Harry Potter and the Gospel Ephesians 6:10-18 Graduates, one of the amazing phenomena of the last decade of your life has been the creation and

Transcription

1 Harry Potter and the Gospel Ephesians 6:10-18 Graduates, one of the amazing phenomena of the last decade of your life has been the creation and popularity of Harry Potter. When you were 7 years old, J.K. Rowling, a single mom without a job began to write a story about a young boy wizard that captivated Great Britain and then the world. She wrote 7 novels over the past decade, all best-sellers. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, an 870 page thriller, sold 8.3 million copies,..on the first day. To date the 7 novels have sold 325 million copies, translated into 65 languages. And who said children couldn t sit down a read a book?!!! I think my daughter Sarah, who has served as my research assistant on this sermon, read the last book in 2 days. Sarah and Rebekah have read all 7 novels, our family has seen all 5 movies that have been released. I wanted to see what all the hullabaloo was about years ago so I read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer s Stone. I enjoyed it, but I didn t go nuts over it like my kids and so many in your generation. Yes, your generation loves Harry Potter. Barna Research reveals that 84 percent of American teenagers have read a Harry Potter novel or seen a Harry Potter movie. Connie Neal, who has written a very helpful book entitled The Gospel According to Harry Potter, says the Harry Potter phenomenon is the greatest evangelistic opportunity the church has ever missed. Controversy And why did we miss it? Well, early on there were some misinformed s and prophetic warnings from some high-powered TV preachers that poisoned the waters and made many Christians afraid to talk about Harry Potter. Since Harry Potter is a wizard and he goes to Hogwarts School of Wizardry, there was this idea that to approve of Harry Potter was to glorify the

2 occult. Some called for burning the books along with Shakespeare s books which dealt with witches. All of this made churches and youth leaders hesitant to take the interest in Harry Potter and channel that into discussions about good and evil, sacrificial love, loyalty, and kindness all evident in the novels. The fear among many of the fear-mongering church leaders is that reading Harry Potter would lead to experimentation with the occult. Barna Research found that nearly zero percent of teenagers chose to experiment with the occult because of Harry Potter. The overall impact of the Harry Potter phenomenon has been teenagers reading books instead of watching television, and learning about a boy who was brave in the face of evil, and demonstrated sacrificial love that his parents had shown to him. Valid Concerns This is not to say that some parents and Christians have had valid concerns regarding the occult. The Christian community needs to be crystal clear that experimenting and practicing in the occult is forbidden by God. The Bible is very clear about condemning witchcraft, divination, and sorcery. Listen to what God told the Israelites as they were entering the Promised Land: Deuteronomy 18:9-12 says, When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. So let s be clear about witchcraft, sorcery, and spells, and all that stuff. God forbids it. It was a real source of opposition to God in the days of the

3 Israelites. Yet, we need to discern as a Christian community the difference between fantasy literature and serious calls for occult practices. The magic used in the Harry Potter books is not unlike that of Superman or Spiderman. It s attempting to be fantasy, not reality. There is no contact with a supernatural, demonic world in the classical form of the occult. Fantasy literature allows the mind of children and adults to move beyond the flat world of black and white. Fantasy literature has the capacity to carry a story line into the colorful world of imagination, and unveil universal truths in powerful ways. That s the way I see Harry Potter novels, as fantasy literature very much like my favorite movie of all time The Wizard of Oz. That movie also utilizes fantasy to tell a good story about good and evil, and the power of home in our lives. The same could be said of fairy tales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk. Our world would be poorer and our children s imaginations would be diminished without these classic stories, which all, in some way, use magical fantasy as a means to convey universal truths. Parental Authority Having given such an endorsement, I want to be clear that I support the biblical teaching of parental authority over children. I call on all children and all leaders of children in our church to support the teaching of parental authority. If a parent deems that Harry Potter or any other book or movie is unsuitable for their child, that trumps all that I say today. The mother and the father are the ones that should determine what kind of books, movies, and programs children watch in the home. I support that position whole-heartedly. Nevertheless, 84 percent of teenagers in America have read a Harry Potter novel or movie, so I would like to spend a few minutes helping those see some of the Christian themes that became increasingly obvious over the course of the series. First, allow me to give the briefest of overviews about the life of

4 Harry Potter. This will be over 4000 pages condensed into one paragraph of 240 words. Please forgive me Ms. Rowling. Potter Summary The Harry Potter story is about a boy who s struck with the curse of death by an evil wizard but survives because his mother jumps in front of the curse intended for him and dies in his place. Harry struggles throughout his life with having a bit of the evil one residing in his body at the point of a lightning shaped scar on his forehead where the curse hit him. A prophecy says that the one with the power to destroy the dark Lord will have a power he knows not. That power is love. The prophecy predicts that neither Harry or the Dark Lord (Voldemort) can live while the other survives. Harry eventually realizes that the evil part of him will have to die in order to break the power of the evil one in his life. He will have to sacrifice himself by laying down his life for his friends and he chooses, in the end, to do so. When he dies willingly in the place of another, the curse of death hurled at him by the evil Voldemort destroys the evil part of him that came from the curse, but Harry himself freed from the curse and its dark power in his life comes back to life (although he was never really dead). He and his friends all marry and focus on loving each other and raising their children. At the story s end, All is well. Graduates, there are number of good lessons that can be learned from Harry Potter, which are validated in the Christian faith. I want to share 3 of them with you this morning. I. Choosing good in a world of good and evil The obvious theme permeating all the Harry Potter novels is the struggle of good vs. evil. Voldemort, the Dark Lord, is the incarnation of evil. Harry is the incarnation of good, yet he is not perfect. The scar on his forehead has

5 marked him in two different ways. First, it is a mark of love from his mother who protected him from the full weight of Voldemort s curse. But it is also a mark of evil, and Harry knows that part of him struggles with an evil impulse. How is he to win this battle of good versus evil. In this scene with Dumbledore, the head Wizard of Hogwart s, Dumbledore tells Harry how to overcome evil. Watch it. Dumbledore tells Harry it is his choices that determine if good will prevail over evil in his life. Harry could ve gone to the evil house Slytherin if he had wanted to. But Harry chose Griffindor, the house of good. It is not unlike Paul s admonition to the Ephesians to prepare for battle against evil. Notice the verbs Paul uses in the Ephesian text we read earlier to express the choices of Christians battling against evil. * Put on the full armor of God * Take your stand against the devil s schemes * Stand your ground * Take up the shield of faith * Extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one * Be alert and keep on praying Do you see the intense struggle Paul is calling us to engage in? Again and again he is calling us to choose to stand against evil and choose to utilize all the resources God has put at our disposal. It s a difficult battle, but it can be won if we choose good over evil and stand on the firm ground of God s Word. The life of Harry Potter, like yours, is one that will be constantly engaged in a battle against evil. Graduates, you will hear people say in the future, I m just made that way. I can t help it. Well, the Bible and the Harry Potter novels agree that we can help it. Yes, it can be extraordinarily difficult to choose good over evil, but we are not powerless to do it. God has given us the capacity to choose good. Christian doctrine uses the term prevenient grace to describe

6 this ability God has given us. We are not good in and of ourselves. But God empowers us to choose good. Our choices may require sacrifice, effort, and the loss of friends or money, but we can choose good over evil. One very practical way to do this is to choose to hang out with good people. That s a second trait I want to highlight for you this morning. II. Harry Potter chooses good friends. One of the important and stress-inducing decisions you will make when you go off to school or begin your new life in the work force is the friendships you develop. This is what happened to Harry Potter his first day at the Hogwarts School of Wizardry. Right away he was forced to make some decisions about who his friends would be. For those who have traveled with Harry from his first day at Hogwarts to the day when he is pushing a stroller down the lane with his own child, it s clear how important these early decisions were. Watch it. All freshmen in college are beginning with a blank slate for the most part. Oh, you may know 1 or 2 persons when you go to school, but most people will be completely new to you. Some of the friends you make in college will be your deepest friends for the rest of your life. Early in your college career you ll be confronted with the kind of people you re going to spend time with. You are likely to socialize with them, do what they do, become what they become. People will be pulling you to join their group, their fraternity or sorority, their club or clique, their network. Some of these groups will honor the Christian life and some will dishonor it. Some will lead you to become a better person, a kinder person, a person more devoted to Jesus Christ. And some will lure you to pull away from Christ and his church. They will encourage drunkenness, foul language, sexual immorality, and all sorts of crude and vulgar things. The

7 Apostle Paul could have been speaking to a group of freshman entering college for the first time when he said, the acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the life. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21). Graduates, the kind of friends you choose, will determine in large measure if you live for Christ or not. You ll make decisions early in your college life that will impact whether you walk in the spirit or walk in the flesh. So choose your friends well. Don t use the perennial excuse, well I was with them, but I wasn t doing what they were doing. That just means you have poor judgment. And when you exercise poor judgment over a period of time, you will eventually be bit. So choose well. Intentionally choosing good over evil, choosing good friends, and there s one final theme in Harry Potter that will benefit you. It is the supreme truth of the Christian faith and we see it portrayed in the life of Harry s mother, and eventually, in Harry himself. It is the truth that sacrificial love is the greatest good. III. Sacrificial love is the greatest good. Harry Potter learns later in life that he has a scar on his head as a result of a battle between the forces of good and evil. Voldemort, the Prince of Darkness tried to curse Harry as a young child, but his mother threw herself in front of the curse and was killed. Harry was only wounded with the curse. It would affect him the rest of his life. He would carry within his body a remnant of evil, not unlike, all of us who are affected by the sin of Adam. In the first book and movie, there is a flashback scene where we learn what Harry s mother did

8 for him. Harry learns of this from Dumbledore, the good wizard, who takes Harry under his wing, and prepares him for battle against Voldemort and the forces of evil. Watch it. We would like to think that any mother would give up her life for her child. The news and the actions of many mothers today lead us to a different conclusion. Harry s mother however, did give her life up for Harry. She demonstrated through her actions that her love for Harry was genuine and more than mere words. This is, no doubt, the model Harry followed in giving up his life at the end of the series, so that he could save his friends from the deathly forces of evil. It was only in dying to evil, that Harry could overcome evil. Like Jesus Christ he absorbed the fullness of evil in order to render it powerless. Paul sums this up succinctly in Romans 5:8 where he says, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The Bible indicates that Jesus Christ voluntarily gave his life for us. He was tempted in the desert by Satan to use his power for his own good. He was confronted with opportunities to forego death on the cross, save his life, and enjoy the pleasures of his power. Near the end of his life he asked God if there was any other way to accomplish victory over evil without his going to the cross. But in the end Christ chose to be obedient to God even to the point of death on a cross. And by taking on the forces of evil to the point of death, he set humankind free from the power of evil to obtain eternal life. In short, Jesus took evil s best shot. He absorbed the blow of torturous death, and in so doing, he made it powerless. Harry s death at the hands of Voldemart saved his friends, just as Christ s death at the hands of the forces of evil has saved us from eternal death, the last enemy.

9 Graduates, never forget what Christ has done for you. What he did is no fairly tale or fantasy literature. It was sacrificial love acted out in real history by a real person for the real you. Conclusion Students, disciples all of you, what shall we take from this Potter phenomenon? I would suggest to you, it s the same thing you can take from your homes. For I suspect, that before the idea of Harry Potter ever crossed J.K. Rowling s mind, you were already the recipient of sacrificial love. For you ve had parents that gave up their own interests to enhance your future. They were washing your clothes, driving you to practices, helping you study for tests, preparing your meals, providing you with health care, just because they loved you. You also had Sunday School teachers and youth leaders who volunteered their weekends and school nights to be with you. They studied lessons, listened to your stories, and went with you on trips. You see, the real heroes of your life are not found in novels. They are sitting all around you. You didn t have to prove your worth or merit in order to receive any of this. You simply were! You are! You exist! You live! You matter. You are loved! This is the love that Lilly Potter offered her son. It s the kind of love Harry showed for the sake of his friends. And in its most perfect expression, it s the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross, to free you from your sins, and provide a pathway to eternal life. The Evil One cannot understand this kind of love. The forces of evil are arrayed against this kind of love, but you, if you are a believer in Christ carry this love with you. It s like a mark that runs deeper than a scar. It is an indelible force of good that can overcome evil, a power of love that can triumph over selfishness. It is the power of God s love that will guide you to righteousness and toward all things good. Follow this love. Offer this love. Give this love to others. And all will be well. All will be well.

10 Further reading: Bridger, Francis. A Charmed Life: The Spirituality of Harry Potter. Neal, Connie. What s a Christian to Do with Harry Potter? Neal, Connie. The Gospel According to Harry Potter.