Second Sunday in Lent – Your Sanctification

1 Thessalonians 4:1-8       St Matthew 15:21-28

This is the will of God, your sanctification.

In the season of Lent, we are on a pilgrimage with Jesus to Jerusalem.

I hope, like Jesus, you have chosen to enter into some kind of fast for the forty days.  Remember Jesus said about his own disciples,  “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” [St Matthew 9:15]  We have all known times of greater closeness with Jesus and times when he seems further from us. 

As I’ve said before, fasting is like placing a shovel into the hardened soil that is our soul, to loosen it up, and make it more responsive to God’s Word, responsive to the new life that the Spirit would bring us.  We are hoping to unveil subtle or not so subtle ways that we are being unfaithful.  I hope you are already experiencing a renewal of closeness with Jesus. 

Last Sunday, today and next Sunday, our Gospel readings deal with Jesus confronting devils.  The talk of devils, for some in the modern world, might seem strange and from another era before the Enlightenment.  And it is true that some ills that we now attribute to other natural causes, were in an earlier time attributed to the demonic.  But that should not lead us to dismiss evil as not ever present in our world.  We live in the clash of kingdoms, the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven.

The early church Fathers in Egypt who went away from the corruption of the city, into the wilderness, went there not to get away from evil but to confront it head on and unveil it.  They felt themselves too distracted in the city to see it.  And it is interesting to read the works of Evagrius of Pontus and of John Cassian, who sought these monks out to learn from them what they had discovered, and so share it with the wider church.  Their works reveal insights about the intertwining of psychology and spiritual warfare.  Through intense self-reflection, and the Holy Spirit, they saw in themselves the range of temptations and bindings that they were experiencing and the grace of God working to liberate their souls.

Fr Crouse summarizes well their insights:

“The realities of spiritual life remain very much the same; the devils are very much with us still, around us and within us.  Basically, devils are wicked, unclean, perverse spiritual powers, perverse spiritual principles, and ideals, by which we are constantly tempted, and often governed.

“ To be “severely oppressed by a devil” [as the daughter of the Caananite woman was in today’s Gospel] means to have one’s will, indeed one’s whole personality, fixed and focussed upon some spiritual perversion – some worldly lust, some idle curiosity, some vain ambition – to have one’s will fixed upon some finite good, as though it were divine.  It means to be devoted to some false god, devoted to some worldly idol of one sort or another.  Their name is ‘Legion’.

“It is not just a mistake – it’s the willing of a fantasy, the willing of a lie.  And he who wills a lie is possessed, and consumed, and incapacitated by that lie, mentally and physically.  We do, of course, make mistakes and we are, of course troubled by all sorts of accidents and problems in the ordinary course of nature.  To be possessed by a devil is something quite other than all that; to be possessed is to will a lie, to espouse and to love a lie, as though it were the truth, and every one of us is vulnerable to such a pretense in many more or less subtle forms.”

[sermon for Lent II in The Soul’s Pilgrimage, Vol. I, p. 135]

Remember that Jesus says that the devil is the father of lies [John 8:44].  And we saw Jesus confronting the lies of the devil last Sunday in the Gospel when he was tempted after fasting.  He does not overcome evil with power, but overcomes evil with the truth, with God’s Word.

So our Lenten fast is aimed at uncovering the lies that we are willing in our current life, that is, choosing to follow in our life, and it is distorting our true aim.  It is making us less able to love our family, our friends, our enemies, ourselves, as God loves them and us.

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In today’s Epistle, St Paul speaks of one such lie, sexual immorality.  The Greek word is, pornea, from which we derive the English word pornography.  But the word doesn’t just have that limited sense, as we understand pornography in the modern world.  It is a word used 30 times in the New Testament by Jesus, St Luke, St Paul and St John.  When Jesus uses the word with his Jewish disciples, when St Paul or St John use the word with their Jewish upbringing, it has content.  When the Council of Jerusalem [Acts 15], made up primarily of, and led by, Jewish converts to Christ, it has content.  It means any sexual relations that are forbidden under the Law of Moses, both in the 7^th commandment (you shall not commit adultery), and in Leviticus 18 (incest, homosexual practice, and bestiality).  And in Jesus’ teaching it refers not only the outward act, that is sin, but the inward thoughts of our hearts, if we dwell on them beyond the temptation, that is, the evil thought that comes into our mind (St Matthew 5:27f).   Sexual immorality is just one example of a passion in the soul, whose origin  is good, sexual desire is part of being human, but that can be misused by the devil to bind us through willing a lie. 

The Dessert Fathers and Mothers helped us to see the whole range of our souls’ passions [pride, vainglory, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust] and identified a right ordering of them and a disordered following of them, which leads to our destruction.  So you can see that an understanding of our soul, our basic psychology, the passions, is essential for us in the unmasking of the lies we are following.

But even when we know what we are doing is wrong, even when we know that we are willing a lie, we discover, if we have followed that lie for a while, we cannot easily break free.  We form bad habits and we cannot stop.  It is clearly demonstrated with addictions to alcohol and drugs, but it is the same with any lie we are willing.  And this is where it is important to understand the spiritual warfare aspect of our binding.  The devil would have us remain in bondage.  We see the lie and reject it, in part, and yet we also still hold on to the lie, in part, and so are bound.

St Paul speaks of this profound insight in Romans 7 from looking carefully into his own soul: “the good that I want to do I cannot do, but the very thing I hate, that is what I do – who will save me from this body of death?”  And soon after he concludes, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  We need God’s help, His grace freely given, to free us from the grip of sin, through trusting in Jesus sacrifice for us.

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The Gospel today gives us hope that we will not only be able to see the lies that we have been willing.  But also in the Gospel Jesus gives us hope that God is able, by grace, to cut through the enslavement that we discover, when we see a lie working itself out in in our lives, and when we try to break free.

A woman comes to Jesus to ask for help for her daughter who is “severely oppressed by a demon.”  We don’t know the nature of her possession, but we are to see ourselves here, in whatever way we are bound and cannot manage to get free.

And there is a heartbreaking exchange between Jesus and this woman as she pleads for his help.

Jesus seems to be rude to her, and yet we trust that he sees her heart and wants to draw out her example to all of us for all time.  Her love for her daughter is so clear in her mind, and her trust in Jesus as someone who can help her is so clear in her mind, that she is not put off, but pursues and pursues him.  Despite what appears to us as attempts by Jesus to push her away, her persistence with Him brings the result she desires:  “Jesus answered her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.’  And her daughter was healed instantly.”

How do we receive deliverance from evil in the face of willing a lie? 

First we need to see where we are willing a lie.  And that can be a part of our current Lenten self-reflection (but is a lifetime practice).  If we think somehow we are completely free, we are not looking very carefully.  But once we see it, in ourselves and in our loved ones, the Caananite woman is an example to us of humble abasement before God and at the same time, faith that God does not reject us, and faith that we can boldly ask for help.  As Martin Luther wrote,

All those trials of her faith sounded more like no than yes; but there was more yea in them than nay; aye, there is only yes in them, but it is very deep and very concealed, while there appears to be nothing but no. 

By this is set forth the condition of our heart in times of temptation; Christ here represents how it feels.  It thinks there is nothing but no and yet that is not true. Therefore it must turn from this feeling [of judgement] and lay hold of and retain the deep spiritual yes under and above the no [the experience of condemnation] with a firm faith in God's Word, as this poor woman does…

Those of you who have come recently into Anglican worship might note that the Prayer of Humble Access, the prayer we say before coming to receive Holy Communion, is based upon this Gentile Caananite woman’s example both of self abasement and of trust:

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.

(Here is self abasement and the recognition that God’s grace is not something we deserve, but is an unmerited gift.)

But you are the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy.

(Here is the deep trust that God keeps his promises and reveals His mercy foremost in Jesus’ death for us.)

There is something deep in our souls that Jesus is dealing with, to bring each one of us relief.  This Gospel is for each one of us.

This is the will of God, says St Paul, your sanctification, our being made holy.  Jesus wants our full deliverance from evil.

Let us prepare ourselves now through repentance and faith, to know more of that deliverance, as we eat, not just the crumbs, but as Jesus invites us to sit at His Table to eat the Bread of eternal life and drink of the Cup of salvation.

Amen +