Second Sunday in Pentecost Luke 8:26-39
Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" -- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
There was a human interest documentary series for several years on CNN created by journalist Lisa Ling. The series was called This Is Life. And she brought to the world stories about people doing interesting and incredible things in circumstances far beyond what most of us experience. She is a courageous and skilled interviewer who inserts herself respectfully into unfamiliar places and then questions those she meets with compassionate curiosity. And they tell her their stories. It occurs to me that Lisa would make an excellent Stephen Minister.
The story that most resonated with me, possibly because it’s right in our own backyard, was called “Locked Angeles,” a play on the city name, in which we go with Lisa inside the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles. We learn that each night it houses about 18,000 inmates. And of those, 30-40% suffer with some sort of mental illness. They don’t belong in jail, a deputy tells Lisa, but in the absence of a true treatment facility, they end up there.
We see inmates in blue prison jumpsuits chained to tables in common areas just far enough apart that they cannot touch the man next them. We hear inmates in solitary cells shouting, raging, kicking the walls. And into this setting comes Deputy Sarah Medina. Calmly she goes to a raging inmate’s door and asks him, “what’s the matter? Why are you so upset?” We can’t exactly make out his reply but it involves some language we don’t use in church. “Are you hungry?” she asks. “If I get you some food will you settle down?” In a few minutes she returns and slides two brown bags through the slot into his cell. “I got you 2 boxes of cereal and 2 milks.” He screams at her that he doesn’t want breakfast. She replies “that’s all they’ve got right now. I’ll bring lunch when it’s ready.” More verbal abuse in which he threatens to hit her in the face. “Okay,” she says calmly to him, “I’ll come back.” I’ll come back. She’s not giving up on this guy.
In a moment of comic relief, she walks past an inmate who tells her, “you’re too old for me.” “Yeah,” she says, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lisa asks her if she feels afraid. “Every once in a while,” Deputy Medina replies. “But I love what I do. I enjoy trying to make a positive difference in people’s lives who are hurting inside. Most of the mentally ill here are homeless. They’re bipolar, manic depressive or schizophrenic. You’re gonna have a lot of angry people yelling all day, kicking doors all day. We’re trained to de-escalate a situation, using our words and finding out why. When you get down to it,” she says, “it’s just in how we speak to them.”
It’s as though Deputy Medina spends her days continually encountering the Gerasene man inhabited by Legion who we hear about in the gospel lesson today – so much raging, so many chains and shackles, and pain. So much emphasis on attempts to control but never to heal. And in the midst of it, Deputy Medina is listening, reasoning, the personification of calm. Doing her best to do good. In the midst of chaos and pain, she is the calm and healing presence.
When Jesus steps out of the boat, he steps into a life and death scenario. The Gerasene man runs to meet him. He is in every way unclean starting with the fact that he is a gentile. This man is scarcely human any more – at least that’s what the people seemed to think. So much so that he lives among the dead.
In the gospel, just as in the LA jail, everyone is anxious, everyone is acting out. The only one who is calm and focused on goodness, healing and love is Jesus.
Jesus does a lot of healing in the gospels. There are a number of stories of healing those who are ill with demons. But we learn early on in this story that the need of this man for healing is like no other. We hear Jesus ask the demon its name to gain control over it: Legion is says. Legion would put the listeners of this gospel story in mind of a Roman legion: 5 - 6,000 armed and trained killers. This isn’t an ordinary demon, this isn’t an ordinary healing. It’s an out and out battle.
Jesus dispatches the demon and restores this tortured man to life. And what is the response? Don’t we expect the next line in this scripture to be something about the people being in awe, of rejoicing, a banquet, a great celebration of some kind? But it’s the opposite. The community can’t take it. This disruption of the status quo by this strange rabbi and healer, Jesus, and the loss of a herd of pigs – even though one of their own is restored to them - is too much. So they tell Jesus to get out. And he does. Now who is saturated by death and misery and neglect? Now who’s in the tombs?
I wonder, what in our world today are our tombs? And what keeps us in them? What has us bound up in fear or anger and keeps us from community with one another? Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, anxiety about the future, hanging on to the past – everything that flows out of fear. The list is Legion.
When we have become comfortable with the way things are, when we have accepted as normal the destructive, death-dealing experiences of our lives and in the world, it is precisely then that Jesus’ presence is more important and most powerful.
Luke’s gospel points to Jesus’ healing as the absolute power of God over the chaos of natural and human disasters. It is a power stronger than a Legion of evil. It is a power that will prevail. This power of Jesus will work in each of us this very moment and every day, finishing and polishing, transforming us if we’ll let it.
We sometimes say lightheartedly “God isn’t finished with me yet.” I think there is more truth in that than we sometimes realize. We are always being made new. St. Paul says that if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. So anything is possible, no matter where we are in our lives. We are constantly being created and recreated and transformed and loved. We are not left stagnant or forgotten, all possibilities are open to us.
This is not our personal prerogative alone. Just as Jesus went to the Gerasene, we as his followers today are called to step out of the boat and to take the healing and liberating love of God to broken and desolate people and places, to those whose lives are bound by forces beyond their control. Indeed the missional language of healing has been a part of baptismal and confirmation vows since antiquity. Those being baptized, among other things, renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against the love of God. To be baptized is to commit to getting out of the boat with Jesus.
It is the life and example of Jesus that offers us a path to healing, to hope, and wholeness. Fear may still holds us back. Healing can be scary because it means a different way of life, a new reality.
But the Good News today is that God never intended for us to exist in those tombs. God imbued each of us with dignity and worth and purpose. God calls us to discover God who, in the face of death, whispers new life for ourselves and all our neighbors. Where ever we are in our lives, there is always hope and always possibility, always the fullness of the love, the peace, the energy and joy of being one in Christ.
Go, he says, to us, the living. Armed with the broad embrace of God’s love for all people, owning our role in God’s powerful work in the world, we must resolve to love our way into a different tomorrow, to reject with everything we say and do anything that diminishes anyone’s dignity and humanity. And then go home and declare what God has done for us. Amen.