Driving out Demons

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030316.cfm

Luke 11:14-23

Several years ago, when I was still working at STORServer, a hacker penetrated our internet firewall and broke into our company network. The hacker, identified through a trail of internet address locations from email and user logs, appeared to be a demon residing in China. Demons can come from anywhere, and this one disguised himself as a Chinese wily coyote with the nom de plume, “Ode To Joy.”*

For those unfamiliar with IT jargon (and in order to hide my inarticulate mastery of digital language), I’ll limit my IT references to a singular computing technology term — internet firewall. The origin of “firewall” stems from containing a fire within a confined, controlled space. An internet firewall is designed to keep communications and information within a contained space, hindering internal users from leaking into the public sphere. It is also designed to block prying eyes, outsiders, from spying upon the company’s confidential, and appropriately secretive, world of data. The two are very different functions. The internal protection is largely based upon employees and officers following rules. The external protection relies upon software and hardware barriers to authenticate visitors and folks ringing the doorbell, so to speak.

During Ode to Joy’s fiddling, STORServer’s firewall consisted of standard fare protection. We didn’t invest in exorbitant or extraordinary protection. Few did. We thought orbitant and ordinary would suffice. In order to hack through even a standard, ordinary firewall an unwelcome visitor had to be treacherous, underhanded, and decidedly in cahoots with the devil. Due to our standard fare protection, though, that meant a treacherous hacker need only be an orbitant and ordinary employee of the devil. Turns out, that’s the definition of a demon.

We STORServer folks were bright, but not personally familiar with the ilk of the internet firewall hacker. We had met similarly possessed fellows in all kinds of other business relationships. So, we knew the type. We just hadn’t met him in a digital way.

We considered ourselves generally protected from nefarious fellows, which we were. Generally protected. Our firewall kept 95-97% of our communications and information walled in, and 97-98% of peeping Toms walled out. In education circles, that’s a high “A.” Not Summa Cum Loude, or Magna Cum Loude, but certainly Cum Loude. Any demonic dastardly dudes capable of breaking networks would surely have better opportunities than a small computer manufacturing and consulting company located in Colorado Springs. Or, so we thought.

It turned out that 2-3% was a rather large hole. In a very short time the devious little demon had hacked into our network and cracked openings into quite a few rooms of our data stores. Over several days (which extended into weeks), we finally released his stranglehold and excised him from the system. The damage, however, was done. We were never sure what he had grabbed. We’re fairly certain, though, that we were exposed. Our firewall was easily breached, our ordinary armor was summarily taken away, and the “spoils” from his attack were surely distributed, or “scattered” as the scriptures refers to it.

In today’s reading from Luke about the “one stronger,” who attacks and overcomes the strong man, he does not sound like a friendly person. He’s not out to “gather” folks together and make sure their possessions are secure. No. Such a person seeks to divide and conquer, not to unify. We properly imagine the role of the devil as the one who breaks in and scatters people and their possessions. His demons scurry ahead and behind him, fulfilling his mission of destruction. That’s exactly what threw off some in the crowd with Jesus when he had driven out a demon. Jesus was accused of partnering with the devil. “By the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.”

Jesus broke through the firewall of the man who was possessed. He drove the demon out of the man, and the demon scattered, flitted away. The demon had no power over Jesus, and no longer any power over the mute man. The people were very familiar with the power of demons, but obviously not with God’s power as exercised from a human. Their dealings with those at the entrances to their cities, consisted most often of interactions with evil doers, and folks whom evil had overcome, not demons. The lepers, tax collectors, the poor, pimps, and the lame stood at the gates, all begging or conniving. Potential conquerers also stood at the gates, waving their swords.

Anyone who could overcome a demon at the gates must have supernatural powers. Only God could do that, but God wasn’t there. God’s Kingdom was off in the ethereal “up there.” It just made sense that Jesus must work with the devil to have control over them. He couldn’t be God, so he had to be partnered with the devil. God bothering with a possessed mute man seemed highly unlikely. God taking the form of a common man, the son of a carpenter, seemed absurd. Ergo, Jesus was acting with devilish devices.

At STORServer, after the hacker attack, our assumptions about visitors shifted into one similar to the Hebrews at the gates. We soon envisioned demons knocking at our doors. The devil traveled upon the network’s digital waves, riding the backs of unknowing tourists and living in the hearts of slithering Gollums. Toothy red viral agents fought to get into our digits. It’s the bad guys we have to watch out for. Check their backpacks!

Our attitude changed. We were not properly protected. Instead of 97-98% controlled gates, eager for welcome traffic and friendly visitors, we battened down the hatches. We circled the wagons. We stiffened our upper lips. We upgraded to 99.9%. Booyah. We concentrated our formerly innocent doe-eyed faces now upon the powerful and dangerous beings lurking in the shadows. We squinted, tight-eyed, and mumbled a new mantra, “Never again!”

The .1% drove us nuts. The demonic creeps could still do us in. Ode to Joy may bring his odious stench and joyless yuck again. Yikes!

In fact, in our spiritual lives, a tiny window of opportunity can become a beacon for the bad guys to invade. If we rely upon the protection of worldly armor, a spiritual warfare of demonic proportions will scale our walls. Similar to the invasive antics of digital terrorists, the devil can easily overtake our measly means of protection. The strong man identified in Luke was fully armed with guards around his palace. He was overtaken. Can a manmade firewall keep back the fires of hell? That’s where we must apply the highly unlikely, and patently absurd conclusion. The devil is too powerful for our lackluster armor.

We are doomed.

Well, no, we aren’t.

We have someone stronger than evil, with a Kingdom that scatters evil into corners so far away that evil will eventually disappear. In order to escape the graces and blessings of God, the gathering of all that is good and wonderful, evil must fade away. It cannot survive.

Demons and those possessed by them can certainly crush the worldly armor that we employ. But we protect each other with a signature of God’s love, not with firewall of fear. Evil may be able cut down the flesh of the brave and courageous, but their spirits are bound for heaven. The faithful to God stand between evil and the innocent. Demons can only shout at our pain and merely blur our vision. Our spirits and our DNA are stored in the Kingdom’s vault. Our eternal home with the communion of Saints is already reserved in the Book of Life. We sit secure in the treasury of the Trinity. Any death here is merely a gateway to heaven. Under the protection of the finger of God, we conquer every evil,including death.

We proclaim that the beauty we see here is a reflection of what’s to come, and we enjoy it for what it represents. The demonic attacks? We call them impotent. They will be scattered, not us. We are being gathered.

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”

I’m signed up, Jesus. I’m fully armed with your protection, living in the palace of your Kingdom as if it was here right now, and safe in your possession.

Whew.

There is a divine analogy to the internet firewall's dual protection of internal (folks who work at a company) containment of company secrets and external (outside prying eyes) hindrance at peeking into a company's data, email, and documentation. The divinely managed internal protection from evil follows the order of creation, under the tutelage of Jesus. It is based upon us following the purpose of God's design. The Holy Spirit writes that purpose upon our mind and the "Word" lives in our hearts. Our external protection relies upon a divine form of quantum physics which is written in a software (the Word) and applied to a hardware (creation) that transcends the barriers of time and space. The love of God the Father comes in grace and blessings, and the brotherhood of Jesus vouches for us and sends his angels. This is our life's protection, our internal and external Godly firewall, if you will.

We authenticate visitors and folks ringing our doorbell through the lens of the same love that God gives to us. We try not to concentrate on evil by concentrating on God. God knows the evil we encounter, and even as it slashes at us and maybe eradicates bits here and there, God sweeps evil away and repairs us.

I won’t be pining for my old Chinese named nemesis, Ode to Joy, but my prayers are that he will slough off his "precious” before he falls into the pit. Maybe there’s still time for God to rescue him. We followers have eternity, but we may only get to pray for those who prefer their demons for a short while.

* The name has been changed to protect the innocent; and because no one at STORServer seems to remember the fella’s hacker-handle anymore.