There is no bogeyman and you have no special powers

There is no bogeyman and you have no special powers; that should have been the title of my sermon this weekend. I preached on John 20, the story of our Lord appearing to all the Apostles, except Thomas who was out of town. Many have taken a cursory look at this passage from the “Doubting Thomas” perspective, but there is a deeper truth; and that is that Christ meets us where we are so that we can acknowledge “My Lord and my God”. But I digress; part of the passage recounts Christ breathing the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and commissioning them. Christ gave the power and authority, not the bogeyman; he didn’t enable some unseen force in the Apostles. All power and authority comes from our Lord, Jesus Christ.  John 20:22 “…He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

I note this because there were three illustrations of parishioners believing unconsciously (I hope,) from years of poor church education, just the opposite. They believed or were concerned that a prayer for restoration of a family, a television show, or a cross necklace are endowed with some special power. Following are the examples that are very concerning to me as a Pastor not only for the health of the congregation, but the state of theological understanding, or lack thereof, and its inferred fear in individuals. As a mea culpa, our congregation is less than two years old, so we can not take credit for our parishioners’ education over the past few decades. 

During the service, I prayed for a lady to have her family restored and saved, with Love pervading their relationships, etc. etc.  After the service, the lady thanked me, but asked that I not include a restoration of her ex-husband to the family because she didn’t want to be with him again. So many issues here with picking and choosing how you want God to work in your life and not trusting that God works for your good out of His love.  What struck me most, however, was that she thought that my prayer had the power to bring her [evil] ex-husband back into the family. Thinking that I , or anyone, could tell God how to answer a prayer.  Isaiah 40:21 “Do you not know? Have you not heard?” God works to our benefit through his Love and Power. When we pray for restoration, we ask for his Light to be manifest in our lives. I do not have the power to filter God’s love for some people in a family, but not others.

The final prayer of the service is a blessing that includes “be you protected by the Cross of Jesus, now and through the coming week”.  A parishioner, who has been a Christian for over 40 years, had lost or misplaced a cross her mother gave her years before. She had not worn it in years, but had been trying to find it for a couple of weeks. We prayed for her last week that she would find it; a day or so later she was going through a box and found it; Praise God for answering prayers. However, she said she wears it now so that she is protected from evil. I had to explain to her that the cross is not a talisman. There is no power imbued to that piece of silver; she was not bare of protection before, nor would she have more protection now. Our protection comes from God and living the faith of a disciple as we’ve been taught in scripture.

Last, and perhaps most concerning – or maybe not since all of these are examples of superstition, a variant of witchcraft, and certainly “bad churching” for decades, was a very nice, faithful, prayerful lady who came forward for prayer for her son in-law. The details are not necessary, but suffice to say he has some deep psychological/spiritual illness issues that will only be resolved through our Savior’s love. In the after-service, she said that part of her son in-law’s issues was related to his father’s suicide. This is probably the case, even though he was an adult with a family at the time. What was disconcerting was that the father, a resistance fighter in World War II, and a sufferer of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) saw a television program on Kurt Cobain’s  suicide. You may recall that Cobain, a rock star with LSD and heroin addictions, history of bipolar disorder, and prior suicide attempts, had a close encounter with his shotgun, kindly leaving a suicide note behind. The lady said that it must have been a “demon” that came from the television to influence her son in-law’s father to then go in the bedroom to take his own life with a shotgun. Uhhh, sorry to inform you but demons don’t jump out of the television, except in the mediocre horror film, “Ghost in the Machine.” Certainly there are demonic possessions, and in our weakness we are influenced by Satan, which may have been the sad case here. But a demon transporting itself through the television? I don’t think so.

It is truly sad to see that there is so much false doctrine, spiritualism, and witchcraft-like belief in the church today.  The scripture is full of warnings about false teachers (Matthew 7:15, 2 Peter 2:1-3) and these people who have been Christians for most of their lives should know better. But with no one to correct them, decades of bad theology by those selling Christianity based on emotion, primal urges, power struggles, ego and the like, this will continue. I am concerned that folks like these three parishioners will be sorted as goats, not sheep (Matthew 25) when the final day of judgment comes. Until then, it is the responsibility of all in the position of teaching to teach and preach the Gospel message alone. We do not need to entice people with aspirations of power [through the holy spirit] or the need for avoiding things in which demons might reside [like “bad” movies.] The truth is that we are all focused on our flesh, we all fall short of what God has intended for us, and can never deserve our salvation. We have to submit to Christ’ lordship, pray for guidance, be prayerful in all things, and follow the examples of our Savior and the Apostles, none of whom would withhold prayer, wear a talisman, or think that a demon would jump out of an inanimate object at them.