Dragon Sickness

4 Epiphany B RCL
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

Dragon Sickness
Once upon a time…, I always wanted sermons to being that way…, once upon a time deep inside a dark and dangerous cave, lived a dragon. This dragon was like most, a large dinosaur-like creature, with wings, a long neck, a huge tooth-filled fire-breathing maw, armoring with scales, and very very dangerous. The people of the nearby village were careful not to disturb the dragon, because if disturbed, rather I should say if challenged, he would retaliate and seek his revenge on anyone in his path. When he was provoked to kill, he would steal everything his victims held as precious, usually gold and jewels, and take it back to his cave. This dragon, like most, horded stolen treasure and made a bed of it upon which to sleep.
On March 25th of that year a stranger came to the village. He was a knight errant. He had heard of the terrible dragon and he had come to match wits with it and hopefully to slay it.
“I am strong and skilled with bow and sword, I have felled many a fey creature,” announced the knight, “where is this dragon?”
But king replied, “skilled with bow and sword may you be, but if you are to best this dragon you must be faithful and good, pure of heart and without malice. For it is Dragon Sickness not tooth and fire that is the downfall of many a knight errant.”
“What is this Dragon Sickness of which you speak? “ replied the knight.
“Dragons seduce with rhyme and riddle, they play on their foes greatest weakness be it honor, valor, riches, or wayward love.”
Take care good Sir Knight, warned the king, “He will turn your greatest weakness against you, it will consume you, and you will destroy yourself.”
Dragon Sickness is more dangerous than you realize.

Today’s gospel begins Jesus’ ministry. For the next chapter and half we will walk with him form Sabbath to Sabbath. From synagogue to synagogue. Today the demons ask Jesus, “Have you come to destroy us!” and 8 days later the Herodians and Pharisees will conspire to destroy Jesus.
But why? Since we get to read the gospel backwards, that is we know the end of the beginning of the story, it can be difficult to look beyond, to look behind the obvious and see what is really at play here. The relationship between fear and faith, between evil and good.
The realities of fear and faith are the counterweights that pivot on our relationship with and reaction to the cosmic battle between the forces of evil and good.
Jesus, is identified as the Holy One of God by the demons by the evil forces – and he exorcises them, he cast them out. His faith and goodness overcomes fear and evil. And this act begun in the reading today has a cascading effect on everyone who witnesses and experiences Jesus’ faithful response to the fear and evil in His world. How the people of Jesus’ time respond to fear and evil drives the narrative.
There was this little white clapboard church close to where I used to live in Fort Worth, just off 8th avenue. The sign read Hell Fire and Damnation Spoken Here – Demons Exercised (as in jumping jacks and the like). Dealing with demons is tricky business.
Now I don’t think we can solve the problem of demonic possession in the bible in the next few minutes. And certainly we don’t talk much of demons outside of bad B movies or Teen Fright Flicks. But there is no question that the problem of evil still exists, and quite frankly not talking about it doesn’t make it go away.
The notion of evil seems so archaic, horns, pitch fork, barbed tail sort of stuff, yet we see and experience things all the time that if they are not evil, well then, they are something close.
Dictionary Definition
Evil – noun
1 the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing by a cosmic evil force.
2: something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity

I think humanity’s struggle with the idea of evil is evident in the definition itself. To use the word as an adjective in its definition speaks volumes to our inability to nail it down. And it speaks volumes about its importance in our psyches.
If as Christians, we claim to live in a universe created by a benevolent and abundant God, then questions of the existence and source of evil are sticky ones indeed.
There are really two opinions about the nature of evil, both old, both deep rooted, both still relevant, neither easy to deny, but apparently irreconcilably in contradiction.
Church Definition
Evil as absence of Good: The most famous orthodox Christian view comes from the Roman Senator Boethius (525 ce) in his work written after he was sentenced to death. It is simply, what people identify as evil is really only the absence of good.
Evil itself has no creative power; furthermore it was not created it arose (as CS Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity), when human beings exercised their own free will in withdrawing their services and their intentions from God.

Evil as a Force:
The other common view of evil is that Evil does exist, it is not merely an absence; furthermore it has to be resisted and fought, not by all means available but by all means virtuous. The earth becomes a battlefield between the powers of evil and good, neither side has an inherent advantage and the outcome is in question.
I would venture to guess that we all have had experiences in our lives where we had a visceral reaction to a calamity that if not evil then something very close.
The more subtle and difficult to discern may be the People, Ideas, or Actions that bring about sorry, distress, or even calamity?
You see we have all experienced Dragon Sickness. Where someone or something that may have the power to destroy threatens our lives, but the real danger is realized in its ability to turn our own fears and weaknesses against us, and ultimately our destruction comes at our own hand. Greed, Avarice, Gluttony, Fear…, I’ll save the rest of the 7 deadly sins for another time - you get the picture. We live in a world infested with our own Dragons to slay.
The question is how do we respond? And that is the question Jesus faced as well.
During his first week of ministry Jesus is faced with the same question – to respond in faith or fear – power of good or evil - there are at least three plausible scenarios:
1. Jesus could upon encountering the demons retreat from the challenge
2. Respond by matching their destruction with destruction. A kill or be killed scenario.
3. Or he could bring his people together in community as a family. Feed them the spiritual food their souls desire and teach them to seek mercy not justice, and send them out to usher in the Kingdom of God.
If we remove the possibility of Jesus choosing choice 1 or 2 we deny his humanity. We are gathered here today because of the choices he made for us.
How do we face the evil in the world? How do we avoid Dragon Sickness, in a world increasingly full of dragons?
Remember the kings advice: you must be faithful and good, pure of heart and without malice.
That is setting the bar pretty high
BUT
It is the Presence of God we celebrate in this season after Epiphany, and it is the presence of God in our midst that assures us and sustains us.
If we were all faithful and good, pure of heart and without malice I’d venture a guess that many of us might be doing something else with our Sunday mornings.

But we come together in community, to pray, to confess, to receive the spiritual food in the sacrament of the body and blood that our souls desire – we make the exact same decision Jesus made when faced with the reality of demon and evil in his time.
These two ideas about the nature of evil, (absence and presence) both old, both deep rooted, both still relevant, neither easy to deny, but apparently irreconcilably are brought together beautifully and sanctified in the words of our Lord’s Prayer

Forgive us our trespasses
Lead us not into temptation (the internal struggle being the source of Boethian evil);
But deliver us from evil (asking for protection from the outside against a force).

You see, we already have a cure for Dragon Sickness - Dragons Beware