“DEMONS IN
THE VALLEY”
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A sermon preached Readings: Eph 6:10-20, Mk 9:14-32 |
Sophie Scholl, died 22 Feb 1943
In
the summer of 1942, leaflets began to appear in Munich.
In the midst of the tyranny of Nazi rule,
these messages were widely distributed.
In a time and place where even the smallest private word of criticism
was deemed a treasonable offence, leaflets were appearing
encouraging the people of Munich to fight against the Nazi machine.
The leaflets were written in the name of a group called the White Rose:
Seven
leaflets in all were distributed.
Here is an extract from Leaflet 4:
Has God not given you the strength, the will to
fight?
We must attack evil where it is strongest,
and it is strongest in the power of Hitler…..
We will not be silent.
We are your bad conscience.
The White Rose will not leave you in peace!
The
Gestapo and the German authorities were enraged by these leaflets.
They
went searching for a sophisticated terrorist cell.
In
fact the White Rose stood for
a small group of a dozen or so idealistic young Christian students.
“They had decided to wage a spiritual war against
the system,
armed with no other weapons than courage,
the power of truth, and an illegal duplicating machine”
[Robert Ellsberg, “All Saints”, Crossroad, 1997,
p88]
The
student group became more and more daring,
daubing anti Nazi graffiti on University buildings, distributing the leaflets
widely.
The
White Rose group saw in the Nazi machine the face of evil –
“Every word that comes from
Hitler's mouth is a lie…
When he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty,
he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan.….
Whoever today still doubts the reality,
the existence of demonic powers,
has failed by a wide margin to understand
the metaphysical background of this war…
the struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist.
Everywhere and at all times demons have been lurking in the dark,
waiting for the moment when man is weak….”
The
White Rose saw its role simply to fight against evil in the great tradition of
prophets –
trusting in God alone: and determined that they would fight it –
not with bullets and bombs, but with the power of God
“Everywhere and at all times of greatest trial men
have appeared,
prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God
and who His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward
course.
Man is free, to be sure,
but without the true God he is defenceless against the principle of evil.
He is a like rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm,
an infant without his mother,
a cloud dissolving into thin air.”
The
founders of the group were a brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl.
Finally
on 18 February 1943 Sophie Scholl was spotted by a University Caretaker,
who was also a member of the Nazi party, as she distributed leaflets.
She and her brother were arrested.
Four
days later, on 22 Feb 1943,
they went with great composure to the Guillotine,
where they were beheaded.
61
years ago this day, 22 Feb, they died, and today we remember them.
And
today, the Sunday before Lent,
we traditionally think of the transfiguration of our Lord –
his ascent into the high mountain,
where he gives Peter and James and John that glimpse of his glory
before descending back to the valley below.
You
recall that after Jesus and his inner circle of disciples get back down the
valley,
they find a great hubbub –
there is a man who son is possessed of a devil –
but the disciples who have stayed below cannot heal the boy.
Jesus
heals him.
Why
could we not do it, the disciples ask?
These things are done by prayer, says Jesus.
And it occurs to me that the story of Hans and Sophie
Scholl
can act as a commentary on today’s Gospel.
1.
It is no good staying on the Mountain top.
You have to go back to the valley.
As Hans and Sophie discovered,
the more you study God’s Word in the sanctuary,
the more you are driven to share that Word in the world outside –
from the Mountain top back to the Valley.
2.
In the Valley you will find those possessed of demons.
The New
Testament speaks of those filled with evil spirits.
We might think we have left that sort of talk behind.
But Hans and Sophie looked at the workings of the Nazi party
and realized that here was the devil at work- a demonic side to society.
”Everywhere and at all times demons have been lurking in the dark,
waiting for the moment when man is weak”
3.
The battle against evil can be won in the power of God
The disciples who have not been on the mountaintop
with God can do nothing.
But Jesus can defeat the demon. This is
done by prayer – he says.
What is prayer?
It is the bringing of myself and my world and my needs
into the presence of God
and asking that he will work his will in the situation.
And Hans and Sophie were faced with the might of the 3rd Reich –
how could they fight the machine gun towers and the gas chambers?
Not with an eye for an eye but with prayer and the powerful Word of God.
”without
the true God [we are] defenceless against the principle of evil. …
like rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm,
an infant without his mother,
a cloud dissolving into thin air.”
Of course to the world it looked as if they had been defeated.
But to die with Christ is to travel the way of the cross
with the one who came to the valley to share in sorrow and death
that all might be lifted up on high to the Father’s love.
What
I have said has swung between 1st Century Galilee and WW2
Germany.
But of course the truths here are also for every place, for every time.
We
could have read pieces from Graham Shaw
about the trials of Christians in Zimbabwe or 1001 other places.
But
we need not look that far –
look at Exeter 2004,
and hear the same message which inspired
the disciples in Galilee and the martyrs of the Reich:
And
the message is this -
Ø Come here on Sunday and meet
God –
he will give you his Word of love and power
Here at his table is our mountaintop.
Ø Find yourself driven out
into the streets, the workplace,
for God would have you spread his Word there.
Ø Know that God’s love and
truth
will confront and stir up the powers of evil –
confronting them is part of being a follower of Christ
Ø But through prayer and
staying close to God
you will find strength for the task
Ø Ultimately, do not fear those
who merely kill the body –
for whatever happens to you or me,
the way of the Cross will always be the way of victory –
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers, neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Rom
8:38-39).