Luke 8:26-39This is one of those texts that has so many possibilities I begin to feel immobilized at the thought of where to go with it. There are so many directions one can follow
Then they 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.
- demons - tombs - “opposite Galilee” - bound - legion - healed/in his right mind -
- reject Jesus - “seized with great fear” -
All that, not to mention the pigs, nor, for that matter, what might be most interesting, the man begging to go with Jesus, and Jesus giving him a mission with those very people who had marginalized him. . .- reject Jesus - “seized with great fear” -
Mary W. Anderson has a real nice sermon on that, titled: “Stay and Follow”
Read that. I can’t top it. http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=645
I wonder if my sense of being overwhelmed by the homiletical task here might mirror the sense of being overwhelmed that we all have in our lives. There are so many choices, so many directions to go. We become caught up in lives of busy-ness, and fail to live the lives we desire, or the lives to which God calls us. The options/possibilities/challenges are legion.
I’m not sure we need to de-mythologize the possession of this unfortunate man all that much.
“What ails you?”
“Where do I begin?” “Legion”
Jesus steps into our lives of quiet desperation, and casts out
- what -
alienation, fear, death and the devil...
Jesus doesn’t stop there.
“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you. . . “
As Forde liked to say The real question isn't "are you saved?" it is "What are you saved for?" For your neighbor.
4 comments:
I'm thinking of the direction that leads to killing Jesus, naturally. Here Jesus comes with power over evil, it's a wild tale, a wondrous and amazing event. But rather than rejoice at the arrival of such power the folks are afraid. And they ask Jesus to leave. God is wild. Grace is free. The old lines are erased. I'm scared. But he continues to do what he does, raised from the dead and all.
I'm not sure how all this is good news. I just know that it is summer and I don't want to have this hanging over my head all weekend, so I have to go with something. God is free and that upsets us, but we can't do anything about it really because even when we kill him he comes back from the dead, so I'm not in control of God, but still God comes to me with grace, healing, and a call to ministry.
Thanks "underminer" and "pay no toll" for weighing in. There certainly are a lot of ways to go with this Gospel. One I'm thinking of is the notion of disruption/restoration. Jesus was disruptive - God's healing presence, his liberating work was/is disruptive and terrifying. The sick were healed, the broken were made whole, outcasts were drawn close, even the righteous were taken less seriously than they desired. Jesus restored folks to health & wholeness and his work/power of restoration disrupted their lives so much that they asked him to leave. But the reaction of the healed man (Gerasene demoniac) was to sit at Jesus' feet, for he was moved from nakedness (shame) to being clothed (grace & dignity of new life), and even though he & crowd had asked Jesus to leave now he asks him to stay. Thanks for helping to "stir" my thoughts....
There is some interesting stuff in the Girardian perspective on this. In the end, though, it leaves me a little cold.
I fear that there is a sort of gnostic tendency in their stuff, in that they are the ones who have "seen the light" and decoded the scapegoating mechanism, and so, as they define and describe things, they are never implicated. . . It's those people who don't see the mechanism at work. I know there's more to it, but between that and their lingo - it is oft-times hard to imagine using their insights at all.
It's still interesting...
I missed it, but I think on performance today on NPR, a guy who does musical puzzle stuff played the Beatles' song "Nowhere Man" in the style of Handel - I thought I heard them say in the style of the Messiah solo "I know that my redeemer liveth"
I probably heard it so wrong that it would be un-recognizeable to those who actually listened to it. That being so, Nowhere Man and My Redeemer Liveth seems to define the demoniac.
I am starting to find myself drawn to these two things
- the demoniac
found "clothed and in his right mind" and
- the Galatians text speaking of being "clothed ...with Christ"
As I look back, this Sunday, 9 years ago I got to baptize a baby, AND introduce my congregation to Susie. Fun!
The whole work on that Sunday was with baptismal stuff, and our adoption into God's family, and the passionate love of God FOR YOU.
Of course, if one is going to talk about parenting, one can then no longer speak of being in his right mind!
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