Reclaiming the Devil

A few days ago on Ash Wednesday, a bunch of us gathered here in the afternoon for a service that was, ostensibly, for kids. There ended up being about 30 of us, including many adults, which was awesome, and also threw me for a little bit of a loop. Ash Wednesday doesn't really lend itself to a one-size-fits-all approach; the way we talk about that day is very different with kids than with adults. So I was internally scrambling to adjust my worship plan in real time.

With children, I usually use Ash Wednesday to start talking about Lent, so I had brought one of the better children’s bibles that I own, written by Desmond Tutu. I cracked it open and started to tell the story of Jesus being baptized and then heading out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, where he was tempted by sata-... the devi-... the tempter-... I choked! 

I realized that the illustration for the story showed a scaly, pointy tail scampering off the edge of the page, and so before any of the little kids had a chance to notice that, I snapped the book shut and said, “Let’s say a prayer!”

I never like to avoid the hard parts of scripture, but sometimes for kids you just have to. The bible is largely not developmentally appropriate. In past years, I’ve always worked out a way to tell today’s wilderness story without bringing the devil into it - He was very hungry, he was scared, he was lonely. That’s more than enough to understand the gist of the story.

But each time this story rolls around, it reminds me that most of my fellow adults don’t seem to be much better about dealing with satan. Did I stop reading the story because of the kids in the room, or because of the adults? 

Whatever it is, I know that I’d much rather just not engage this part of the text. And frankly, most of the Episcopal tradition and mainline progressive Christianity doesn't seem to want to go there either. And I get it, large swaths of our religion have not wielded the image of the devil very responsibly. So much of our history and theology around sinfulness and evil have been tangled up in misogyny, anti-blackness, and the abuse of power generally speaking. The devil has been long used to frighten, control, and oppress people. So I get why many of us have needed to leave a lot of that terminology and imagery behind.

And yet, when we ditch the whole concept, we lose some really important biblical wisdom about the nature of evil, and how we might recognize and reject it. Even though the terminology might be tough, the truth is that temptation and sinfulness are very present realities in our lives, you only need to glance at a newspaper or open up a browser window to understand that. And so it makes me wonder what we might stand to gain if we reclaimed satan? Would it potentially enable us to better and more faithfully deal with evil?

If we’re willing to go there, at least a little bit, our Gospel text actually gives us some really good information about who or what the devil is. Unsurprisingly, for Luke, the work of the devil is all about power. Each temptation is an invitation into an inappropriate and abusive exercise of power and control: feed your own appetites, gain influence, gain wealth, possessions, and political control. And Jesus continues to teach us, in word and deed, that the paths to power that are offered by the devil are vastly different from the ones that God requires us to tread. 

So if we are to spend Lent wrestling with our own temptations and with our own devils, in whatever form they take, an important piece of guidance that emerges from this text is attentiveness to power. What are the ways in which we wield power, and the ways in which power is wielded over us? How do we participate in systems and structures that create and uphold power imbalances? What or who is it that tempts us to hoard or abuse our own power and privilege? What brings out our instincts to exercise domination or control within our own lives and our own relationships? 

These questions are hard, but they allow us to come to a fuller understanding of evil, of satan, which, ironically is what allows us to know God more fully. This story and these questions allow us to recognize the devil’s power for what it is - fake, empty, and evil. When we know that, we can more easily identify and name the power of God, which is humble, it’s generous, liberating, and life-giving. The power of God is the power of letting go, of loosening our grip, of ceding control and instead letting our lives fill up with love and grace.

During Lent we are asked to focus on three things: prayer, fasting and loving service to our neighbors. So let’s practice the kind of prayer that helps us to discern evil and reject temptation. Let’s practice fasting from the kind of power and control that Satan offers. Let’s practice freely giving our power away in service of those who have none. Let’s sit with our hungers. Let’s reject the kind of power and control that the devil offers. 

The path towards God is rough, wilderness terrain. So let’s choose to walk with gentleness, with generosity, and with the knowledge that we can never be separated from the power of love that is our God.