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BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label devil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label devil. Show all posts
06 May 2026
VERSE AND VOICE FROM SOJOURNERS 5MAI26
01 May 2026
MAY DAY / LABOR DAY VERSE AND VOICE FROM SOJOURNERS 1MAI26
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26 July 2012
Sermon about Mary Magdalen, the massacre in our town, and defiant alleluias 22JUL12
THIS is the most sincere response to the horror of last Friday's (20JUL12) mass murder in Aurora, Colorado I have heard or read. Don't miss the real feeling and meaning of the message by just reading it, take the time to listen to it, to hear the emotion, the tears of Rev Bolz-Weber and the voices of the congregation, and if so moved, share this with others. You may also want to see my post on the reaction of the Amish community of Nickel Mines, PA to a mass shooting of children and how they were able to forgive the killer at AURORA, CO & NICKEL MINES, PA MASS SHOOTINGS AND FORGIVENESS 26JUL12
http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/aurora-co-nickel-mines-pa-mass.html
From The House For All Sinners And Saints' Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber....
As a woman preacher, I can’t help but love St Mary Magdalen. She was the first witness to the resurrection. When I first discerned my call to be a preacher I got a tattoo of her on my forearm – it’s from a rare depiction in ancient Christian art – of her proclaiming the resurrection to the apostles. I felt that when I needed to I could borrow her strength. And since today, July 22nd is her feast day we decided weeks ago to ditch the normal Sunday readings and celebrate her as an important saint to us.
But then Friday happened. I was still in New Orleans when I saw the news of the shooting. After praying that you were all safe I soon thought “we can’t really hold a celebration of a saint today…it just wouldn’t make any sense”
I had gone to New Orleans with an idea for a sermon on Mary Magdalen – a sermon about who gets to speak in the Bible and who gets to be named and blah blah blah.
And just as I was about to ditch it all and go with the regularly assigned reading for today I went back and again read this story of Mary Magdalen at the tomb and realized, given the violence and terror thrust upon our community this week, that maybe Mary had more to say about it than I could. I decided again to borrow strength and voice from her. So were I a pastor who titled her sermons this one would be WWMMP – What Would Mary Magdalen Preach?
I think Mary would not shy away from naming the darkness and despair of an event like Friday’s massacre. She was familiar with darkness after all– Luke tells us that it is from Mary Magdalen that Jesus cast out 7 demons. Then having been freed from her demons she followed Jesus and as the text tells us, even supported the ministry from her own pocketbook. And at the end it was Mary Magdalen who did not deny Jesus nor betray Jesus nor high tale it out when things got rough but she with just a couple other faithful women stood at the cross. And after Jesus died, it was Mary who came to his tomb, as we are told, while it was still dark.
My Bishop Allan Bjornberg once said that the Greatest spiritual practice isn’t yoga or praying the hours or living in intentional poverty although these are all beautiful in their own way. The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up.
And in some ways Mary Magdalen is like, the patron saint of just showing up.
Because showing up means being present to what is real, what is actually happening. She didn’t necessarily know what to say or what to do or even what to think….but none of that is nearly as important as the fact that she just showed up. She showed up at the cross where her teacher Jesus became a victim of our violence and terror. She looked on as the man who had set her free from her own darkness bore the evil and violence of the whole world upon himself and yet still she showed up.
I think St Mary Magdalen, were she your preacher, would be braver that I. She would not shy away from the dark reality of innocent people slaughtered while it was still night. She would show up and name the events of 2 days ago exactly what they were: horrific, evil, senseless violence without a shred of anything redemptive about it.
And I think that were Mary Magdalen here she would have very little tolerance for the platitudes and vapid optimism of so much overly-churched Christianity. Those are simply luxuries of people who’ve never had demons. But equally would she abohor nihilism or the idea that there is no real meaning in life – ideas present in so much of post-modernity…that too, is a luxury but it is one of those who have never been freed from demons.
I think she would show up and tell us that despite it all despite the violence and fear that it’s still always worth it to love God and to love people and always, always it is worth it to sing alleluia. For surely the devil hates the sound of it.
Speaking of which, I thought for a moment of cancelling Beer & Hymns on Friday night. We have so much fun at that event and I though that perhaps it wasn’t the right thing to do that night. Thankfully that thought only lasted a moment. Then I posted on Facebook that that night we would still gather to sing praises to God, for, as the funeral mass says even as we go to the grave still we make our song alleluia.
And then after Beer & Hymns we sat in a noisy Denver bar and sang Vespers together, we sang our prayer to God, and in our singing I heard a defiant tone. The sound of a people who simply will not believe that violence wins, a people who know that the sound of the risen Christ speaking each of our names drowns out all other voices.
It drowns out the sound of the political posturing, the sound of cries for vengeance, the sound of our own fears and anxieties and the deafening uncertainty – because all of it is no match for the shimmering sound of the resurrected Christ calling our name. Because in baptism we are a people marked by the cross of Christ. Upon our foreheads is the mark of violence and death but this violence and death has been overcome by the love of a God who in the 3 days between Good Friday and Easter reached into the very bowels of hell and said even here I will not be without you. //This is the God to whom we sing. A God who didn’t say we would never be afraid but that we would never be alone. A God who shows up. In the violence of the cross, in the darkness of a garden before dawn, in the gardener, in a movie theater, in the basement of a bar.
In 2010, on that first evening after the earthquake in Haiti, news reports came in that said that when night fell on the streets of Port AU Prince people were singing hymns and psalms. Blessed be God, they sang. People were singing praises to God amidst their entire world destroyed.
It’s important to note that to sing praises to God amongst destruction and violence is not the same thing as saying Hey God we think you’re awesome for allowing these horrible things to happen. To sing praise to God amidst destruction and violence is to simply put evil in it’s place. It’s to draw a line and say here and no further. For the devil surely hates the sound of alleluia.
This is why here at House on the evening of Good Friday we took the purple tulips that we had laid at the cross during the liturgy and we drove to where a teenage boy had shot and killed another teenage boy the week before. We laid those holy flowers at the site of the murder and we sang Holy God Holy and Mighty Holy and Immortal have mercy upon us.
Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples like Mary Magdalen.
Because to be disciples like Mary Magdalen is to show up. It is to be a people who stand – who stand at the cross and stand in the midst of evil and violence and even if we are uncertain we are still unafraid to be present to all of it. We are unafraid to name the dark demons of evil and to call a thing what it is. And to be disciples like Mary Magdalen is also to be a people who weep. A people who show up to the tombs and weep. Weep for ourselves and weep for each other and weep for our city and weep for dead 6 year old girls. And to be disciples like Mary Magdalen is to be a people who listen and turn at the sound of our names. Amongst the sounds of sirens and fear and isolation and uncertainty and loss we hear a sound that muffles all the rest: that still, small voice of Christ speaking our names. And finally, the very reason we can do these things is not because we happen to be the people with the best set of skills for this work. Trust me, we are not. But the reason we can be disciples like Mary Magdalen – the reason we can stand and we can weep and we can listen is because finally we, like Mary are bearers of resurrection. We know that on the 3rd day he rose again. We do not need to be afraid. Because to sing to God amidst all of this is to defiantly proclaim like Mary Magdalen did to the apostles, that death is simply not the final word. To defiantly say that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness can not will not shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, still we make our song Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
Amen.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/07/sermon-about-mary-magdalen-the-masacre-in-our-town-and-defiant-alleluias/
From The House For All Sinners And Saints' Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber....
NBW Sermon 7-22-2012<—–click here to listen (i sing, and cry…seriously)But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look* into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew,*‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her. -John 20
by Brother Robert Lentz
As a woman preacher, I can’t help but love St Mary Magdalen. She was the first witness to the resurrection. When I first discerned my call to be a preacher I got a tattoo of her on my forearm – it’s from a rare depiction in ancient Christian art – of her proclaiming the resurrection to the apostles. I felt that when I needed to I could borrow her strength. And since today, July 22nd is her feast day we decided weeks ago to ditch the normal Sunday readings and celebrate her as an important saint to us.
But then Friday happened. I was still in New Orleans when I saw the news of the shooting. After praying that you were all safe I soon thought “we can’t really hold a celebration of a saint today…it just wouldn’t make any sense”
I had gone to New Orleans with an idea for a sermon on Mary Magdalen – a sermon about who gets to speak in the Bible and who gets to be named and blah blah blah.
And just as I was about to ditch it all and go with the regularly assigned reading for today I went back and again read this story of Mary Magdalen at the tomb and realized, given the violence and terror thrust upon our community this week, that maybe Mary had more to say about it than I could. I decided again to borrow strength and voice from her. So were I a pastor who titled her sermons this one would be WWMMP – What Would Mary Magdalen Preach?
I think Mary would not shy away from naming the darkness and despair of an event like Friday’s massacre. She was familiar with darkness after all– Luke tells us that it is from Mary Magdalen that Jesus cast out 7 demons. Then having been freed from her demons she followed Jesus and as the text tells us, even supported the ministry from her own pocketbook. And at the end it was Mary Magdalen who did not deny Jesus nor betray Jesus nor high tale it out when things got rough but she with just a couple other faithful women stood at the cross. And after Jesus died, it was Mary who came to his tomb, as we are told, while it was still dark.
My Bishop Allan Bjornberg once said that the Greatest spiritual practice isn’t yoga or praying the hours or living in intentional poverty although these are all beautiful in their own way. The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up.
And in some ways Mary Magdalen is like, the patron saint of just showing up.
Because showing up means being present to what is real, what is actually happening. She didn’t necessarily know what to say or what to do or even what to think….but none of that is nearly as important as the fact that she just showed up. She showed up at the cross where her teacher Jesus became a victim of our violence and terror. She looked on as the man who had set her free from her own darkness bore the evil and violence of the whole world upon himself and yet still she showed up.
I think St Mary Magdalen, were she your preacher, would be braver that I. She would not shy away from the dark reality of innocent people slaughtered while it was still night. She would show up and name the events of 2 days ago exactly what they were: horrific, evil, senseless violence without a shred of anything redemptive about it.
And I think that were Mary Magdalen here she would have very little tolerance for the platitudes and vapid optimism of so much overly-churched Christianity. Those are simply luxuries of people who’ve never had demons. But equally would she abohor nihilism or the idea that there is no real meaning in life – ideas present in so much of post-modernity…that too, is a luxury but it is one of those who have never been freed from demons.
I think she would show up and tell us that despite it all despite the violence and fear that it’s still always worth it to love God and to love people and always, always it is worth it to sing alleluia. For surely the devil hates the sound of it.
Speaking of which, I thought for a moment of cancelling Beer & Hymns on Friday night. We have so much fun at that event and I though that perhaps it wasn’t the right thing to do that night. Thankfully that thought only lasted a moment. Then I posted on Facebook that that night we would still gather to sing praises to God, for, as the funeral mass says even as we go to the grave still we make our song alleluia.
And then after Beer & Hymns we sat in a noisy Denver bar and sang Vespers together, we sang our prayer to God, and in our singing I heard a defiant tone. The sound of a people who simply will not believe that violence wins, a people who know that the sound of the risen Christ speaking each of our names drowns out all other voices.
It drowns out the sound of the political posturing, the sound of cries for vengeance, the sound of our own fears and anxieties and the deafening uncertainty – because all of it is no match for the shimmering sound of the resurrected Christ calling our name. Because in baptism we are a people marked by the cross of Christ. Upon our foreheads is the mark of violence and death but this violence and death has been overcome by the love of a God who in the 3 days between Good Friday and Easter reached into the very bowels of hell and said even here I will not be without you. //This is the God to whom we sing. A God who didn’t say we would never be afraid but that we would never be alone. A God who shows up. In the violence of the cross, in the darkness of a garden before dawn, in the gardener, in a movie theater, in the basement of a bar.
In 2010, on that first evening after the earthquake in Haiti, news reports came in that said that when night fell on the streets of Port AU Prince people were singing hymns and psalms. Blessed be God, they sang. People were singing praises to God amidst their entire world destroyed.
It’s important to note that to sing praises to God amongst destruction and violence is not the same thing as saying Hey God we think you’re awesome for allowing these horrible things to happen. To sing praise to God amidst destruction and violence is to simply put evil in it’s place. It’s to draw a line and say here and no further. For the devil surely hates the sound of alleluia.
This is why here at House on the evening of Good Friday we took the purple tulips that we had laid at the cross during the liturgy and we drove to where a teenage boy had shot and killed another teenage boy the week before. We laid those holy flowers at the site of the murder and we sang Holy God Holy and Mighty Holy and Immortal have mercy upon us.
Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples like Mary Magdalen.
Because to be disciples like Mary Magdalen is to show up. It is to be a people who stand – who stand at the cross and stand in the midst of evil and violence and even if we are uncertain we are still unafraid to be present to all of it. We are unafraid to name the dark demons of evil and to call a thing what it is. And to be disciples like Mary Magdalen is also to be a people who weep. A people who show up to the tombs and weep. Weep for ourselves and weep for each other and weep for our city and weep for dead 6 year old girls. And to be disciples like Mary Magdalen is to be a people who listen and turn at the sound of our names. Amongst the sounds of sirens and fear and isolation and uncertainty and loss we hear a sound that muffles all the rest: that still, small voice of Christ speaking our names. And finally, the very reason we can do these things is not because we happen to be the people with the best set of skills for this work. Trust me, we are not. But the reason we can be disciples like Mary Magdalen – the reason we can stand and we can weep and we can listen is because finally we, like Mary are bearers of resurrection. We know that on the 3rd day he rose again. We do not need to be afraid. Because to sing to God amidst all of this is to defiantly proclaim like Mary Magdalen did to the apostles, that death is simply not the final word. To defiantly say that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness can not will not shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, still we make our song Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
Amen.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/07/sermon-about-mary-magdalen-the-masacre-in-our-town-and-defiant-alleluias/
15 January 2011
Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord and How To Tell Demons to Piss Off 9JAN11
Another great sermon from Sarcastic Lutheran with lessons in life for all of us......one may not agree with everything in it, but the core message is a crucial one for all believers and those interested. I do believe in the devil and demons and the evil they bring to this world, but I also have faith in Christ in the power to resist this evil through Him.
At the Baptism of our Lord heaven simply could not contain God the Father and God the Spirit who interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring a very important message. That message is that this Jesus who just moments ago was standing in line with all the other rif-raf, this Jesus who has just been baptized is the Son of God, the beloved in whom God is well pleased to offer to the whole world. That was God’s first move. From this place of identity Jesus was then equipped for his purpose. Check out the next few verses:
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
And the Word that had most recently come from the mouth of God was This is my beloved in whom I am well pleased. Identity. It’s God’s first move.
I was reminded this week by my friend Dave Lose that when The Devil says to Jesus "If you are the Son of God...." he calls into question Jesus' relationship with his Father because he knows that Jesus, as with Adam and Eve before him, is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that his is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God.”
So perhaps there’s a reason why when Jesus was baptized and given an identity and purpose from God that the devil’s first move was putting this very identity and purpose into question saying If you really are what God says you are… Identity. … It’s like the end of the spool of thread that when gotten ahold of can unwind the whole thing.
I wonder if we too are vulnerable to temptation: whether it be temptation to self-loathing, or self-agrandisment; depression or pride, self-destruction or self-indulgence….I wonder if we too are prone to these temptations precisely to the degree that we are insecure about our identity from and relationship to God. We are vulnerable to darkness precisely to the degree in which we doubt the identity and purpose given us by God on the waters of our baptism.
For the record, I have very little predilection for thinking about demons or the devil or that whole powers and principalities thing. Like a good middle class mainline protestant, I tend to arrogantly look down my theological nose at all of it as superstitious snake handling nonsense. As though it’s all the spiritual equivalent of a Monster Truck Rally. At best I think all that talk about demonic forces is no more than a result of ignorance and lack of education. At worst it’s just a way to externalize our own sin. Because if the Devil made me do then I don’t have to face the reality that perhaps I made me do. It’s all so ripe for abuse…. some in this room have been victim to other Christians trying to cast out the so-called demon of homosexuality as though spiritual warfare and the culture wars are one in the same thing.
So I hope you hear me when I say, I in no way have any desire to believe in spiritual warfare yet in the last couple years I’ve quietly began to change my ideas about this. Based on the Biblical text and my own experience, I now think that there are indeed forces that seek to defy God in the world and that this is demonstrated not only in the evil we see swirling around us in the world – demonstrated not only in the bullets which flew from a legal handgun in Tuscon yesterday into the head of a US congresswoman.. bullets that killed a 9 year old girl and 4 others. That sort of defiance of God’s love and purpose for humanity is obvious. But I think that in more subtle ways these same forces also can seek to defy God’s purpose in our own individual lives… and in our Christian communities. And the first move of the devil is always the same. Attack your identity as the beloved with whom God is well pleased. And the precision by which the Devil, or evil or darkness (what ever you want to call it) worms into our own lives in just this way is breathtaking. Like a radioactive isotope custom made for each of us calling into question our identity as children of God.
The longer I try to participate in God’s redeeming work in the world the more I am convinced despite my proclivity to cynisicm that there are indeed forces that seek to defy God. And nowhere are we more prone to encroaching darkness than when we are stepping into the light. If you have ever experienced sudden discouragement in the midst of healthy decisions, or if there is a toxic thought that will always send you spiraling down or if there is a particular temptation that is your weakness then I make the following suggestion: take a note from Martin Luther’s playbook and defiantly shout back at this darkness “I am Baptized” not I WAS but I AM baptized. When Luther himself was hold up in a castle translating the Greek Bible into German so that for the very fist time somewhat regular folks could read the Word of God for themselves, well, while he was doing this he struggled mightily with doubt and discouragement from what he understood to be the devil. And he was known to not only throw the occasional ink pots at whatever was tormenting him and causing him to doubt God’s promises, but while doing so he could be heard throughout the castle grounds shouting “I am baptized”.
Lutheran Theologian Craig Koester says that From an earthly perspective, evil can seem so pervasive as to be unstoppable. And watching the evening news would seem to support that idea. But from a heavenly perspective evil rages on earth not because it is so powerful, but because it is so vulnerable. Koester claims that Satan rages on earth because he has already lost and he is desperate” So if you are going to join me in this crazy practice of picturing our discouragement and doubt as a force that wants to defy God then join me in picturing it not as powerful and unstoppable but picture evil and darkness for what it is: desperate and vulnerable…. because a light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, will not can not overcome it
And when the forces that seek to defy God whisper IF in your ear….if God really loved you you wouldn’t feel like this…If you really are beloved then you should have everything you want … Remember that you, all of you, have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit in your. God has named you and claimed you as God’s own in the waters of your baptism. You, like our Lord, have been given identity and purpose, so when what seems to be depression or compulsive eating or narcissism or despair or discouragement or resentment or isolation takes over try picturing it as a vulnerable and desperate force seeking to defy God’s grace and mercy in your life and then tell it to piss off and say defiantly to it “I am baptized” because the water that covered you in God’s promises in your baptism is simply the only thing that gets to tell you who you are.
And this is not a matter of having high self-esteem. This is about nothing less than God’s redeeming purpose in the world and that purpose will prevail. Indeed has already prevailed. Amen.
Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord and How To Tell Demons to Piss Off
At the Baptism of our Lord heaven simply could not contain God the Father and God the Spirit who interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring a very important message. That message is that this Jesus who just moments ago was standing in line with all the other rif-raf, this Jesus who has just been baptized is the Son of God, the beloved in whom God is well pleased to offer to the whole world. That was God’s first move. From this place of identity Jesus was then equipped for his purpose. Check out the next few verses:
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
And the Word that had most recently come from the mouth of God was This is my beloved in whom I am well pleased. Identity. It’s God’s first move.
I was reminded this week by my friend Dave Lose that when The Devil says to Jesus "If you are the Son of God...." he calls into question Jesus' relationship with his Father because he knows that Jesus, as with Adam and Eve before him, is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that his is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God.”
So perhaps there’s a reason why when Jesus was baptized and given an identity and purpose from God that the devil’s first move was putting this very identity and purpose into question saying If you really are what God says you are… Identity. … It’s like the end of the spool of thread that when gotten ahold of can unwind the whole thing.
I wonder if we too are vulnerable to temptation: whether it be temptation to self-loathing, or self-agrandisment; depression or pride, self-destruction or self-indulgence….I wonder if we too are prone to these temptations precisely to the degree that we are insecure about our identity from and relationship to God. We are vulnerable to darkness precisely to the degree in which we doubt the identity and purpose given us by God on the waters of our baptism.
For the record, I have very little predilection for thinking about demons or the devil or that whole powers and principalities thing. Like a good middle class mainline protestant, I tend to arrogantly look down my theological nose at all of it as superstitious snake handling nonsense. As though it’s all the spiritual equivalent of a Monster Truck Rally. At best I think all that talk about demonic forces is no more than a result of ignorance and lack of education. At worst it’s just a way to externalize our own sin. Because if the Devil made me do then I don’t have to face the reality that perhaps I made me do. It’s all so ripe for abuse…. some in this room have been victim to other Christians trying to cast out the so-called demon of homosexuality as though spiritual warfare and the culture wars are one in the same thing.
So I hope you hear me when I say, I in no way have any desire to believe in spiritual warfare yet in the last couple years I’ve quietly began to change my ideas about this. Based on the Biblical text and my own experience, I now think that there are indeed forces that seek to defy God in the world and that this is demonstrated not only in the evil we see swirling around us in the world – demonstrated not only in the bullets which flew from a legal handgun in Tuscon yesterday into the head of a US congresswoman.. bullets that killed a 9 year old girl and 4 others. That sort of defiance of God’s love and purpose for humanity is obvious. But I think that in more subtle ways these same forces also can seek to defy God’s purpose in our own individual lives… and in our Christian communities. And the first move of the devil is always the same. Attack your identity as the beloved with whom God is well pleased. And the precision by which the Devil, or evil or darkness (what ever you want to call it) worms into our own lives in just this way is breathtaking. Like a radioactive isotope custom made for each of us calling into question our identity as children of God.
The longer I try to participate in God’s redeeming work in the world the more I am convinced despite my proclivity to cynisicm that there are indeed forces that seek to defy God. And nowhere are we more prone to encroaching darkness than when we are stepping into the light. If you have ever experienced sudden discouragement in the midst of healthy decisions, or if there is a toxic thought that will always send you spiraling down or if there is a particular temptation that is your weakness then I make the following suggestion: take a note from Martin Luther’s playbook and defiantly shout back at this darkness “I am Baptized” not I WAS but I AM baptized. When Luther himself was hold up in a castle translating the Greek Bible into German so that for the very fist time somewhat regular folks could read the Word of God for themselves, well, while he was doing this he struggled mightily with doubt and discouragement from what he understood to be the devil. And he was known to not only throw the occasional ink pots at whatever was tormenting him and causing him to doubt God’s promises, but while doing so he could be heard throughout the castle grounds shouting “I am baptized”.
Lutheran Theologian Craig Koester says that From an earthly perspective, evil can seem so pervasive as to be unstoppable. And watching the evening news would seem to support that idea. But from a heavenly perspective evil rages on earth not because it is so powerful, but because it is so vulnerable. Koester claims that Satan rages on earth because he has already lost and he is desperate” So if you are going to join me in this crazy practice of picturing our discouragement and doubt as a force that wants to defy God then join me in picturing it not as powerful and unstoppable but picture evil and darkness for what it is: desperate and vulnerable…. because a light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, will not can not overcome it
And when the forces that seek to defy God whisper IF in your ear….if God really loved you you wouldn’t feel like this…If you really are beloved then you should have everything you want … Remember that you, all of you, have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit in your. God has named you and claimed you as God’s own in the waters of your baptism. You, like our Lord, have been given identity and purpose, so when what seems to be depression or compulsive eating or narcissism or despair or discouragement or resentment or isolation takes over try picturing it as a vulnerable and desperate force seeking to defy God’s grace and mercy in your life and then tell it to piss off and say defiantly to it “I am baptized” because the water that covered you in God’s promises in your baptism is simply the only thing that gets to tell you who you are.
And this is not a matter of having high self-esteem. This is about nothing less than God’s redeeming purpose in the world and that purpose will prevail. Indeed has already prevailed. Amen.
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