Masterful [Lent 3; St. Luke 11:14-28]

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Jesus speaks to us today and says,

“Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.”

Who is your master? Depending on how you answer that question determines many aspects of your life, your worldview, and your value system. It also determines what lies you are susceptible to. In fact, the liars want you to feel insignificant, in order that you turn to them for salvation.

Satan wants you to believe that you are a tiny piece of space dust, flying through empty space with no great impact on the grand scheme of things, until its time to grab your money for this or that boondoggle. He also wants you to believe that Jesus worships him as Jesus is accused, today, of casting out demons in his name.

So that when some of the people declared that Jesus was casting out demons in Satan’s name, they may be simply trying to preserve God’s holy Name. They understand that God has placed the priesthood on earth to man the Temple; the place where God promised His Name would be forever. They understand that only God can forgive sins and truly purify someone from demons.

Yet, in their sinfulness, they can not help but prove their unbelief. They cannot help but diminish the Temple’s importance by teaching as doctrine their own commandments (Mt. 15:9) and casting doubt upon the validity of the priesthood. They proclaim the strength of Israel, instigating riots and zealots to take back the land, thereby weakening it instead of strengthening it.

They proclaim the power of God, but teach and preach that it is the power of man and their sons that do works of exorcism and cleansing, charging money and livelihood for those things God hands out for free. A standard truism of the Bible is that we resemble what we worship. “Those who make [idols] become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Ps. 115:8). Our identities, and the way we view others, are shaped by our religion, who we call master, for good or for ill.

In our current case, panic shoppers faithfully mirror the god of materialism. Rather than being responsible citizens or loving neighbors, they are just consumers. The purpose of living is to have enough stuff. Buying and hoarding become sacraments. “Their god is their stomach” (Phil. 3:19). Other people are not fellow humans to be loved, but competitive consumers to be over-spent or, if need be, shoved out of the way on the way to the altar of the check-out line.

This leads to the materialists’ creed, that of false scarcity. False scarcity is the tactic used to present a good or service as “not enough to go around”, so every one is driven to “get one for themselves”, cuz no one tells me what I can or can’t have. This is the infamous Black Friday sales. This is also medical supplies, “not enough vaccines for every one” and is true in money as well.

Don’t be fooled. There are no “secular people” or religious “nones” in the world. Everyone is religious. It’s just a question of what their god and religion are. And the last few days have demonstrated, with abject clarity, with what heated zeal the god of materialism is worshiped. But this is not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. We bring our sin with us wherever we go and it infects everything we do.

Here it is that the Lord reveals Jeremiah to us and his prophesy against God’s chosen people: “You shall die” (26:8), says the Lord, through Jeremiah. It was in this prophesy that Jeremiah predicted the coming destruction and exile of Israel, by Babylon, calling for 70 years of deportation. Of course this sealed Jeremiah’s fate and he would be killed, but no matter what the people did or how they reacted, the prophesy would come true.

This is the mindset that we need to have among ourselves whenever tragedy or disaster strikes close to home, that “with God’s permission the enemy has sent poison and deadly dung among us, and so I will pray to God that He may be gracious and preserve us” (Luther: Letters of Spiritual counsel, 242).

With God’s permission, Job was devastated, losing livelihood and family and health. With God’s permission, the Flood swept over the entire earth, ending all life. With God’s permission we have been given over to the sinful desires of our hearts and have exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:24-25).

It is the knowledge of this “permission from God” that drives home faith’s cry of “repent”. Each and every disaster that befalls us is a God-given opportunity to repent. To turn back to God and repent, because we deserve it, especially if God is sending it. If God desires that we suffer evil and be overcome by it, our defense will not help us (Luther, 235). 

We should pray as Jesus prays saying, Lord I commit to you my entire being. I am in Your hands. You have commanded me to live this life in this place and in these circumstances. Your Will be done, for I am Your poor creature. You can slay me or preserve me here as well as if I were in duty bound to suffer fire, water, thirst, pandemic, or some other danger.

Dear Christians, let us not be fooled by false gods and their fear. Repent of your sins, but repent and be forgiven. That is the Good News. Israel in Jeremiah’s time only heard the threat against their material things. They failed to hear God’s Promise, which He gave them before He told them of His wrath. 

In chapter 24, the Good News is God will “…regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.  I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up.  I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart” (24:5-7).

Christ has loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God, as our Epistle says, to give us this very promise. Jesus offers Himself up to bring back all people from the exile of sin, death, and the devil (Rom. 5:2). To combat false idols, He does not content Himself in speaking through pillars of clouds, fire, or donkeys, as He does with Balaam. He takes for Himself a reasonable body and soul and proves there is only one God.

The God Who does not wait. The God Who does not deal in fear or scarcity, but peace and abundance. The God Who suffers and dies and rises again, gathers all men to Himself, lifted up upon the cross. The God Who goes to find the lost, exorcise them of their demons, and preach the Good News to them.

Who is sick and Jesus was not sick? Who is suffering and Jesus did not suffer? Who is possessed and Jesus was not possessed. Indeed, sin and death possessed Jesus such that He became sin for us, Who knew no sin Himself. But this possession could not last, for though He was found guilty, it was on behalf of us. So He dies the greatest sinner, but rises from the dead, never to die again.

This is the sticking point. The people whose god is the material, the powerful, the untouchable can not fathom, much less believe, in a God Who does not just cast out demons, but takes them upon Himself to take them away from you. This lowly God Who dwells in poverty instead of riches, Who lives among the possessed and the diseased, Who does not withhold salvation and purity just because of earthly events.

He brings us to His own purity which casts out demons and sickness alike, in His Word and Sacraments. He fights the visible and the invisible for us, granting us temporal health, maybe; temporal security, possibly; working out forgiveness, definitely.

Our Master, Jesus the Christ, does not work out His salvation in earthly prosperity, but makes it happen in spite of it. For we can be saved while poor, sick, or demon possessed. None of these things negate the work of the cross for you.