I WILL FEAR NO EVIL BETHANY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Psalm 23 LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
Mark 1:21-28 JOHN M. BUCHANAN
FEBRUARY 3, 1974

One of the more bizarre current in modern thought is a sudden interest
in and fascination with the occult. For some people, particularly the young,
it is becoming an obsession. Witchcraft, which everyone thought had passed
into an ignoble history with the eighteenth century Salem trials, is enjoying

Interest is high and wide-spread in the subject of demons
a tremendous renaissance/ and demonology. Astrology has never been more
lucrative: shops dealing in the paraphanelia of the occult, witchcraft and
the stars have blossomed all over the country. And there has arisen, on the
fringes, a religious twist expressed in Satan Worship.

The phenomenon is important enough to have made the cover of Time Magaz-
ine a year or so ago. And one of the conclusions of the very informative
cover article was that our particular age, in which things seem "out of
control"; in which there seems to be an insidious and sinister force at large
in the world, fosters this kind of thinking.

Whatever the logical explanation for the phenomenon, it is here. And
it seems to have come to a head in the recent release of "The Exorcist",
probably the most talked about and controversial motion picture of the year.
Hollywood knows a good thing; and more to the point knows how to promote, or
exploit - if you will, a good thing. The longest lines in itemory are queing
up to see it - which may prove that the only thing more exciting to the Ameri-
can cinema viewer than pornography is the possibility of being scared out
of his wits.

In any case, The Exorcist, a book by William Peter Blatty, was atest

seller two years ago. It is abvut a young girl who is progressively "posses-
sed" by the Devil, and the "exorcism" - or driving out-of the devil by a
Jesuit priest. I read the book. It was highly entertaining; good writing -
good reading: diversionary, frightening in the way that is fun to be

From book to film has added another dimension, as
frightened on occasion. But the transition/often happens when Hollywood puts

its craft to work on the written word, another dimension that intensifies

I WILL FEAR NO EVIL -2- FEBRUARY 3, 1974
and amplifies the experience described on the page. Hollywood, you will
recall, made the Spirit of God into a green gas in the Ten Commandments. In
the case of the demonic - possession by the Devil - accompanied by skilled
lighting, music and dramatic inuendo - the result is apparently a profoundly
disturbing experience.

Time, last week reviewed the film, and‘I found. some of the comments
worth sharing: ; .

“Jesuit priest John O'Neill thinks that some of the film's explicitness
might.be excused as a device to show the power of. evil" ~ and confessed that
he was not able to sleep for several nights xhtar seeing the film.
~i%ba "Dominican Father Richard Woods,... encountered 23 cases of people who

thought they were possessed by the Devil after reading The Exorcist: he now

fears another wave of hysteria from movie goers"... "The movie is going to ~
they had never made it.." Jesuit Richard Robins warns, "Students say they wish
cause so many pastoral problems I wish/they had never seen the film.... I

Saw ten-year-olds in the theater...That is nothing short of a crime."
(Time, January 21, 1974, P.45-47)

With all of that asa backdrop - the current phenomenom of the occult -
the book - the movie - and the svenebtiiey that we will find ourselves. talking
about it with someone in the near future - let's take a, look at the question
in the context of faith; for that is where it belongs. Beginning with-an.
inctdent that occurs in theearly pages of Mark's Gospel, and then proceeding
backward to the very basic Biblical position as rar lected in the 23rd.Psalm.

With four new disciples Jesus traveled to Capernum, a settlement on the
western snore of the Sea of Galilea, to take up residence in the home of
Simon Peter. The scene of the incident is the Synagog: in Judaism of the day
a "lay" institution which was used for three purposes - a school for the young,
a court for trying minor offenses, and a siaes’ for worsiip. The day was the
Sabbath: Jesus and-his friends were in attendance. ‘The custom prescribed a
portion of the Law and tne bye phets to be read and then a Scribe - or a

visiting Rabbi would interpret the scriptures: The method was to cite other

y WILL FEAR MO EVIL -3- FEBRUARY 3, 1974
authorities - much as a preachéfr will quote a theologian or Biblical scholar
to document his point.

So it was that Jesus began his teaching - by commenting on the scrip-
tures in the Synagog. And as soon as he began he created a sensation. He
cited no authorities other than himself. "You have heard that it was said
of old, but I say to you" was his technique. The people were astonished at the
obvious implications of his method, and more astonished at the truth and
goodness of what he went on to say.

Teat's the point of Mark 1:21-28. Here is a teacher with authority, not
borrowed from others, but lodged directly in himself. And what happens next
is in the text to illustrate that point, if anyone failed to get it the first
time around. Jesus‘ discourse was loudly interupted by the intrusion of a
man with an “unclean spirit"; that is to say, possessed ky a demon. He
shrieked: "What do you want of us Jesus of ifazareth? Have you come to destroy
us?" That is to say, "Do you presume that authority also?" And desus said
simply, "Be quiet - come out of him." fark reports that the man was suddenly
convulsed, then quiet and healed. The people who were astonished at his
teaching authority were now dumbfounded. Something new was happening in their
midst. Some new kindof power they had never experienced before. The inci-
dent is repeated in the Wew Testament many times but the point is always the
Same. Jesus Christ is , himself, the ultimate power of God.

Yet the question remains, “What - really - is going on here?" And the
answer lies, as usual, back on the edges of recorded history. fen have
always attributed misfortune, natural calamities, sickness - in fact, anything
that could not be expiained - to the work of evil spirits. It never occured
to anyone to doubt their existence. The Jews were inclined to believe that
they were the spirits of fallen angels, or the spirits of the dead. They
were thought to reside in tombs - and the desert. The Near East idiom "The
howling of the desert” still indicates the popular belief that there are

demons out there, A popular cliche in Jesus’ day was that the air was so

1 WELL FEAR NO EVIL -~4- FEBRUARY 3, 1974
Filled with demons that a needle held upright would touch at least one.

Now, to live in thatkind of context, was to Tive with a permanent fear,
It was also, unfortunately, to deduce that persons who exhibited frightening
and irraticnal lehavior were possessed by a demon. Into that category went
the mentally i11, the epileptic, and interestingly, the very gifted. Jesus,
himself, was said to have a demon.

Jesus’ method of dealing with the situation contains no clue as to
whether or not he believed in their reality. It does, however, demonstrate
that he fPok very seriously the effect the belief had on the lives of people.
And apparently his approach worked. People were made whole again. And more
to the point, his power and authority were recognized as the only power and
authority that really mattered.

The popularizing of the demonic in novels and movies such as The Exorcist

is accompanied today by a renewed interest on the part of the scholars.

Rollo May (Love and Will) describes the demonic as a state in which a natural

function takes over the whole person, and writes that violence is simply a
small but natural aspect of the whole man that suddenly goes awry. A man
becomes possessed. I continue to see the best illustration of that in
Mackey Arena ~ when the combined snirit of 14,000 people slowly begins to
take over until it fills the buitding and peopie da all sorts of things that
would Jand them in a straight-jacket if they would suddenly erupt in that
kind of behavior at the office. If you have ever watched the films of Nazi
rallies in Nuremburgh and Munich you have seen the power of a spirit big
enouga to absorb millions of individuals until it has an identity of its own.
And if you know anything of what transpired as. a result you know the raw and
incredible power of the demonic.

A little more modestly, George Plimpton writes about his career as an
ersazt quarterback for the Baltimore Colts, training for one series of plays
in a pre-season. game against the Lions. One day he was asked if he wished

to participate in a particularly brutal exercise: and he reflects that "from

TOWTEE FFSR WO EVIL “He FEBRUARY 3, 1274
somewhere dep tnside me someone said "yes", It obviously wasn't me talking."
Transtate that - the portion of Plimption's manhood that seeks adventure

and can never turn down a "dare" took over. And for a moment he was
possesse'. Or of course, Flip Wilson, who excuses outrageous behavior

with "The devil made me do it".

Inrone of this, though , is there an answer to the question that really
bothers us : are there really demons? Are there evil spirits? Does Satan
exist? Some reputable _ people say yes. For what is is worth, I say no.

I believe that the church wrongly used the ignorance of the first
century, first to frighten people and second to gat them inside the Church.
Al] the while missing the Biblical witness that there is no power that stands
beside the power of God. I believe that Satan has been used as a moral Ccop-
out, not only individually, but to relieve men of the responsibility of
dealing with evil in the world. And I believe that the current interest in
the topic is basically harmless until it drives us backward ~ away from witat
we know to be true -away from the deepest assertions af our faith - to a

kind of irrational and unhealthy fear.

Evi? remains. Helmut Theilicke, in a sermon on the phrase “Deliver
us from evil" once said, “Dear friends, in our time we have had far tao mesh
--stact with demonic powers..."(Our Heavenly Father, P.133). The kind of
Hout-of-control evil” that makes us wish we could blame it on the devil
-caains in the world. And it 4s here that Christianity has been tao soft
and too naive. To put it in the context of Theilicke's comment, if the Church
of Jess Christ had been @ Tittle more concerned about the demonic spirit of
Naziism, and a little jess concerned about doing battle with a cloven hoofed
devil, the history of the mid twentieth century might have been different.

The basic question, when alt 4s said and done is pastoral - and personal-
and intimate. It has to do with us - individually - our fears and our hopse..
And I bring it to rest back, centuries before Christ, tm a basic and fundamental

position of our faith.

~ I WELL FEAR NO EVIL -6- FEBRUARY 3, 1974

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil.” That is no cliche, even though we may have made it into one.
It is the root of faith, the basic trust that even the most eloquent don't
express very well, that regardless of what happens God is still in control]
and there is no need ever for irrational fear.

Isolate the phrase: think about it, “I will fear no evil." It is
significant for what it does mt say. There is no sugary suggestion here that
evil is not real. There is no simple minded natvete'’ that suggests that
evil is an illusion. Tnere is no suggestion that the valley of the shadow
of death really isn't all that bad once you get used ® it. The Bble is here
and everywhere consistantly honest about the reality of evil. War - starvation
injustice-~accidents-even the dark vally of death are confronted by the Bible
with integrity.

Hor is there a suggestion here that we will never be afraid. There are
threats thatprovoke normal fear. Fear is healthy and creative when it
motivates us to find a cure for Cancer or to build a dam against the fiood.
One writer suggests that being afraid is almost a moral responsibility in
view of the negative possibilities in the world and that our real danger
lies in the "devil may care” attitude that refuses to acknowledge the threats
all about us.

The text doesn't say: ‘don't be afraid". What it does say is": I will
fear no evil." Of ati the threatening possibilities that confront us, none
ig ultimate: none needs to put us in absolute terror. That is, there is no
reality such as described and dramatized by The Exorcist and exploited by
the accult.

The Biblical affirmation is realistic - we will walk through the valley
of the shadow of death. But there - even there - we need fear m evil - for
our shepherd is in the valley witn us. The Bible is realistic - but buoy-
antly joyful. For even in the presence of my enemies ~ my fears- God sets

a table, and we sit down and eat together. Even death - my death-my final

T WILE FEAR BO EVIL -/]- FEBRUARY 3, 1974
enemy - my ultimate fear - even there I can expect my God to set that Table.
"TI will fear no evil.”

Faith that rests on that is peace and freedom. Faith transforms death
from an ultimate enemy into an incident. I kave seen that. At the hospital
bedside of gravely ill people I have been taught about a God of ftove who
comes with grace and comfort and strength. I have Tearned in ways I cannot
very well explain about the presence of the shepherd in thea valley and about
the living reality of the affirmation, "I will fear no evil."

I believe that God is present --even to those who cannot call him by
name. I read recently a book that confessed that eloquently though reluctantly.
Stewart Alsop, journalist and columnist for fewsweek has written about his
experience with Leukemia, thought to be terminal, but now - at least tempor-

arily - dormant. In the preface to his book “Stay of Execution" he writes

"Death is, after all, the only universal experience except birth,

and although a sensible person hopes to put it off as long as
possible, it is, even in anticipation, an interesting experience?

That is the author's style, supported by friends Tike Alice Longworth,
who, when she heard about his illness wrote this note: “Stew, iihat a nuisance-
Love, Alice,"

In one brief section Alsop deals with religion. He walked into an
Episcopal Church and sat down to pray. He tried the Lord's Prayer and
forgot the words halfway through. He reflects: "I have en an agnostic
since I was about eighteen. { am an agnostic stiil..... And yet.... And yet
(1 remembered) Hamiet: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy'’...... I do not say there is no God,

I say onty I do not know whether there is a God. There ts certainly a mystery
out there somewhere...1 have developed an incantation from an anthnalogy of
Winston Churchill. He describes how he was run down by a taxi in New York
and suddenly this - 'For the rest, live dangerously; take life as it comes;

dread naught; all will bo well’... find myself repeating that sentiment Tike

“1 WILL FEAR MO EVIL ~8- FEBRUARY 3, 1974
a talisman - or, I suppose, like a prayer." (P.142-143)

That is the deepest prayer in the human heart. It is a prayer heard
by God: a God who is in the darkest valley with us. It is the dearest hope
of all men: a nope thatfaith confirms and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ
celebrates.

"ft will fear no evil for thou art with me...

thou preparest a table before me

in the presence of my enemies..... " ACTEM

Father, take up our fears, and by wur tove help us to live in freedom, through

Jesus Christ our Lord. AME