The First Rule of Fight Club: What is Spiritual Warfare and why is it Good News? ~ Ephesians 6:10-17 (Sermon Two of Four Part Series)

¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. ~ Ephesians 6:10-17

In the 1999 movie Fight Club, two men disillusioned by the world they live in begin hosting fighting clubs where members brawl as a way to reclaim their humanity amidst aimlessness, dreary jobs, and pointless consumerism (It’s more complicated than that but I don’t want to give too much of the movie away). Despite the raw physical character of the fist-fights, they consider what they’re doing a “spiritual war” and begin every meeting with rules which, despite what they say, serve to make the group grow. Each meeting begins with the command: “Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!” Well today we’re going to talk about Fight Club – no, not the movie, but the fight that we as Christians find ourselves in. A fight that I believe, like the movie, is a spiritual war that will help us reclaim our humanity and rightful place in God’s kingdom. A battle that will bring us hope and encouragement. So what is spiritual warfare and why is learning about it good news?

1.    First, spiritual warfare is good news because it's not “your” battle and not “my” battle but “God’s” battle and “our” battle. And the war has been won!

In spiritual warfare, everything is plural! The “you” in vs. 11 is plural. Vs. 12 tells us it’s “our struggle,” and all those verbs are plural – y’all stand, y’all put on, etc. We are not an army of one. We stand together. And our armor even the strength to wield it is not ours but God’s strength working through us. These facts will shape the rest of everything we will talk about. If you believe that you are alone, or imagine that you engage this battle on your own power, it will greatly impact what you believe is important, what you should be doing, and how you should be doing it. Illus. 56 Club and the hot lava game (go to the audio version of the sermon to hear the illus.)

And the battle is good news is because you are not being asked to win it because it has already been won. The decisive victory has already been won by God in Christ on the cross. Earlier in Ephesians, it says that we have been delivered from darkness (Eph. 5:8, 11). So Paul doesn’t even tell us to fight, but to “stand,” that is, to preserve and maintain what has been won. It is because God has won that believers are involved in the battle at all. So the call to stand is itself a reminder of our liberation from the tyranny of the powers. What ultimately protects believers is not our own alertness but that God has already rescued us from bondage and seated us with Christ in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:1-10). The battle therefore that we face on a day-to-day basis is understood in the NT as the in-between space between the defeat of powers and their final destruction. During this time, the powers of evil are still active, and so we cannot afford to be complacent but their end is secured.

A helpful analogy for what I’m talking about is the difference between D-Day and V-Day in World War II. D-Day was when the Allied forces landed in Normandy and established a beachhead in Europe. The Allies quickly recognized that the outcome of the war, defeating the Nazis, was decided in June, 1944. But between D-Day, which marked the Allied victory in Normandy, and V-Day, which marked the surrender of the enemy and the Allies' liberation of all of Europe—there were still many months of suffering and struggle. The cross and the resurrection were God's D-Day. God in Jesus by the power of the Spirit fought and won the decisive battle. Although Satan and powers of evil can raise havoc, their power have been broken, and Christ, through the church, is driving back the forces of darkness. God's V-Day isn't yet here. But because of God's triumph on D-Day, we know how it will end.

2.    Spiritual warfare is good news because though the battle is won the struggle is still real. 

Why is that good news? Well – because when you move away from this language of battle and struggle against powers which seek to do us harm the struggle of evil gets foisted upon God. If there’s no battle, no real enemy, then we turn the problem of evil into a problem about God’s goodness – “Why would God do this to me?”. But if there is a real battle then we don’t need to agonize over how some higher purpose might be served by any particular evil event. If the world is indeed caught up in the middle of a real struggle between good and evil forces, evil is to be expected – including evil that serves no higher end. The soldier in the midst of battle doesn’t trouble himself with “why?”. Without a real enemy, evil gets fundamentally framed as a problem of God’s providence and thus of God’s character. So we need to reclaim a theology of resistance rather than a theology of resignation. The former sees our job as standing and saying “no” to the wickedness of our world – to fight. The latter sees our job as often sitting around with our heads in our hands and simply wondering, “Why?” a question which the Bible doesn’t feel the need to answer because it assumes a struggle. Once we establish that a war is occurring, no other particular evils demand explanation. The philosophical perspective of resignation tends to frame the problem of evil as an intellectual problem to solve whereas the biblical one defines our response to the problem of evil as a revolt against “powers and principalities” that we are empowered to wage against. Thus evil should be understood as being what God is unequivocably against and thus what God’s people must fight. This frees us from needing to explain away evil but also allows us also to weep for things that simply aren’t right and the casualties of the fight, e.g. Sixth grader and the Holocaust (go to the audio version of the sermon to hear the illus.).

3.    Third, our battle is good news because it’s not against people.

But if it’s not people that we are fighting then what is it? What are “powers of this dark world” What are the “spiritual forces in the heavenly realms”?

What are “powers and principalities”?: a biblical tour

The phrase archai kai exousia which is translated as “powers and principalities” or “rulers and authorities” is used in the NT ten times. Only two occurrences are in the Gospels (Luke) and clearly reference human political institutions:

¹¹ “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, ~ Luke 12:11

²⁰ Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be sincere. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said, so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. ~ Luke 20:20

So when Jesus and Luke talk about conflict with “powers and principalities” they are talking about conflict with human legal and political authorities. The other eight occurrences of archai kai exousia in the NT occur in the Epistles.

²⁴ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:24

¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invincible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ~ Colossians 1:16

¹⁰ and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. ~ Colossians 2:10

¹⁵ And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ~ Colossians 2:15

²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ~ Ephesians 1:21

¹⁰ His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, ~ Ephesians 3:10

¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ~ Ephesians 6:12

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, ~ Titus 3:1

A quick tour of these verses is instructive. The “powers and principalities . . . of the dark world” will be, in the end, “destroyed.” They were created by God and are both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, and represent the power of government as well as the role or office of those in authority. Christ is spoken as being their “head” and over all of them, has disarmed them and triumphed over them by the cross, and we are told to struggle with them. The final verse, from Titus 3:1, is the only outlier in that it tells us to “be subject” and “obedient.” Now, are these only human political powers, only spiritual powers, or a mix of both? The most obvious answer to me is a “mix of both,” with the exception of Titus 3:1, which clearly points to human political authorities. The reason the Bible mixes and matches human and spiritual powers is because the writers of the Bible don’t think these were different sorts of powers. Rather, they are, manifestations of the same power of the one world. In the ancient mind, spiritual and political powers were always two sides of the same coin. Political power had a divine aspect and spiritual power shaped peoples social, political and cultural existence. This is true today as nations take over all of the cultural, even liturgical elements, of the church (songs, rituals, oaths, identity, etc). So it’s not surprising that the Bible associates these powers with the image of Babylon – the violent, bloody and spiritual symbol of empire that stands against God’s rule and exploits the poor and the weak.

Now we must proceed with a great deal of grace and humility at this point. Many Christians, on either side of the political divide, have jumped into the fray of partisan politics believing that this is what will save our world, transform our society, bring the kingdom. But friends, it’s all part of the same system for which our primary responsibility is to resist. And so if you believe that Donald Trump is the savior or Hillary Clinton is the devil, or vice versa, I encourage you to reaffirm your loyalty to where it should truly lie – with the God who is above both, who loves both, who has disarmed these powers and will sit in judgment over them. And we must call out evil in this system – at this is not always easy to see or do – but the measure or litmus test for how well we are doing it will always be the gospel message of love and forgiveness for all. Interestingly enough, Ephesians 4:26-27 will identify one of the schemes of the devil as “anger”. Our current politics of anger and outrage, the inability to have conversations, to ask questions, to listen critically, will not help us in this fight but are themselves the strategies, the wiles, of the devil. Our common enemy is the devil and his dark forces. We need to work really hard at seeing human beings, even politicians, as captives to larger unseen forces that trap us and manipulate us as pawns in a larger, devilish game, a game that is pushing us toward violence and hateful confrontation, racism, xenophobia, poverty, national exceptionalism, torture, rampant consumerism, lack of respect for life, a broken prison system, the obscene role of money in the political process, etc. Focusing on these larger forces will help create greater capacity for mercy towards flesh and blood people.

And friends, we need to remember that Jesus prayed from the cross, having been crucified by the powers of his day, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” I believe that Jesus was capable of both standing his ground but also forgiving the people who killed him because he saw them as leaves being blown about by dark forces – political, social, cultural, psychological and historical winds.

4.    Fourth and final, there is a whole armor of God but only one weapon (or maybe one and a half). And the weapon itself if good news!

It should strike us as important to recognize that the “full armor of God” is so short on weapons. Of the 6 pieces offered us only one is offensive – a sword. Moreover, a general description of a historic Roman soldier’s weaponry is helpful. A soldier of a Roman legion would traditionally carry four weapons: two javelins, a dagger, and a sword. So right off the bat, Paul is cluing us into an almost subversive vision of the Christian soldier and Christian warfare – only one weapon. And if that’s true then why is it today that believers assume they need an arsenal and bunkers? They imagine that they need multiple, high-powered weapons for some doomsday scenario of Satanic proportions. Their fear distorts the good news and the weapon itself. So some of you need to put your Uzi down! And quit sharpening your Bible into a pointy weapon. We’ve known such people and know that the Bible can be sharp and destructive in the hands of those who wish to use it badly. Some of us bear the wounds. But it’s not the Bible faults. In fact, the sword in Ephesians 6:17 is not the Bible at all. Here, the words matter. Illus. Jordan and the sword “it’s not a sword” (go to the audio version of the sermon to hear the illus.)

In Ephesians 6:17, the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” is not speaking about Bible but the gospel message, the good news of salvation. The Greek term for “word” in vs. 17 is rhema not logos, which always refers to the spoken “gospel” message NOT the whole of Scripture (e.g. 1 Peter 1:25 “The good news that was announced to you.”) The good news is not pulling out scriptures of judgment, pummeling people with statements about God’s wrath as if you are some OT prophet, or offering mean tweets for Jesus. Our weapon is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel hasn’t changed and won’t change in the face of demons. It’s the only news that they are really scared of. Will you have the courage to use it? The other half of a weapon is Paul’s command to “pray in the Spirit at all times” so that message of the gospel can be declared boldly. So what is the weapon that is the “word of God”? Simply this, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). Now Paul and I command you, “go and wield that!”

“My name is Legion; for we are many.”: Why the church needs to keep talking about demons (Mark 5:1-20) Sermon One of Four Part Series

5They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. ²And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. ³He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; ⁴for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. ⁵Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. ⁶When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; ⁷and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ ⁸For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ ⁹Then Jesus^* asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ ¹⁰He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. ¹¹Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; ¹²and the unclean spirits^* begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ ¹³So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake. ¹⁴ The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. ¹⁵They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. ¹⁶Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. ¹⁷Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. ¹⁸As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. ¹⁹But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ ²⁰And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed. ~ Mark 5:1-20

     The first thing I want to tell you is that Jesus steps out of boats.

Now boats are very important to Jesus – he calls a number of fisherman who use them, they help transport him from place to place, they provide food for his group through fishing, and even serve as a floating platform from which to speak –boats are helpful, familiar and maybe even fun. I wonder if in their many cruises around the Sea of Galilee if conversations didn’t arise that went something like this. Peter says, “You know guys. We’re in this boat a lot. I wonder if we couldn’t make it a bit more comfortable. The Master was a carpenter – maybe we could put in some benches, or maybe even some bunks.” “Yea,” John, jumps in. “We could make it bigger so that it’s easier to sleep.” Andrew pipes up, “Hey, how about a kitchen with a coffee maker. I mean we could make sandwiches and try some wake boarding– that’d be cool.” And Jesus wept.

Okay – that didn’t happen. But hey I’m a preacher at heart and we always wonder about things like that! But we get the sentiment. One of the most destructive things to happen to the church is when we refuse to step out of them. When we turn the church – the body of Christ – into a thing. Do you realize on a daily basis that we speak of the church in a way that the NT never does! We say, “What time is church? Are you going to church? I’ll see you at church.”  Now, I’m not trying to say that church buildings are bad. In the same way that Jesus used boats for the work of the kingdom. These are places where we meet other believers, can worship, find refreshment, and learn helpful things for the Christian life. But the Christian life is NOT a life at sea but on the land.  Our church buildings are to be ferries not cruise ships - to be transports and platforms for ministry because Jesus will always step out of them – always! He’s interested in the cities, the wild places, the tombs. That’s what’s being stressed – as we will soon see - Jesus is going into the “unclean” place of paganism, militarism, and exploitation.

When Jesus steps out of the boat – is when ministry begins. And immediately, he encounters a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit.

But before Mark says what Jesus does he wants to recount how society dealt with him. How the man had been handled with chains and shackles used to restrain and subdue him “among the tombs.” But Mark does more than describe these chains. He also wants to highlight their inability to work, to heal and to transform this wounded individual who howls at night and bruises himself with stones.  One almost gets the idea that Mark is saying that the chains are part of the problem.

What do we make of these failed “chains” and “shackles”?

          

          1.    Chains are those structures which seek to remove and separate people. They are the impersonal, punitive ways we seek to control those in society who don’t behave.  They are often solutions without relationships, without healing.  We must have people within the church who affirm that human beings are not fundamental problems to be solved with chains but enslaved people in need of liberation and compassion. What does a culture of chains look like?

A 2015 article by Newsweek documents are reliance in the U.S. on chains:[1]

·       The U.S. has the highest prison population in the entire world.

·       Over 2.2 million people are currently in U.S. jails or prisons. That’s more than the entire population of New Mexico.

·       Over 2.7 million children in the U.S. have a parent behind bars.

·       There are over 5,000 jails and prisons in the U.S. That’s more jails than colleges in the U.S. and in many parts of the country, there are more people in jail than living on college campuses.

·       The U.S. prison population has more than quadrupled since the early 1980s: when mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drugs when into effect.

As we begin to envision what a spiritual fight looks like, we must first recognize the failure of our current culture of chains to solve the problem of people who are often bound by forces beyond and outside of their immediate control. Whatever, those powers might be. Our chains may supply some protection but they do not provide the transformation that Jesus offers. They simply cannot be the tools we rely upon as agents of God’s kingdom. 

2. Chains are fundamentally products of our fear. I don’t want to be glib about this. Fear is powerful and sometimes even warranted. This guy certainly sounds scary (look at these images). 

 

 

 

But our current climate of social and political fears, our overwhelming desire to protect ourselves at all cost, is not the ministry of Jesus or the church that follows his name. Jesus liberates the chained he doesn’t use them. Chains are not good news. They don’t work on demons.

We now have to address the topic that we cannot avoid. Demons. At this point, I wish to do something that doesn’t often happen in sermons. I would like to begin a conversation with you about demons and spiritual warfare. I would like us to read the scriptures together, listen attentively to them and one another prayerfully, and gently engage one another over the next couple of weeks. What are we to make of the legion of demons? Why should we talk about them and spiritual warfare?

So, who or what is Jesus encountering in this passage? We need to read closely.

Our text says twice that the man had an “unclean spirit” (vss. 2 and 8) which later is revealed to be “unclean spirits (vss. 12-13) a “legion, for we are many” (vs. 9). The man lives in an unclean place, among the graves, often harms himself with stones, howling with pain, and is capable of impressive feats of strength (breaking shackles and chains, vss. 3-4). The demons (or is it the man) also recognize who Jesus is, are afraid of him, and beg him not to be sent “out of the country” but into a herd of pigs, which Jesus grants causing two thousand pigs to hurtle themselves off a cliff to drown in the lake. And if that sounds like a simple explanation for what you believe to be personal, spiritual agents who harm people and seek to thwart God’s kingdom, let’s look a bit deeper.

We should also remember that our story has a social and political context. This is Jesus’ first entry into the Decapolis, ten Greek cities, enlarged by Alexander the Great and settled by Macedonian military veterans. It boasted a temple to Zeus which, interestingly, used pigs for sacrifice, and also had a temple dedicated to the cult of Caesar. This region had been sacked and occupied by a variety of kingdoms (Ptolemies, Seleucids, even the Jews and Herod, and finally by the Romans, whose control they were under requiring tribute and forced conscription. 

Given that history of forced, militarized violence and economic oppression, I find it interesting that the demons refer to themselves in Latin as a Roman military unit – a “legion” could be upwards to six thousand soldiers – one of the most disciplined military formations the world has ever known.  It was a world, in other words, of oppressive religious, political and militarized forces. I also am intrigued by the notion that the demons don’t want to be forced “out of the country,” speaking like an occupying force.

Furthermore, I am intrigued by the complicated way in which Mark writes about the demon possessed man – who is speaking?, for example. It is the man who howls at night and hurts himself and begs Jesus not to torment “me” (vs. 7). “He” addresses Jesus, speaks as demons who beg Jesus and refer to themselves as “us” and yet in vs. 10 it is the man who “begs” Jesus not to send “them” out of the country. So there is strange switching back and forth between different subjects (singular and plural), making it not always clear who is speaking, sometimes in the same sent.

⁹Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ ¹⁰He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

So what is going on here? Is this a story of sinister, spiritual agents possessing an individual, is this mental illness caused by violence and oppression, or is there a middle ground of complex, distorted spiritualities that are greater than individual angst or brain chemistry but not exactly personal beings. I’m not entirely sure. Regardless, these are forces that do not align with God’s intent for his creation. This man was broken in every way possible: from God, himself, others, and the rest of creation. He is dominated by forces that the New Testament clearly identify as spiritual, which cut off from the basic needs of community and creation – friends, clothes, food, etc. Regardless, of what we think they are – they are both spiritual and real! Even if we can’t exactly determine or agree upon what these forces are, why should we keep talking about them?

How might the subject of demons help us think about the brokenness of our world and our role as agents of God’s kingdom?

1.  To talk about demons is to challenge any simple construction of blame – “We are legion for we are many.” 

 

Mark is trying to document the complexity, I believe. We already noticed that in vss. 7-9 we have this utterly bizarre movement between personal pronouns – “I” and “He” which are the demon(s) and another time which is the man. Truth is, we can’t actually always sort out who is speaking. We need to define the brokenness and sinfulness of our world in ways that acknowledge that all people are at the mercy of Powers far larger than their own individual decisions. We need to rethink our over reliance upon sin as simply rebellion.  To talk about demons, whatever they are, is to acknowledge that decision-making is difficult and prone to a variety of forces outside of our own control – whether that means mental illness, cultural upbringing, or economic forces that prey upon our lives. I’m not saying that people don’t have some personal responsibility – everyone does, even those beset upon by demons – but we need to enter into that complexity with humility and grace. We will never be able to be agents of good news if we always and simply blame people for the problems that they face. Why is it, for example, that it is often the church that struggles the most with people who have mental illness? So we need to think critically and theologically about the forces that impact people’s lives. And we need to recognize that we will never be the compassionate people we need to be if blaming others for their plight is our only or primary understanding of the human condition.

2.  To talk about demons frees us from the temptation to demonize those who are marginal or even do evil.  To demonize, of course, is essentially a reverse exorcism. It doesn’t free people from demons but turns them into demons.  A couple of years ago, an editorial writer in Santa Barbara wrote an op-ed piece about homelessness in which he likened people on the streets to “filthy pigeons” and “zombies . . .lurching forward, arms outstretched, in our faces, asking for money.” It’s not hard to imagine the logic of such language. Zombies can’t and shouldn’t be helped – they are humans not victimized by demons so much as human beings who are demons who seek to victimize us. So we should be careful when our focus on evil has us looking at people. When we do that we often no longer see them as ones whom God loves, whom he seeks to free, but evil itself. What if they are beset upon by demons?

3. To talk about demons is also to wrestle with the inner and outer realities of God’s world. 

Our passage reminds us that spiritual warfare and God’s salvation– engaging those struggling with demons – involves more than freeing people from inner spiritual torments but also outer spiritual ones, as well, like nakedness, homelessness, even friendlessness. When the man is freed from the demons he is found “clothed and in his right mind” (vs. 15). Now, it used to be that people taught that Jesus got rid of the demons but would leave them naked – evangelism without social justice. Others have said that Jesus wouldn’t worry about the demons but only the man’s nakedness – social justice without evangelism.  But demonic evil in this story is not just personal inner oppression but also outer structural evil, as well. Only by confronting both the inner and outer worlds of people’s lives will we inhabit the exorcism ministry of Jesus. If you’ve tended to think of spiritual warfare as mainly about how our prayers help fight off aggressive demons, I challenge you to expand how you think about spiritual warfare. But if you imagine that our battle is simply about addressing social injustices, I want you to expand your vision, too. So we need to be careful of avoiding two extremes: on the one hand a spiritual dualism which separates the world into the spiritual and physical spheres with the former being the more real world and the latter something that will simply waste away. On the other hand, we need to avoid a materialism or politic that knows nothing of an inner dimension or spiritualness of human beings. Both are blind to evil’s full effect and to God’s full salvation. So for Christians the move that is faithful is not from the material to the spiritual but rather from materialism to incarnation. Incarnation is the Church’s way of speaking about Spirit dwelling in matter. Salvation, true liberation, is always incarnational not just about spirit but the spirit of our stuff, not just about our soul but the soul of our entire self which includes our bodies. 

But now a simple question, “how did the man get clothed?”

4. Spiritual warfare is always about restoring people to a community that cares and collaborates.

Once Jesus cast out the demons I imagine a chaotic scenario much like this: “He’s shivering, hurt, and naked.” “Hey Peter, what size shirt do you wear?” “A large.” “All right, let’s have it. James, you have an extra set of pants pass them over. Who has shoes? What about something to eat?” I imagine that little bunch of disciples gathered around this man, forming a human dressing room, and clothing him. Real exorcism will always demand a collaboration to care for people’s bodily needs.

And Jesus’ advice to the released man is a helpful ending – “Go home to your friends” (vs. 19). Friendship in Jesus’ name is the solution to the evangelical divide between evangelism and social justice. Because friends don’t let friends sleep outside, friends don’t let friends walk among tombs alone or place them in chains, friends value what you have to say and know your name, and see you as more than a rebellious sinner but also one enslaved by forces outside your control.  Friends should challenge you – your thinking, your behavior, but not chain you. Befriending those who walk alone, cry at night, maybe even hurt themselves, and restoring them to community IS spiritual warfare.  When we offer our lives to Jesus and seek to love our neighbor as ourselves, we are facing off with demons. When we befriend those struggling with demons, when we befriend one another in Jesus’ name, the demons tremble. Demons always want you alone.

5. To talk about demons and spiritual warfare is to talk about the soul of a community. It demands that we ask, “what kind of community are we created to be?” (look at this image)

Our story ends with a spiritual battle between two communities. On the one hand, we have the community of disciples standing with Jesus who welcome, help and care for the newly released person. On the other hand, we have the people of the “city and in the country” who want Jesus to “leave their neighborhood” (vss. 14-17). This brings us back to the demons. Where did the demons go after the pigs go plop in the lake?  I don’t know but Mark leaves us with an intriguing element that is worth pondering. Did you notice that the fearful demons who “beg” Jesus to go away resemble the people who chained the man and also “beg” Jesus to leave their neighborhood (vs. 17)! Is this group possessed by the legion or have they succumbed to a sinister demonic reality? Either way, I would suggest that there fear is demonic. Friends, there is a spiritual battle going on around and forces which push us toward self-centeredness, self-protection and away from self-sacrifice. Which kind of community will we choose to be?

---

[1] http://www.newsweek.com/eighteen-facts-you-need-know-about-us-prisons-308860