Let us pray: May these words be in the name of the God who heals, restores, and liberates. Amen.
Wow! What a fantastical story! We have a man who lives in the tombs and is possessed by a legion of demons who seize control of him causing people to chain and shackle him up. But he breaks free and runs off into the wild. And when Jesus commands the spirits to come out of the man there’s this whole conversation with the spirits begging Jesus to let them go into some pigs. And Jesus gives them permission! And then the pigs rush down the bank into the lake and drown. WOW! This is crazy! WHAT is happening here? Let’s take a look at these characters and some context and ask together, “What does Jesus do here? How is the nature of God revealed? What do we learn about God and ourselves? And finally, what is this story inviting us to do?
Jesus and his disciples have crossed the sea of Galilee and entered into Gentile/non-Jew territory. By crossing the sea, they have crossed the border into different cultural and religious territory. We read that as soon as Jesus steps off the boat he is met by a man of the city who had demons. There are many stories in the bible about demons, possession, and exorcisms. What are we to make of this? While we may or may not have believe in literal demons, I’m sure we can come up with examples of demons that are very real, those things that hold us back, hold us down, and take control of our lives, causing us to act in ways that aren’t who we are as God’s beloved children: Substance use disorder, greed, corruption, envy. Certainly trauma, past, present, or ongoing, is a very real demon for too many in our world today.
Back to our gospel:
We learn that: For a long time, the man had worn no clothes. He did not live in a house but in the tombs and that he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles. Hmm…I often see “people of the city” like this man near St. Mary’s. They too are unhoused, perhaps they shelter in a cemetery, at times they have little or no clothing. Sometimes their demons take hold of them causing them to yell and curse. Sometimes I have conversations and do what I can to help people who come to the church for help. Sometimes I learn about their past, their stories, their trauma, what’s led them to where they are now.
I wonder who the man in today’s story is? What was his life like before? Where did he live? Where was his home, his community, his people? I wonder about the people around him. Who guarded, bound and shackled him? Who sent him away from his home, family, friends and community?
I have so many questions about today’s story. Perhaps that’s what makes it such a good one! Like how does the unclean spirits recognize Jesus? And why do the spirits want to go into the pigs? And why does Jesus let them? And why did they run into the lake to drown? And why were the people afraid after seeing the man restored? What were they afraid of? And why did they ask Jesus to leave? And why did Jesus just go? And when the restored man asked Jesus to let him come with him, why did Jesus send him away?
But if we focus on what Jesus does, on how he interacts with this man, then we begin to see who God is. First off, Jesus crosses borders, he gets outside of his comfort zone and reaches out to those who are foreign to him, outsiders, different, unknown. Jesus makes the effort to meet them in THEIR territory. Second, Jesus offers healing, restoration, and liberation. Jesus sends our demons away.
“And when they came to see Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” Jesus not only restored his physical and mental health, but also restored him to his community. When once he had been expelled, shunned, and cut-off from family and friends, Jesus now sends him back into community. The belonging that the man had lost has been restored. He belongs. He has a home, family, friends, a place to return to. And what does Jesus ask of him?
“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” Go, Jesus tells him, return to your people and share the Good News. Speak to them and show them how God cares, heals, and restores.
What are we being invited into by this story? First, we recognize that we all have our own demons, and that’s what it means to be human, AND, that’s what Jesus invites us to bring to him. In fact, that is what Jesus is looking for. He crosses the lake to find us and set us free. Bring your worries, bring what is holding you down, and offer them to Jesus for healing. And then, then, give thanks, it might not be a miraculous, instant release and healing for you, or it might be, but, if even in the smallest ways, Jesus WILL be working to bring restoration. And for that we give thanks and then we go and declare how much God has done for us in our lives. We share it with others and we invite them into the story. We invite them to bring their chains and shackles to Jesus who declared his mission at the start of his ministry in Nazareth:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
(Isaiah 61: 1-2a)
I leave you with these two questions today: What can you bring to Jesus for healing, liberation, and restoration?
And, what can you declare to others about how much has God done for you?
Amen.
