The Shadow Knows

I have been offering a series of sermons at the church I serve during the month of October utilizing the theme of monsters and what they represent.  I offered a similar set of sermons about four years ago at a previous church.  This time I re-wrote two of those old sermons and added two new ones.  One that I didn't go back and re-work was the one on Werewolves.  

As Halloween is closing in, here is the text of that sermon from October of 2011 entitled "The Shadow Knows" taken from Romans 7:15-25 which reads as follows:

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

“Who knows what evil lurks within the heart of men?  The Shadow knows!”  So began the radio broadcast for the show “The Shadow.”  The Shadow knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men and women.  And, sadly, I think we do, too.

Paul articulates an unfortunate reality of human existence: the capacity for disobedience, and pushing that further, the capacity for evil.  “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”  We have to at least have that basic understanding to proceed.  Because what Paul is saying is that he condemns his actions but he still recognizes that he did do them.  He isn't denying them, nor is he refusing to acknowledge the difficulty.

Yet what we often fail to recognize is that we all have within us the potential for good and the capacity for great evil.  And in fiction and in legend, the great archetypes for those internal conflicts are the werewolves and creatures like them.  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and even the Incredible Hulk.  All of these exemplify the idea that without deliberate or imposed control, the base, worst aspects of ourselves might be set free.

And with the idea of the werewolf, we encounter a monster that isn't always a monster.  It is something that is, in many ways, imposed upon people against their will.  With the werewolf, it is usually a curse or a bite/attack from another werewolf.  And then it becomes our problem.

That problem, of course, is one of choice.  Do we seek to control it or do we surrender to it?  Do we work to overcome and/or minimize the damage or do we willingly, even lustily become the monster, reveling in the damage?

Of course, part of the problem we face is the elusive and murky definition of evil and sin.  Evil is elusive.  It is vivid and dramatic and hard to define.  As such it can often be described as a slippery slope, or a thin blurry line.

Think of it this way: we tend to believe that evil is easily and clearly definable.  But evil is very much like a shadow on the ground.  From a distance the line looks clear, but try to find the exact edge of a shadow and you will find it isn't nearly as clear as you thought. 

Often we mistakenly believe that once we have faith in Christ, life becomes easy, rose-filled, and happy.  Evil isn't something we have to concern ourselves with any more.  And we also tend to mistakenly believe that if life isn't going well, then we must not have enough faith. 

Not so.  What Paul is articulating is that coming to faith in Christ provides for a deeper awareness of the lure of evil and the very real possibility that bad things might happen to good people as well as the sad reality that good people can also do bad things.

And while the power of sin may be broken by Christ and through our becoming a new creation in Christ, we are still flesh and blood.  And as Luke 4:13 reminds us, temptation may merely be waiting for a more opportune time.

And here is the difficult reality: sin is an act of human freedom.  It is an act of disobedience and it is something that has gotten out of our control.  Some of the people who have committed the most heinous acts in our society often did not start out to do to such terrible lengths.  “I never meant for it to go this far.”  Of course it doesn't have to be a great atrocity like genocide, infanticide, or suicide bombings.

It can be an affair.  Giving in to lust.  Stealing – giving in to greed.  We all have our dark sides, to say the least.  But if we don’t recognize that, when it overtakes us we will have never seen it coming.  However, if we recognize our weaknesses, our potential propensity to sin, what we do not want to do can be what we do not do.  But it takes resolve.

Getting back to the idea of a werewolf, in medieval times there were legends that if a person who was a werewolf converted to Christianity, they would be cured.  But the one I like the most is a German legend that says that a werewolf could be cured by calling the werewolf by its Christian name three times.

I like that.  I like it because the idea is that at our worst, if we can remember who we are and, more to the point, remember to whom we belong, we can face the darkness in ourselves and overcome it, much like the prodigal son who comes to his senses in the middle of the pig sty. 

Martin Luther is said to have started his mornings by looking in the mirror, placing his hands on his head, and saying “Remember to whom you belong.  You are a child of God.”

Our faithfulness, though, does not negate the possibility of our dark side.  And, like werewolves, there may be no cure for it, only a desire to bring it under control.  And in that respect, it’s like an addiction.  Alcoholics understand that you are never a recovered alcoholic.  You are always a recovering one.  “I do not understand my own actions.”  But I will not let them control me. 

So perhaps here we hear the answer.  There may not be a miracle cure, but we can choose to be dedicated to not letting the monster of our dark side overcoming us.

What we need to remember is that it is Christ who overcomes sin.  We are triumphant in Christ.  Yet we have to recognize the possibility of our own failures – even as Christians.  There is a bumper sticker that reads: Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven.  That shouldn't prevent us from continuing to try.  Salvation is no excuse for abdicating responsibility. 

Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.