"A Home Blessing"
Recently a member of my flock invited me to conduct
a blessing ritual at her new apartment. Five of us
gathered in her new flat on her first night there.
My form of apartment blessing consisted of four
short prayers, each read by one of the hostess's
guests, dedicating the rooms of the home to God and
invoking the benign "spirits" of hospitality,
security, and serenity. We used several symbols -
water for purity, a candle for light, bread for
hospitality - to illustrate the focus of our prayers.
We had a friendship circle, singing "Bless Be the Tie
that Binds Our Hearts in Christian Love" and went out
for a nice meal.
House blessings, once common, are rare now though
they are coming back into practice in Hong Kong which
seems to abound with demonic spirits, many of which
seem to possess particular addresses. Many naïve
Christians pick up on "old wives' stories" that a
particular address is haunted by evil spirits and wish
to abandon such places and seek a kind of insurance
policy through a home blessing that their next abode
will be "pure."
I believe that house blessings are for invoking
God's Holy Spirit and not for exorcising territorial
spirits perceived as having resided in a particular
building or address within it. The biblical view is
that God has already conquered Satan, though the
mopping up action continues. The devil can't have a
series of ZIP codes or particular addresses because
evil is on the run, finding only temporary abode
anywhere. The reason for a house blessing is to
evidence and increase our faith in God through Jesus
and the Holy Spirit and not to give undue credit or
recognition to evil and dark forces.
The Bible opposes trying to "shout down" evil which
is the form an abusive house blessing could take. Jude
8-l0 and 2 Peter 2:l-l2 rebuke those who verbally
abuse spirits. We do better, Jude warns, simply to
turn the demons over to God. Satan is indeed a
formidable adversary (l Peter 5:8), yet Jesus has
already conquered him on the cross (Col. 2:l5) and
will one day confine him in hell (Rev 20:l-l0).
In the meantime we are called to oppose Satan - but
not by identifying the names of his subordinates,
reconstructing their hierarchy, or mapping their
supposed residences to addresses in Hong Kong. Rather,
we are called to stand firm through spiritual
discipline (Eph 6:10-18), persevere in persecution
(Rev 3:21) and cast out demons as they become manifest
in people (Acts l6:l6-l8) rather than places.
See you in Church Sunday, and if you want to pursue
more on the topic of demons and territorial claims
visit my Sunday Adult Seminar at 9:30AM in the
Executive Club, Central Plaza, Wanchai. It's one of
the most stimulating discussions going on in Hong
Kong.
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