SPEAKER_04: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Blessed be God's spirit.
SPEAKER_04: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_04: Almighty God, under whom all hearts are open, all desires known, from whom no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_04: Cleanse from the spirit of hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04: That we may perfectly love you and will be magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_04: Will you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving kindness through Jesus Christ our Lord and listening to the peace of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_04: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Please be seated.
SPEAKER_03: For I are shall all Hashbaz, meaning swiftly savaged, rapidly ravaged.
SPEAKER_03: Then I will swear in for myself faithful witness, the priest Uriah and Zachariah and Jeberekiah.
SPEAKER_03: So I went to the prophetess and she conceived, and she gave birth to a child, and the fountain of wisdom said to me, May the child Marashalal Hashaz.
SPEAKER_03: For before the child knows how to call my mother, or my father, the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried off by the ruler of Assyria.
SPEAKER_03: Then again the creator of all spoke to me yet further, for because this people has refused the waters of Shiloh that flow gently and swan and resin, ruler of the Aramidians, and on account of Israel's king, Hekat, the son of Rameleiah, therefore the Holy One is bringing up over them the many mighty waters of the Euphrates river, the ruler of Assyria and all his glory.
SPEAKER_03: And it shall rise above all its channels and overflow its things.
SPEAKER_03: And passing through Judah the flooding pouring over, it shall flow up into the neck, and its wingspan shall fill the width of your land with the man the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: The eyes of the all-seeing God are upon the righteous.
SPEAKER_03: The face of the righteous one is against those who do evil.
SPEAKER_03: The righteous trial and the compassionate one hearers.
SPEAKER_02: Now are we God's children, and it has not yet been revealed what we will be.
SPEAKER_04: Now suddenly a person from the crowd shouted, Teacher, I beg you to examine my child.
SPEAKER_04: This is my only child, and see here.
SPEAKER_04: The spirit seizes the child, and immediately there is shrieking, and it shakes the child with foaming at the mouth, and it will scarcely leave the child, torturing the child.
SPEAKER_04: Now I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they were not able.
SPEAKER_04: Then Jesus responded, saying, You faithless and twisted generation, how much longer must I be with you and put up with you all?
SPEAKER_04: And bring your child here.
SPEAKER_04: While the child was coming, the demon threw the child to the ground in convulsions.
SPEAKER_04: But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and returned the child to the parent, and all were amazed at the greatness of God.
SPEAKER_04: While everyone marveled at everything Jesus was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, Let's sink into your ears these words.
SPEAKER_04: Indeed, the Son of Woman is going to be betrayed into woman-born hands.
SPEAKER_04: But they did not understand this word, and its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it, and they feared to ask him about this word.
SPEAKER_04: Now, there arose a debate among them which one of them was the greatest.
SPEAKER_04: But Jesus, knowing the debate in their hearts, took a little child and put the child next to him.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus said to them, Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me.
SPEAKER_04: And whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me, for the least among you all is the greatest.
SPEAKER_04: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: Because I think if a child picked Jesus picked up, was well dressed, clean, and quiet, it'd be real easy to think, ah, whoever accepts a clean, well-behaved, pretty child has accepted God.
SPEAKER_04: That would be easy.
SPEAKER_04: After all, we're mammals, and there's something in our DNA about taking care of children.
SPEAKER_04: The reason I wonder about the story is because that isn't hard to do.
SPEAKER_04: What would be hard is if the kid was dirty and had snot coming out of its nose, and dirt under its fingernails, and was making noise, well, during the sermon, and had raggedy ripped clothes, and Jesus said, There, welcome God.
SPEAKER_04: Because I think that'd be harder.
SPEAKER_04: And it makes me wonder, actually, if we shouldn't hear Jesus doing that while the child is having this epileptic seizure, if that's what it is.
SPEAKER_04: Well, why could you ever see God in an epileptic seizure?
SPEAKER_04: Well, because there's a God present with us wherever we go.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's either yes or no.
SPEAKER_04: And if the answer's yes, and we can't see it, then it must be our fault, and not God's.
SPEAKER_04: I'm at fault most of the day.
SPEAKER_04: And most of the night.
SPEAKER_04: And I'm just going to tell you, I hope you didn't grow up like I did with a church that taught you that epilepsy comes from a demon like the red thing with the tail and the fork.
SPEAKER_04: I did grow up hearing that.
SPEAKER_04: Which means if you have it, there's something wrong with your faith.
SPEAKER_04: Because if you just believed enough, God would heal it.
SPEAKER_04: And you wouldn't.
SPEAKER_04: So it's not wrong to have epilepsy, except it's wrong.
SPEAKER_04: I hope you didn't grow up that way.
SPEAKER_04: And I hope you noticed, well, it's hard to know in English, that actually the interpreter, even today, this is really strange, uses the word demon and then uses the word unkind spirit, but they're the same word in Greek.
SPEAKER_04: So I don't know why she picked to do it one way and then the other.
SPEAKER_04: Because I actually think it makes it hard to resist a reading where sick people earned it or deserved it.
SPEAKER_04: But they did it and they don't.
SPEAKER_04: Like our common sense and our reason tells us that.
SPEAKER_04: So does our faith in God.
SPEAKER_04: Why would God punish you with epilepsy when you're an infant?
SPEAKER_04: That's nonsense.
SPEAKER_04: I hope we can agree on that.
SPEAKER_04: And it makes me wonder then, why Jesus is disgusted at the crowd.
SPEAKER_04: Did you notice?
SPEAKER_04: The dad says, your people couldn't help him.
SPEAKER_04: My only kid.
SPEAKER_04: They couldn't help him.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus says, Well, I don't have to live with you.
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't say, I'll try my hand at it.
SPEAKER_04: Wow, isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_04: Jesus wasn't always polite.
SPEAKER_04: Like he's really put out in the story.
SPEAKER_04: He even says, You twisted and perverse generation, how long do I have to live with you?
SPEAKER_04: Wow.
SPEAKER_04: And I just thought Southern Women said stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04: I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_04: Wow, like what a backsided thing to say.
SPEAKER_04: And this comes out of the Lord's mouth, you know, and it makes you wonder, I mean, what's going on?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it makes me wonder, at least, what's going on.
SPEAKER_04: And, like I said, if you grew up in a church that taught you that it's the kids' fault or the dad's fault because of their lack of faith in the Lord, they don't know, it would be really confusing, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_04: But we learned that.
SPEAKER_04: I learned that on the flannel board.
SPEAKER_04: And I learned that gut schizophrenia is probably a demon, too.
SPEAKER_04: It turns out that that's not the case.
SPEAKER_04: Like Einstein's demon led him to E equals MC squared.
SPEAKER_04: In Socrates' demon, whispered in his ear the right question to ask.
SPEAKER_04: That was the Socratic method.
SPEAKER_04: It was his gift of brilliance, was his demon.
SPEAKER_04: And it lived on his shoulder and told him what to say.
SPEAKER_04: The New Testament doesn't use the word that way.
SPEAKER_04: The New Testament says that a demon is a force that is somehow metaphysical, like it's greater than any one human being can control, and it is always opposed to God.
SPEAKER_04: You might be tempted to think that the demon is sickness in the story, because after all, the kid appears to have epilepsy.
SPEAKER_04: But I'd invite you to reconsider that.
SPEAKER_04: I would tell you, one of the most demonic things I've ever seen is a rally, and I've only seen it on tape from Nuremberg in 1936.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you've seen this footage, but it involves like thousands of German people with torches, and it involves people in like probably the best designed military uniforms I've ever seen, all marching in sync.
SPEAKER_04: Lock step.
SPEAKER_04: If you don't find it compelling, I don't know what's different about you, it was designed to be psychologically compelling.
SPEAKER_04: If you watch a Nazi rally, it is powerful.
SPEAKER_04: Because Goebbels made it so.
SPEAKER_04: It's meant to tap into awe and wonder.
SPEAKER_04: It just does it at other people's expense, which is why it would be what the New Testament calls demonic.
SPEAKER_04: Because it costs somebody else.
SPEAKER_04: That's demonic.
SPEAKER_04: Mob mentality is metaphysical.
SPEAKER_04: It is greater than one person's ability to control or overcome.
SPEAKER_04: So when the New Testament uses words like demon, it's not talking about you've blown out your ACL.
SPEAKER_04: You did that.
SPEAKER_04: Demonic things are racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism.
SPEAKER_04: Do I need to continue?
SPEAKER_04: Those are things that are greater than any one person's ability to control, and they come at the expense of innocent others.
SPEAKER_04: That's demonic.
SPEAKER_04: So what's demonic in the story?
SPEAKER_04: Not that the kid has epilepsy, that the disciples think he's broken.
SPEAKER_04: They're sure he's broke.
SPEAKER_04: So what do they do?
SPEAKER_04: They want to fix it.
SPEAKER_04: Don't you want to fix it too?
SPEAKER_04: I do.
SPEAKER_04: I want to fix what looks like a problem.
SPEAKER_04: The dad wants to fix his son.
SPEAKER_04: Any of you grown up in a home where your dad wanted to fix you?
SPEAKER_04: I know painfully well what that's like.
SPEAKER_04: What's the demon?
SPEAKER_04: It wasn't me.
SPEAKER_04: The demon was, Dad wanted me to be something I wasn't.
SPEAKER_04: That's demonic.
SPEAKER_04: Why?
SPEAKER_04: Because it destroys the dignity of God's people.
SPEAKER_04: And maybe Jesus is put out that we look at other human beings, whether they're ill or live in Iran, and say there's something evil and wrong about them.
SPEAKER_04: We need to fix something.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe that's what puts Jesus out.
SPEAKER_04: Because after all, 1 John says, and I want you to make sure you've noticed this word.
SPEAKER_04: 1 John does not say we could be called the children of God.
SPEAKER_04: We could be.
SPEAKER_04: If we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and accept that he dies.
SPEAKER_04: On the cross for our sins.
SPEAKER_04: If we do that, we could be called children of God.
SPEAKER_04: First John does not say we could be called God's children if we live morally upright lives and pray in the correct posture.
SPEAKER_04: 1 John does not say we could be God's children if we give 10% of our income to the church.
SPEAKER_04: 1 John says, do you notice the word?
SPEAKER_04: I could.
SPEAKER_04: We should.
SPEAKER_04: We should be called children of God, which makes me think maybe the story's out of sequence.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe Jesus points the kid in the middle of a seizure and says, There's God.
SPEAKER_04: Would you find that hard?
SPEAKER_04: I would because I've grown up in a culture of ableism that's afraid of being sick.
SPEAKER_04: I would because I think God owes me health.
SPEAKER_04: I do.
SPEAKER_04: I think God owes me health.
SPEAKER_04: And I'm wrong about that, by the way.
SPEAKER_04: God doesn't know your health.
SPEAKER_04: God doesn't know your functionality.
SPEAKER_04: God doesn't know your lithium.
SPEAKER_04: We came up with that stuff, and it can be really helpful.
SPEAKER_04: It can be.
SPEAKER_04: But God doesn't owe us that.
SPEAKER_04: No.
SPEAKER_04: And just to further make the point, I hope you found that reading from Isaiah weird.
SPEAKER_04: Let me make sure you understand what's happening.
SPEAKER_04: God says right on the tablet, quick to spoil, carry off the booty.
SPEAKER_04: And then Isaiah goes to a female prophet, presumably his wife, and they have a child, and Isaiah calls the baby, quick to spoil, carry off the booty.
SPEAKER_04: Now I don't know if there's hyphens in there, but that's the name.
SPEAKER_04: Now, you tell me, if somebody, if you did that, would your family say, the Lord inspired you?
SPEAKER_04: Or would they say, you have a demon?
SPEAKER_04: By the way, where would we put Joan of Arc today?
SPEAKER_04: In a cycle.
SPEAKER_04: People who have visions go in wards.
SPEAKER_04: They don't go in pulpits.
SPEAKER_04: So let's just think about that for a second.
SPEAKER_04: We now, through the benefit of history, can say, ah, Joan had this relationship with God.
SPEAKER_04: But if she were your sister, you would want her seeing a psychiatrist.
SPEAKER_04: So what do we really know about demons anyway?
SPEAKER_04: How to behave like them.
SPEAKER_04: How to behave demonically because we undress the dignity of other people because they don't eat like us, dress like us, vote like us, you name it.
SPEAKER_04: And look, the question's gonna get called.
SPEAKER_04: We like to think we figured all this out, but we can't even figure this out in our own country politically.
SPEAKER_04: And boy, if you're like a global citizen, if you've read the news, I've got to tell you, my brain is really susceptible to like, I don't know, conspiracy theory.
SPEAKER_04: Like when I hear that there's an earthquake in Iran magnitude 5, it makes me wonder: was that an earthquake or was that an explosion?
SPEAKER_04: By the way, I'm not saying it's an explosion.
SPEAKER_04: I just wonder.
SPEAKER_04: And it makes me wonder what's wrong with those people.
SPEAKER_04: You ever wonder what's wrong with those people?
SPEAKER_04: With those people.
SPEAKER_04: Do you know what's wrong with those people?
SPEAKER_04: They democratically elected somebody in 1952, and the CIA overthrew them because we wanted the oil.
SPEAKER_04: That's what's wrong with those people.
SPEAKER_04: Why did they take Americans hostage, you know, in the late 1970s?
SPEAKER_04: Because we thought we'd give them a Shah again.
SPEAKER_04: That's what's wrong with those people, is we wanted their oil and their wealth, and we didn't want to give them any money for it.
SPEAKER_04: Now, do I think what they're doing is fair?
SPEAKER_04: No.
SPEAKER_04: Am I scared?
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, I'm scared.
SPEAKER_04: Because what if that was a nuclear explosion?
SPEAKER_04: It actually could affect me this time.
SPEAKER_04: And not just paying at the pump.
SPEAKER_04: Paying at the pump is the smallest way of being affected when you live here, don't you think?
SPEAKER_04: Because I've lived other places like California where gas is twice as much.
SPEAKER_04: That's when I bought a hybrid.
SPEAKER_04: Also because I could be environmentally sensitive, but really it's because I didn't want to pay$5 a gallon with gas.
SPEAKER_04: Because all those taxes were demonic.
SPEAKER_04: Because they cost me something.
SPEAKER_04: You ever find yourself speaking about demons as things that inconvenienced you?
SPEAKER_04: Very rarely do we say, gosh, those stairs demonic.
SPEAKER_04: They are inconvenient, although I've heard people say it before.
SPEAKER_04: My knee hurts, and these stairs are evil.
SPEAKER_04: Man, my bunion must be a demon in my foot, or it's osteoarthritis.
SPEAKER_04: And it's really inconvenient because guess what?
SPEAKER_04: I can't do everything I want without consequences all the time.
SPEAKER_04: And that's not the definition of demonic.
SPEAKER_04: That's the definition of inconvenient for me.
SPEAKER_04: Does my bunion affect you negatively or adversely?
SPEAKER_04: Not at all.
SPEAKER_04: Except I wasn't here for a Sunday, and that probably was beneficial.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, just think through this, right?
SPEAKER_04: I wonder if this story isn't here to really push us to think about what a demon is and what it isn't.
SPEAKER_04: What's curious about Luke is Luke takes this story from Mark, we think.
SPEAKER_04: We think Mark's the older version.
SPEAKER_04: And in Mark, Jesus isn't all put out.
SPEAKER_04: And he says to the disciples, they say, why couldn't we do it, Jesus?
SPEAKER_04: And he says, this type can only be aided through prayer.
SPEAKER_04: Now that's really interesting because Jesus prays in Luke more than any of the other gospels combined.
SPEAKER_04: So Luke is the prayer gospel, and Luke omits it.
SPEAKER_04: It's on my mind as we could just watch this video by Richard Rohr.
SPEAKER_04: It's his idea, not mine.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, so I'm not even going to present it as well as he does.
SPEAKER_04: But Richard Rohr says in this video that we watched this past week, that we often think of prayer as a transaction.
SPEAKER_04: Like I ask God for something.
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes I'll even offer God a thing to get what I want from God.
SPEAKER_04: Like, God, I didn't study for this test.
SPEAKER_04: I'll begin an A and I'll become a nun when I grow up.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, maybe you use the word monk, I don't know.
SPEAKER_04: But this is like a way of like partnering with God.
SPEAKER_04: And yeah, we know God knows everything already, but God really wants to test your faith by asking you for 15 years to pray daily that your brother will no longer become, I don't know, some kind of heathen and will become a member of the Church of Christ, which you happen to belong to.
SPEAKER_04: I did that, by the way.
SPEAKER_04: It turns out my brother became Jewish.
SPEAKER_04: So I don't know if God answered my prayer or didn't.
SPEAKER_04: Isn't that the interesting part?
SPEAKER_04: I'm glad my brother's Jewish.
SPEAKER_04: Most of the time.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes it's inconvenient for me.
SPEAKER_04: Like on Saturdays when I want to call it.
SPEAKER_04: It's inconvenient.
SPEAKER_04: Must be demonic.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, back to that, right?
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, what Richard Moore says is that prayer actually isn't about a transaction at all.
SPEAKER_04: Richard Moore says prayer doesn't even necessarily require us to say words or thinking in sentences.
SPEAKER_04: Prayer is actually just the recognition that God is fully present in all things.
SPEAKER_04: Even children who are dirty must not notice us who have epilepsy.
SPEAKER_04: And that the reason that the disciples can't fix this child is because they think he's broken.
SPEAKER_04: And that's the thing.
SPEAKER_04: That they think he's broken.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if that preaches to you, but I've got to tell you, I spend a lot of my time during the week thinking about how broken other people are.
SPEAKER_04: Because if they weren't broken, they'd do it my way.
SPEAKER_04: Now, look, I mean, if I'm wrong, I'll change my opinion.
SPEAKER_04: You know, like I'll I'll try to get it right, so that's not so bad.
SPEAKER_04: Except it isn't prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Now you see, it's not prayer.
SPEAKER_02: Actually, it's praying to myself.
SPEAKER_04: My Mike, who aren't here, hallowed we are in St.
SPEAKER_04: Thomas as it is in my minivan?
SPEAKER_02: I get it's a little bit funny, but isn't that how you pray really at the end of the day?
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that how you pray?
SPEAKER_04: God, my will be done on heaven, like you should make it happen.
SPEAKER_04: I don't always understand the mystery of God.
SPEAKER_04: The mystery like epilepsy and schizophrenia.
SPEAKER_04: I don't understand this.
SPEAKER_04: But I do understand that people with epilepsy and schizophrenia have no less of God's dignity than I do, and I don't have those things.
SPEAKER_04: I don't always understand how major depressive disorder can be a demon that sits on my shoulder and sometimes has wonderful things to tell me.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes not such a thing, but I know that's true, because I have.