The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity 2025

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The man who perpetrated heinous evil at Annunciation school in Minneapolis depicted himself in his journal as a demon. Indeed, the transgender ideology is demonic. It seeks to undo God’s creation of the human person as distinctly and irrevocably male and female. In his journal he reflects on his experience of possession: “I feel like there is some kind of god … controlling me…. I suddenly start writing things that I don’t even think of myself.” He describes losing time, another experience of people who are possessed by malevolent spirits.

Demons are real. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the forces of darkness. The devil wants to destroy humanity….

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YHWH Saves

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Do you not see your own peril, that the power of your own sinful flesh will rule you unless it is brought under subjection to the Name? And Satan comes against you, “in battle array like Goliath” [Müller]. How did David meet the giant? He said, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you” [1 Sam. 17:45f]. This David had fought with wild animals, and vanquished them, killing lion and bear. But he goes out not in his own name, not in his own strength, not in his own power. He goes out in the Name of the LORD, the Name YHWH….

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The Beheading of St. John the Baptist

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Every day is a battle, a battle against the darkness, a battle against the lie, a battle against our own impulses. But David had not gone out to the battle. He had already put himself in a position to sin.

When we skip our prayers and Bible reading, when we take the drink we know we shouldn’t, when we go out when we should go home, a thousand times a day we have opportunities to put ourselves in a position to sin, or a position to do what God has called us to do.

“So David sent and inquired about the woman…”

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Do you believe in monsters?

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Do you believe in monsters?

Our word monster comes from the Latin monere, which means “to show” or “warn.” I’ve never seen for sure, but I suspect that monster stories arose to warn people about dangers in general. The monster put a scary, if imaginary, face on the general danger that is outside the safety of home and village.

So our history is filled with monster stories: Leviathan, the sea monster; Cyclops; Beowulf’s Grendel; up to more modern monsters like Tolkien’s Smaug.

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