Legion

Legion
Luke 8:26-39
June 24, 2007
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
Rev. Sandy Messick

What I did on my summer vacation…

Do you remember having to write those essays at the start of every school year? And you frantically tried to remember what you did that was worthy of writing about. Maybe you took a great trip, or had some wonderful experience, but I always pitied the poor guy who really hadn’t done much of anything over the summer and so had to try to make long afternoons of watching TV until mom said you had to go outside sound more interesting than it really was.
Perhaps if Jesus had that assignment he would’ve written about this story in Luke. Now, I don’t know that it happened during the summer, and I certainly don’t know if he was on vacation, but we do know that Jesus was away from home, in a new country. In fact, in this story, Jesus finds himself solidly in Gentile territory.
Though the other gospels differ on this, Luke places this story in Gerasa. It was a city founded by Alexander the Great about 33 miles SE of Galilee. Today, in Jerasa (now spelled with a J), visitors can still find remnants of the old city including city gates, the triumphal arch, theaters and pagan temples. Clearly, Jesus wasn’t in Nazareth anymore.

Now while Jesus was in this foreign place, he encountered a naked, homeless man who, we are told was afflicted with demons.

We, being who we are, want to know just who or what these demons were.

Certainly, mental illness was a possibility. For those who suffer from mental illness and for those who love those who suffer, it can certainly seem like demons have taken hold, like an evil force taking over and causing suffering and anguish both for the victim and the family.
Today we’d include addictions into the list of demons that threaten to possess us. Alcoholism, drug addictions, sex addictions, workaholism, those addicted to power, or money, or position. The list goes on and on, and all of these addictions can take over as demons that threaten the well-being, the very life of those who suffer.
Some commentators though look at the name of the demons to understand Luke’s intent. They equate the word Legion with Rome, the oppressive power that had taken over and was ruling life, depriving individuals of their free will. Perhaps this story is a not so subtle diatribe against the oppressive powers that threaten to overwhelm us and leave us in suffering.

But whatever the demons were, Luke is clear on this point: They knew who Jesus was. “Go away” they cry. “Leave us alone! What have you to do with us?” Demons of all kinds have one thing in common: Once they take hold, they don’t want to let go.
But Jesus wouldn’t be denied. Jesus’ mission was and still is liberation for those who are oppressed. Jesus came to set people free. He came with power to set people free. He came with God’s power to set people free and the demons knew it!
At their request, Jesus sent the demons into a nearby herd of pigs who promptly ran off a cliff and drowned.

Now I know that’s problematic for 21 st century animal lovers. It seems incomprehensible that Jesus would sacrifice a bunch of defenseless animals just to placate a few demons. But it’s important to remember the culture and the context. For the Jewish people, for the first hearers of this story, the pigs were unclean, they were of no value, they were expendable. When this story was written, I suspect, the whole pig part just wouldn’t raise the eyebrows it raises today. So blaming Jesus for drowning pigs is like blaming a pre-1970s writer for using sexist, exclusive language – it just wasn’t an issue for the first hearers of the story, even if it causes problems for us today.

In any case, the man was healed. The townspeople heard what happened and ran to see for themselves. And when they got there they found the man clothed and in his right mind, and sitting at Jesus’ feet.

And that’s when they started to celebrate! They roasted one of the waterlogged pigs, and they declared it National Jesus Day, and they held a parade in his honor and they…

Oh wait, that’s right, they didn’t do any of those things did they? The crowd didn’t celebrate. The townspeople didn’t rejoice that one who had suffered was now healed. They weren’t happy at all. They were afraid. They were overcome. And they told Jesus to leave. Now. And don’t come back here again.
Of all the aspects of this story, this is the one that is most troubling. Why? Why weren’t they happy? Perhaps they were thinking of their economic loss. After all, those pigs belonged to someone. Someone’s livelihood had been short circuited by Jesus’ healing, and people don’t take well to that.

This story in Luke wouldn’t be the only time in scripture that people got angry when Christ’s healings affected their own pocketbooks. In Acts 16 Paul and Silas end up in prison after they healed a slave girl who made her owners money by fortune-telling. Verse 19 tells us that “when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.” Later, in chapter 19, Paul caused a riot in Ephesus when Demetrius, a silversmith who made little silver shrines of other gods, realized that Paul’s preaching was causing a dip in his idol business. People who were starting to believe in the one God suddenly didn’t want to buy statues of other gods. So Demetrius riled up the other idol makers and started a riot and drove Paul out of the city.
Still today, things haven’t changed so much. We’re still in favor of healing and social change and concern for all people, as long as it doesn’t affect me.
We even have an acronym for it: NIMBY. Not in my backyard. So group homes for the mentally ill, or recovering addicts, or those just released from prison, those are all well and good, but don’t put them in my neighborhood. And environmental regulations and emphases are great! We fully support them. But still want to drive our SUVs and drink our bottled water, and buy clothes made in substandard factories in 3 rd world countries.
So it’s easy to believe that the townspeople in Gerasa, when they asked Jesus to leave and don’t come back, were acting out of anger over their economic loss. After all, this religion thing is all well and good as long as it doesn’t affect the economy.

Although, it’s possible that the resistance went even deeper.

It’s possible that the people had simply grown used to the way things were, and by keeping things as they were, they could keep control over their world.
So there was the crazy man – and here were the rest of us, the normal people.
You keep the crazy man, or the evil one, however you define him, over there, neatly contained out among the tombs and it’s clear, evil is there, not here. Evil is in him. It’s not in us.
Fred Craddock, in talking about this passage says, “We get used to the evil around us.” And the people had gotten used to the evil. They’d built a life and a system and a routine around the evil.
But then Jesus comes along and disturbs the way things are. And suddenly, the man known as Crazy, isn’t anymore. The very way we’ve defined ourselves, over and against something else, is changing, and that makes us afraid.
Change, even when it’s good change is hard to take. There’s a story about a man who owned a herd of cows. He noticed that the barn roof was leaking so he set about building a new barn, and tearing down the old one. After the cows were safely moved into the new barn, a terrible storm rose up. Thankful that the cows were warm and dry, the man went out to check on them. He was surprised to find that the door to the barn was unlatched, and there were no cows inside. Instead, he found the cows huddled together, dripping wet, standing within the foundation of the old barn.
Maybe the people sent Jesus away because they didn’t want the disruption he brings. And it’s inevitable. When you truly encounter Jesus, life is never the same. You better be sure that’s what you want.

So Jesus left. The man who was healed wanted to come too. And who can blame him really. Who wants to live where you’re known as the one who used to be possessed? But Jesus told him to stay.

Jesus left him as a missionary to his own hometown. And sometimes, that’s where we’re needed most too. Among our own families, and church, and neighborhood. Sometimes Jesus says stay, tell them what happened to you when you first met God.

What I did on my summer vacation…

Jesus came, saw one who was enslaved and offered him liberation.

Jesus suffered the rejection of those who refused to be healed, and maybe needed it the most.

Jesus commissioned the newly healed one to preach the good news.

That’s not a bad list of accomplishments for a vacation. Me? I’m happy if I can just finish a good book.

And with that, let the people say, Amen.