A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Some people brought Jesus a mute who was possessed by a demon. Once the demon was expelled, the mute began to speak to the great surprise and amazement of the crowd. Nothing, they exclaimed, like this has ever been seen in Israel. On the other hand, the Pharisees were saying, he cast out demons through the prince of demons.
Jesus continued his tour of all the towns and villages. He taught in their synagogues. He proclaimed the good news of God's reign, and he cured every sickness, every disease. At the sight of the crowds, Jesus' heart was moved with pity. They were lying prostrate from exhaustion, like sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus said to his disciples, the harvest is good, but laborers are scarce. Beg the harvest master to send out laborers to gather in his harvest. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen.
This business of expulsion of demons, of casting out devils, There's just too much of that in the New Testament to be ignored. You just cannot ignore it. How you explain it is another thing. But the point is, it it I have never counted them up. But the references to people being possessed of their of the demons being expelled, of Christ confronting Satan in the persons of those that Satan was possessing.
There are just too many instances of that in our Lord's life for us to ignore it. The influence, the causality, the effectiveness, the operation, or any words you want to use of the devil in human life today in our world, of course, is very much ignored. Ignored, rejected is an extremely primitive view. That idea of Satan and the devil, that's alright, you know, for for these very elementary peoples that we think we know something about. Notice how much we know is another question.
But we think we know a lot about them, and we say that this whole concept of the devil and his influence in the world, oh, that's, you know, that's pure. We are far more sophisticated and educated than that, even though many of us can't read a prescription on a medicine bottle. The point is, there is a devil. And the second thing is that he operates in this world. And this is not a very this is not a unique tenet of Christianity.
This idea that there is some evil principle in the universe is a very universal concept. And in some instances, it is made a great deal of. It's one of the great conflicts that Augustine had in his life, March 04/30, That the universe is ultimately, ultimately a battlefield between two great forces, a force of good and a force of equal of evil. Notice they are viewed as equal, as equally real, as equally actual. That's a commonplace view.
That, of course, is not the Christian view. Absolutely never was. Never was. Because even the devil is God's creation. Think of that.
The devil is God's creation, and the devil is not a second god. And the devil is not another great principle of evil, opposing the principle of good that we call God. That is not the Christian view. It is not the Judaic view either. But the fact that there is a fallen angel of God's own creation that is in some way an influence of evil in this world, that is a Christian concept and that is a Judaic concept, believe me.
Now how great that influence is, that's another question. But there's one thing sure, as Thomas Aquinas goes into this thing page after page. Whatever you may say about the devil, whatever you may say about the influence of the stars and the climate and the weather and all of these the environment, all of these things which we say can influence conduct, they cannot take away your free will. We may not have a heck of a lot of free will, but what we have is extremely valuable and autonomous and we to face it with responsibility. Nobody with any sense would say that we are totally free in all our actions.
Is it an act of will that's pumping blood into my heart or the heart's pumping blood into me or whoever's pumping what into something, is that an act of my will? Of course it isn't. But the point is, the fact that there are great areas, which certainly are beyond my will, and that there are other areas where there may be an overlapping, and that there is another area where I am autonomous, and maybe that's a small area, but it's absolutely crucial, absolutely crucial. But when I've said that, I hasten to add. In all of this, the devil can play his hand.
I hope all of you have read C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. Of course, it's a very humorous book, but there's deep profound theology behind it. And the you see, not so long ago, you don't hear much about it now, but there was a song going around, very popular, The Devil Made Me Do It.
But you see, this is the contradictory attitude we have today. On the one hand, we say there's no such thing as the devil. That that's just an expression of ignorance, of horrible ignorance, primitive ignorance, the worst kind of ignorance. On the other hand, we wanna believe in the devil because we can bloat all our all the things that we don't like to attribute to little old me, I can put on the shoulders of the devil and say very nicely, The devil made me do it. It's like the little kids, you know, saying, I didn't break that dish, my hand did it.
You've heard that. Sometimes we don't grow out of that attitude. But the point is when we come down to the nitty gritty bottom line, you cannot reject the concept that there is a devil and that he's operational, that he has a hand in this world. Now I'm not at all saying that every instance where we say that the person was possessed, that that is of actual possession. No, I'm not saying that.
If any of you have read any Greek novels lately, you will see how commonplace that is to attribute the possession. Or we say it in English, He's a devil, or The devil's in him. I've heard plenty of parents say, I believe the devil's in my kids. They don't mean that. All they mean is that the child is a little bit mischievous, or a little bit maybe more than a little mischievous.
But the thing is, is there in the last analyses analysis some principle in this world working against my welfare? Now if there is, I better well know that. I better well pray to recognize it. Right? Because one thing about defeating an enemy is to know you have one and where is he, or she, or it, or what.
Because you're not going to be very victorious if you if in fact you have an enemy and you're not aware of it at all. You've already been conquered. The devil can't take away your free will. That is for sure. But he can do a lot to bend it in our lives.
Now the one point I want to make about this business is this. Somehow or other, we've gotten into our heads that evil is ugly, repulsive, abhorrent, intolerable, tasteless. It's nothing of the sort. Of course it is from the eyes of God, Of course it is from the eyes of a saint. But in all my humility, I don't claim to be God, and I'm not yet a saint.
That's my own confession of humility. I'm just little old me. And the thing is, if evil, sin, doing wrong, if it's so repulsive, if it is so ugly, if it is so monstrous, if it is so intolerable, if it is so tasteless, then why in the world do we do it? See, it's not a sensible question. And the answer is that evil or sin never appears to us when we're tempted.
In other words, when we're in a situation where we want to do it, it never appears under those guises. Never. As a matter of fact, with a little bit of intellectual or rationalization, we can make it look very sensible and beautiful and proper. As I've heard so many people say, God will understand. And then I go ahead and do what I want to do.
So I don't want to make a mountain out of molehill. On the other hand, you know, we can miss seeing mountains. Do you realize that? You can when you're on the top of the mountain, you don't see the mountain. I have been in in the Alps, I met some of you too, thousands of feet up in a valley.
You can't believe you're up there. When you're in Mexico City, do you realize you're you're over a mile high? Of course you don't. So we must realize the battle, the warfare. You see, this this whole concept is being forgotten today, that life is a warfare.
It's not fun and games. Christ died on the cross for our salvation. Salvation from what? From sin. From sin.
And this is the fact of life, that we can commit sin. Of course, a lot of people today don't want to admit that, but we know it's true. We know it's true. And when we pray that God will cure the wounds of sin, plenty of us know what we're talking about. And so on when we're faced with this kind of a situation, and we have to face up to it.
Don't exaggerate, but don't abnegate your position of responsibility. At the same time, don't underrate your opponents, your enemy. You've got you have enemies. You have forces in the world that want your destruction, and they're working on it. Intelligent.
The devil is a fallen angel. And the word that Aquinas uses for angels often enough is intellectus, pure intellectus. So your warfare isn't against a bunch of dummies. So don't underrate your enemy. That's the worst thing you can ever do, is underrate an opponent whether you're playing poker or bridge or tennis, or you're playing the game of eternal salvation.
In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.