Never Give In

By Fr Scott Homer

On October 29, 1941, just about a year after the Blitzkrieg of England began, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, visited Harrow School to listen to the traditional songs he had sung there when he was a student and to speak to the students about the war. The last half of 1940 and the first half of 1941 had been brutal. While much of the world seemed willing to allow the Nazis to overrun much of the world, England made a mutual assistance treaty with Poland and when Germany invaded Poland, England declared war on Hitler and his Third Reich. They were outgunned and outmanned. England experienced immense suffering and great hardship. Her people were reduced to living on rations. German bombs rained down on them without ceasing for days and weeks at a time. City children had to leave their families and were sent out into the countryside to live with strangers they had never met in the hope that they would be kept safe from the German attacks. And England was alone. The U.S. had declared neutrality. Much of Europe had already surrendered. The German invasion of England was already to be implemented. But despite what seemed like insurmountable odds England endured. They refused to surrender. They refused to allow evil to go unanswered. And their steadfastness was rewarded. Things did begin to look up a bit in the last half of 1941. The US would finally join in the war effort soon. The Soviets would stand against the Nazis as well. While the end was far from in site, England had hope that having faced down the most evil government in modern history, they might indeed triumph and Churchill did not want the lesson they all had learned to be lost. He told the boys at Harrow that the lesson learned was this:

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” (Winston Churchill)

Churchill concluded his speech by saying,
“... our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.”

And of course, we who live in the aftermath of WWII, we know that Churchill was indeed correct. Britain would conquer, and the Axis of evil that brought so much pain and so much suffering to so many millions of people was eventually defeated. But what Churchill did not say, because he either did not know or would not say, was that Britain, and the rest of the free world conquered because the Lord was with them. It was the power of God that enabled the Allied Forces to triumph. And it was not grit that empowered the British people to endure through all the famines, all the explosions and all the uncertainty. It was their faith in Christ that carried them through night after dark night. It was faith that bolstered them up when their spines felt as if they were turning to rubber. It was faith that gave them the will to continue on in spite of all appearances. Truly, “they never gave in. {They} never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never gave in. [They] never yielded to force. Never yielded to the apparent overwhelming might of the enemy.”

A poor, bedraggled, befuddled, father comes to Jesus. He is at his wits end. He has tried everything and still a demon continues to torment and torture his possessed son. If you have ever seen a grand mall seizure you know how frightening they are—and how dangerous. A person in the throws of such a seizure has no control over their thrashing and they will injure themselves without even knowing they are doing it. Can you imagine that person being your child? Surely this boy’s father is tormented and tortured too. So this father, desperate to find freedom for his son approaches Jesus. Jesus is just returning from a retreat. He has seen the commotion from a distance. And when the father talks to Jesus he tells him that he “begged the disciples to cast [the demon] out and they could not.” Jesus looks at the situation. It is dark and ugly and plainly evil. He hears what has happened. His disciples have failed. And not only that they have failed to keep trying. He finds them having abandoned the boy. The people Jesus commissioned and empowered to cast out demons and heal in his name, are allowing evil to go unchallenged in their presence. And Jesus responds by saying, to his disciples, “O faithless and perverse generation! How long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring the boy to me.” In Mark’s version of this story the emphasis is on the disciple’s lack of prayer and fasting but here in Luke there is no mention of either. Here in Luke the problem is reduced to its essence—the followers of Christ had been authorized to act on his behalf. They had been empowered to cast of demons. They had been instructed to go out and do just that—to confront evil and to defeat it. But when Jesus comes down off the mountain, he finds them not even trying. Their initial efforts failed and they have abandoned the project all together. They ran into strong resistance and they threw up the white flag. Instead of conquering evil in the name of Christ, they have surrendered it.

No wonder Jesus scowls at his disciples and said, “O faithless and perverse generation!“ They don’t get it. Although they have received the Promise, although they have been blessed with supernatural power and authority, although they have the assurance of God himself that nothing in earth or under the earth can possibly prevail against them, they have chosen to live as if they are victims, powerless, incapable of making a difference.

Friends, we are the people of God. We are the disciples of Christ. The authority the disciples were given has been given to us. The commission given to the disciples is our commission. We live in the assurance of God’s grace and power just like the disciples. Like them, we are called to a purpose. We have been charged to go into every town and village, and to confront evil wherever we find it. Like them, we have been charged to be warriors, to do battle with the spiritual forces of darkness that separate humanity from the love of Christ. It is not a call to dabble in good deeds. We have not been told to do a good deed everyday—that is what Boy Scouts do. We are not to be content with occasional surprise prayer that actually comes true. We are the people of the promise and we are the living and breathing Body of Christ and we are called to never relent, never surrender, never, never, never give in.

But it isn’t easy, is it? Evil is powerful. It is not as powerful as God. Evil isn’t as powerful as good but it does not just lie down when we confront it. And appearances make it seem far more powerful than it is. When the chips are down, when the threats are real and when we doubt our ability to withstand the assault, honesty does not feel like the best policy, and we will be tempted to take matters into our own hands, and twist the facts and distort the truth. The problem is, as Iain Duguid says in our Bible study, when we play the game according to the world’s rules we are likely to find that we are outplayed. When we see corruption winning the day or we see bullying behavior being rewarded with them getting what they want, we are likely to want to back away from the conflict, to resign ourselves from the situation and to allow the evil to triumph. “Who are we,” we ask. “What difference can we make,” we wonder. Or we decide, “it is simply not worth it.” We all do it all the time. I’m not pointing the finger at one person here. In the midst of the battle it is easy for us to find ourselves with our backs to the battle and miles away from where we turned and ran. The Red Badge of Courage comes to mind.

Now, of course, when Jesus returns he will cast the demon out and the boy will be restored but he and his family will have gone through unnecessary pain and suffering. They will have lived on doubt about the power of God to keep his promises. He will not know the power that comes from a Body of believers surrounding him in love, praying without ceasing for his salvation, buoying him up and carrying through his hard times. This is work that only we can do. And it is the work we have been given to do. We can not assure the outcome. It is Jesus who rebukes evil and the Holy Spirit that drives evil away. God is in the results business but we are in the efforts business and maintaining effort despite the apparent odds is what Christians do. It is our witness to the world.

Trinity Beaver is showing remarkable faith in the midst of remarkably great challenges. We have engaged in a fight to defend the place of Holy Scripture in the universal church and this parish has been willing to give freely of its resources to support the cause. There has been no retreat and no relenting by your leadership. Their courage witnesses to a God who continues to be good to his promises, a God we can depend upon despite how desperate our circumstances appear to be. Does the world need that witness? More now than ever. This parish is investing itself in the lives of others, through programs like Financial Peace University, The Mustard Seed Café, and Flowers in the Desert. And of course, when we begin to invest our lives in other people’s problems we begin to see the truth. The truth is that the problems are legion. There is way more to do than we have resources for. And when we begin to see the actual need we may be repelled. We may, like the disciples, decide to cut our losses and pull back, and wait for the boss to get back. But as I think we have seen, Jesus is not pleased with that sort of contingency planning.

Two lessons this morning: The first is that Jesus is indeed, the Holy One, the Mighty One, the only One in whom we should trust. He is indeed stronger than any of the forces that seek to destroy us. His word is greater than Moses. His power is greater than Elijah. He is god’s beloved Son and the source of all healing. He is the only one who can restore us even in those cases that seem beyond hope. Jesus is Lord of all. The second lesson is a point of application.

We have been called to fight the good fight without flinching and without retreat. We are called to lean into the promises God has made to us, and to insist on claiming the power and the authority he has bestowed upon his Church. We are the source of hope in a hopeless world. We are the only ones able to successfully confront the evils of our day. When we surrender the field to the enemy we become the faithless and the perverse. So together lets take courage and never, never give in. We have nothing to loose. Nothing of value can be taken from us. Our lives are secure in Christ. So we can listen to the words of Teddy Roosevelt and we can claim them as our own:

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” Amen.