I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightning

This sermon was preached in response to the lectionary passages assigned for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.

As much as I’d like to believe that spiritual warfare was just part evangelicalism that I need to dismiss as an abuse of power (which it no doubt often was), it’s hard to dismiss it outright and this passage is part of the proof of that. 

There is so much to say about this story, but the thing I want to spend our time on is this particular greeting that Jesus tells these 70 to announce. That is, this Peace. 

Jesus tells these 70 followers to “Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you.”

This is not just a proclamation, and it is not a gentle peace. This peace runs the risk of being rejected for some reason, and this peace opens doors to healing. So what is it? What might it be?

This word “peace” is most often translated into the Hebrew as the word shalom, which means salvation, wholeness—a holistic state of well-being. This proclamation of peace would have been in direct contrast to the peace that the Roman emperor had promised to deliver. This wasn’t peace as life without conflict, this isn’t a peace of the body politic, this was a peace of body, mind, and soul, and it lives within. 

And, not only was it not a gentle proclamation, but it had real teeth—it was actual provision. If they receive your message—stay for a while, eat and drink with them, cure the sick who are there. 

I’ve been reading Brené Brown lately and her big thing, as most of you know by now, is the idea of rumbling with vulnerability. Clarity is kindness. She talks about being unafraid to go to the hard places and in hard conversations with people. Unafraid to find the truth.

Fully aware that I’m making this all too specific, I wonder if this is the kind of peace that Jesus is talking about—the kind of peace that engages what is hard but what is good, for the body and the mind. And the “curing,” the healing? In this framework, it’s what comes of being unafraid to go to hard places with people. To tell the truth. But this healing comes only after the person or household is receptive and after you’ve sat and ate and drank with them. After you know it might be safe.

Have you ever tried to give someone feedback? And do you also remember the first question you’re supposed to ask when giving feedback? “May I give you some feedback?” That is, “Peace, may I enter your home?” And if they say no, shake the dust off your feet, and if they say yes, you have met a receptive ear—stay a while, sit down. Eat. Drink. And be all of you, be healed.

And then, as these followers are engaged in this kind of God’s kingdom come near behavior, Jesus, in the background, is watching Satan fall like a flash of lightning from heaven. 

The word Satan comes from the Hebrew word for Adversary or “one who opposes”. From what we can tell, or as biblical legend goes, there was once a powerful angel, called the “day star” or “son of the morning” whose name, when translated to Latin became Lucifer (where we get the name Lucy, in fact) who existed with God. At some point this figure had some fall from grace where this “son of morning” challenged God—it appears because of pride and wanting to be like God/as powerful as God. Over time, and specifically through the Greco-Roman period, this adversary was personified and made into a singular being. And this being was given the name Satan and essentially all things evil began to be associated with this figure. 

But when you read this passage and consider what Jesus is saying, it sure seems like Satan is both figure and concept. In other words, it seems to me that Satan is a personified concept. Unless of course this is the exact moment when this single angel, Lucifer, actually fell from God’s graces, which I find really hard to believe given what we read in the Hebrew stories about this “day star”. So then, I wonder, who is Satan, who is the adversary in this story, and why would this figure be falling from heaven in this moment? To answer that, I think we have to return to what the disciples are instructed to do, because whatever it is, it seems to have dismantled the powers of this adversary.

And that’s when we return to this very powerful proclamation of peace. This offering of peace, of shalom, and the proclaiming of it (perhaps it’s the believing and in the hope of it?), as it is embodied in these followers, dismantles the adversary’s power. And, we’re told that the kingdom of God comes near simply in the proclamation, in the willingness of the one making the offer. 

The only thing stopping these 70, their only real adversary, was a lack of provisions—they were sent out without purse, bag, sandals, or company. They were sent out vulnerable, 

So what does this have to do with spiritual warfare? Again, at the risk of being too specific, There is a war of spirit, that we live in all the time. This notion of shalom has an adversary, and I think that one of the ways this adversary shows up is in fear—of hard things, hard conversations, of going in deep, of failure and letting others down, and ultimately of being left or found vulnerable. But we’re called to make those spaces, to be the kingdom of God come near where eating and drinking, and wholeness, and healing can happen.

It’s frankly why we’ve put the pursuit of wholeness in our mission statement as St. Lucy’s. Because we believe that this notion of shalom, of salvation, is intricately tied to a wholeness of being, the restoration of our minds, bodies, and hearts so that we can, in truth and fullness, live with those around us. Our hope is that we are people who can have hard conversations, who can live boundaried alongside others, who can live without fear in and with others—where the peace of Christ is a way of life.  Again I realize what I’m saying verges on making this notion of salvation too clear, too small, and too precise. I sure as hell hope it is. But, the only way I know to come near to this kingdom of God or to bring this kingdom of God near, is to do this small work in hopes that this kind of courage makes space for greater hospitality and healing and in so doing, the kingdom of God. 

What if we went (if we saw ourselves as going) out in our vulnerability, did the work of that vulnerability, and viewed our very presence, both as individuals and as the budding community that is St. Lucy’s, as proclamation and act of the kind of truth-telling, bold, wholeness, and healing that is shalom?