lord would not protect Jerusalem.
His message was that we cannot just rely on God to
carry out our own plans. His message was that we have
to look to ourselves and face up to the reality of
ourselves, and then we might see the majestic reality of
God. God is not our servant, although we would like
God to be.
Despite all the struggle, and all the anguish, it
entailed Jeremiah was willing to serve the Lord; and the
Lord was saying to Jeremiah, “I can use you as a
mouthpiece so long as you don’t change what you’re
saying just to fit in with everyone else.” What God was
saying was that Jeremiah had to choose between being a
servant of the Lord and being popular. Jeramiah was not
able to do both. Being the Lord’s servant was going to
be tough for Jeremiah.
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As it was tough, at times, for Jesus who, on being
baptised, was thrust into wilderness conflict with the
devil. Having endured the forty days of temptation
thirst Jesus knew the voice of the devil well enough. So,
when Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan!” he
really means it. He is not saying that he doesn’t agree
with Peter. He is not saying that he doesn’t like the
sound of what Peter is saying. Jesus knows the voice of
Satan and hears that same voice in Peter, at that instant.
Peter was voicing a much more palatable option, a
much more attractive route, but Jesus sniffed it out
straight away as a deception and a way of conveniently
avoiding God’s service. I wonder if we ever take the
easier option and become willing to fall for a deception.
(I think I know the answer already).
The devil is not something we talk about much
these days. Indeed, as the devil himself says in the
famous German play Faust, “The world is so
enlightened, nowadays, that even the devil has been
civilized” (p. 144).
Goethe’s play Faust is reminiscent of the book Job
in that the opening scene is one set in the heavenly
realm where the devil is given permission, by God
almighty, to tempt Doctor Faust while he is on earth.
“Good, then: it is granted you!” says the Lord to Satan:
“Divert this spirit from his primal source;
Lead him, if you can grasp him,
Down your own path with you – and stand abashed
When against your will you must confess:
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A good man, struggling in his darkness,
Still knows the one true way” (p. 18).
So, here he comes, the greatest deceiver of all, in the
form of a poodle, into Doctor Faust’s study. Quoting
Doctor Faust’s lines, Act III:
“Field and meadow I’ve forsaken;
They lie hidden, now, in deepest night.
In holy and foreboding awe,
Within us, the better soul awakes.
Sleeping, now, is each wild longing,
Sleeping, each ungoverned act;
The love of man revives within us –
Within us, the love of God revives.
Be quiet, poodle! Stop running up and down!
Why do you keep sniffing at my doorsill?
Come, lie down here behind the stove –
I’ll give you my best cushion.
As, yonder, on the mountain path,
You pleased us with your running and your jumping,
So, now, accept my hospitality,
…But what’s this I see?
Can such things really happen?
Is it illusion? Is it reality?
How tall and broad my poodle’s getting!
He looms up mightily –
That is not the shape of any dog!
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What king of spectre have I brought into the house?”
(P. 67-68).
Crucially, the devil appears not at all as Faust would
have expected the devil. And this is just the thing
because from the very start of their conversation the
devil is not only many steps ahead, but, entirely
misleading and thorough, and utter, falsity through and
through. Rather than being at all scary the devil comes
across, in Faust, as rather harmless; and within no time
at all it is Doctor Faust who believes that he is
controlling the devil.
I am sure we moderns ignore the devil at our own
peril, but I am not always sure why, or even how, to say
this. The devil is, after all, about evil at the individual
and personal level; the individual’s struggle with evil.
When people think about evil these days they might be
more ready to think about collective, and social, evils
such as warfare between nations, the destruction of the
environment, or the dehumanising effect of large
corporations. But the devil is about the individual’s
personal and private struggle with evil.
There certainly are times when if we are not
proactive, and diligently prayerful, in protecting
ourselves against destructive forces we risk losing our
way most spectacularly. There certainly are times when
all our best efforts end in only failure. There certainly
are times when it is very difficult not to think that the
powers of darkness are far from idle, but prowling
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around like a roaring lion and looking for someone to
devour.
It is the risen Christ who has the last word, because
he is the first and last word of creation. Although there
are ways in which we fight evil alone we can only ever
fight evil in the strength of the risen Lord who not only
knows the voice of the devil, but is with us as the One
who has conquered Satan through his rising again.
I am dedicating this service to Kate who died
tragically, this week, as a result of her long time
struggle with alcohol addiction. May the overpowering
compassion of the risen Lord be the last word.
Rest eternal grant unto her, O Lord.
And let light perpetual shine upon her. Amen.
Bibliography
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. (Translated by Randall
Jarrell). Faust Part I. London: Penguin Books, 2000.
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