This is the last week on this sermon series on games. We’ve looked at:
1. Casting Lots (living your life with more luck and openness)
2. Is Life Just a Game? (Games are important because they are a lot like our lives)
3. Joyful Redemption (games anticipate a future where there is great joy and no more sorrow)
And this week I wrap things up thinking about the limits of games. Do games ever become dangerous or demonic? I’m thinking especially about the satanic panic of the 1980s.
By the way, there’s a great documentary about the satanic panic in the 1980s on Tubi, https://tubitv.com/movies/689004/satanic-panic.
1 Samuel 28:8-15. So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes and went there, he and two men with him. They came to the woman by night. And he said, “Consult a spirit for me, and bring up for me the one whom I name to you.” The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the wizards from the land. Why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” But Saul swore to her by the LORD, “As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” He answered, “Bring up Samuel for me.” When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice, and the woman said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!” The king said to her, “Have no fear; what do you see?” The woman said to Saul, “I see a divine being coming up out of the ground.” He said to her, “What is his appearance?” She said, “An old man is coming up; he is wrapped in a robe.” So Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did obeisance. Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
1 Samuel tells the story of Israel’s shift from a loose group of tribes to an established kingdom and small empire (at least for a time). 1 Samuel 28 shows the desperation of King Saul (the first king of Israel) as he breaks Jewish law and consults a psychic/spiritual medium/witch. Interestingly, it is the Bible’s only ghost story.
Mark 7:14-23. Then Jesus called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Jesus teaches here that intentions matter more than outside observances and tradition, and he supports this with reason and scripture, and condemns the religious leaders of his day who have already conspired to kill him back in 3:6. We can see old religious practices and teachings here, along with Mark’s assumption that his readers won’t understand them and he explains them briefly. In stresses the heart and the intention as the basis for impurity, this passage reminds me of Dante: we alone are responsible for our own sins.
Fun Links
This woman sings Radiohead’s song “Creep” with her ukulele and her talking parrot. It’s awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW_O5VWIOZE
Life would be simpler (but really boring) if we just ate Dawg Food https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIKcbtq0Fcc
Churches are beginning to think more and more about the reality of trauma, and what that looks like in a community of faith https://commongoodmag.com/how-can-a-church-care-for-the-trauma-afflicted/
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