Homily 604 – 5 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
July 28, 2024
Epistle:  (103) Romans 10:1-10
Gospel:  (28) Matthew 8:28-9:1

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

To be such a brief account, there is a lot of content in the Gergasene demoniac story.  Some of it has been addressed before.  But inevitably it raises questions about demons in general.

The fathers don’t speak a lot about demons – at least, not in the sense of trying to understand them.  And for good reason – in their experience, why try to understand what you don’t want to become?  So the message of the fathers is to simply recognize they exist, and are to be avoided at all costs.

In our day, it seems that interest in demons, and also angels, has never been higher.  Priests get so many questions about demons – and I would say the questions are based in trepidation, maybe even fear.

Mostly, people ask two questions.  One, how can we determine if someone is dealing with demons?  And two, how do we get rid of demons?

Now, most of the answers offered to these questions are deeply unsatisfying.  But not to worry – the ultimate answers are indeed wonderful.

First, let’s recognize a few things about demons.  They are bodiless spirits, fallen angels as it were.  So there is a similarity between angels and demons.

And the biggest similarity is this – and this is critical to understand.  Both demons and angels are absolutely powerless.  Absolutely powerless.

Neither can control anything.  Neither can force us to do anything against our will.  Angels will simply deliver God’s message – truth.  Demons will deliver the evil one’s message – deception, lies.

Make sure to understand this.  None of the bodiless hosts can make us do anything.  They only try to convince us.

Specifically, as we focus on the demonic – because that is generally speaking what we most fear – we should ask about their objective.  It isn’t what you might think.

The objectives of the demons are not – repeat not – to get you to sin.  They know, just like we know, that any sin will be forgiven, and any effort made to get us to sin is useless.

We worry a lot about sin.  We see sin as the thing that separates us from God, something that makes God angry at us.  But that itself is a lie.  Sin is the result of our separation from God.  We are separated from the source of life, and the result is death – and what is sin is that which keeps us from reconnecting ourselves with God.

But sin can be – and is – forgiven.  All of it.  There isn’t a sin that God cannot or will not forgive.  The scripture says that the only thing that can’t be forgiven is blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Blasphemy requires intending to be defiant.  It cannot be done accidentally.  In essence, blasphemy is being determined to take credit for what God did.

So – if the demons aren’t trying to get us to sin, then what are they trying to do?

They are trying to get us to lose hope.  Demons try to get us to believe that we are unforgiveable.  Demons try to make us think that God doesn’t love us – that God is looking for ways to trip us up, to make us fail, to cast us out.

They do this not just for the pleasure in doing it, although they may derive some benefit from that.  The demons try to make us give up, so that we won’t repent.  So that we won’t change.  So that we won’t start over, and try again.

That’s it – that is what demons want.  To try to convince us to give up.

The Truth is that God will in no way cast us out from His midst.  We have to deliberately choose, deliberately decide to reject God.  To trust ourselves – which is to be prideful, unwilling to acknowledge our weaknesses and failures and beseech God to restore us.  To admit that we aren’t “all that.”

So – if it is that difficult to get us to fall away from God, how is it that the demons succeed?  They play a very long game.  It isn’t all negative.  They can start with simply convincing us to acknowledge what we accomplish without giving any credit to God.

When accomplishments happen, it is fine to be happy, even proud, of what we have done.  But – with that pride, there has to be an acknowledgement that we would not be able to accomplish anything without God.  That it is God working through us and in us that enables us to accomplish anything.

When we fail to acknowledge God’s role – to give Him thanks in everything – we begin to travel down the path that leads us to believe we are self-reliant.  That we no longer need God.

When we get to that point – the demons have won.  They have accomplished their goal.  We are possessed.  Not by demons – but by ourselves.  By our pride.  By our sense of self-reliance.

Our path back from that possession is not easy.  It becomes pretty obvious to those around us.  We don’t need help, we claim.  We can live on our own, as we like, even if that means living in the graveyard with the dead.  We can live on our terms.

Sometimes it takes a significant tragedy to bring us back to the reality.  Something that reminds us that we aren’t in control.

We can defend ourselves against these demonic attacks, though.  Just as the demons obey Christ – because they have to, since they have no power on their own, so can we cast out our demons through obedience to Christ – to acknowledging and living our lives in a way that demonstrates that He is in control, not us.

Which is the way of self-denial, continually giving thanks to God for everything, knowing that God always loves us and wants us with Him.

And repenting, over and over, moment by moment, day by day, for the rest of our lives.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ.