We are now into the Pentecost Season with the color green, which symbolizes a time to grow our faith.. This is unlike any other season which focuses on the events of Jesus’ life. The Sundays after Pentecost through the summer and fall, right up to the Season of Advent, focuses on our Lord’s ministry. That is, we are to grow our faith through what is revealed through his teachings, preaching, healings, and miracles. And today we focus on a miracle story with our Gospel reading.
For any student of scripture, we discover that the numerous miracle stories have been broken down by biblical scholars into several categories.
First – there are Nature Miracles – such as the Feeding of the 5000, or the story before this one in Luke, the Calming of the Storm.
Second - are Physical Healings, like the Woman with the Hemorrhaging, or the story of the Ten Lepers.
Third – are Resuscitations, like the Healing of Jairus’ daughter.
Fourth, and last are Exorcisms – such as the story we have today with the Garasene Demonic.
Today we are confronted with a miracle involving demonic forces. And let’s be real, when it comes to talking about evil, demons or devils, I am most uncomfortable, as I assume is true for you too. This is a Sunday that many preachers will take vacation … but as you see, I’m here.
You and I really don’t want to recognize this part of Jesus’ ministry, despite the fact that these stories to deepen our faith and awareness of Jesus’ power and God’s love for us, which are critical to our spiritual growth.
The Gerasene Demoniac is a miracle story found in all three of the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke. So, therefore, it is of significance. It cannot or should not be ignored or brushed aside.
So, let us take a closer look at this text.
Part of the reason why such texts as this makes us uncomfortable is because we live in a modern scientific world where we expect to be able to explain everything and get to its root cause.
To use language like “demons or devils” seems so archaic.
This day an d age it’s more appropriate for us to say we are “dealing with illnesses”, mostly “mental illnesses.”
And thus, we feel the best way to deal with them is to make use of our modern resources: education, money, and medicine.
One bible scholar has written:
“But, if education were the answer, college professors would all be saints. If money were the answer, the oil-rich Mid-east would be heaven. That leaves medicine. And we still hope that counseling or medication can over take the place of exorcism.”
It appears to me that our modern society is so eager to categorize what may be better labeled spiritual maladies as medical problems.
For instance, when we examine the world’s history with these past 100 years, how can we ignore the data that presents such overwhelming evidence of evil?
- What about people like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Putin, or other dictatorships of oppressive regimes that have committed genocide? It still happens yet today with Ukraine or Israel, Palestine, or parts of Africa and the world.
- Do we label dictators as emotionally disturbed or evil?
- Would these things not have occurred if they had therapy or an exorcism performed?
- Should they have had the care of a psychiatrist or pharmacist to set them straight?
- Could so many innocent deaths have been prevented?
I believe not. Evil is a reality. It is a part of the natural world around us.
So, why has all this happened; what causes it?
- Is it about demons and devils, however you wish to define it?
- Perhaps it’s the work of Satan, however we wish to define Satan.
- Maybe it is simply evil forces and powers of darkness that exist around us in forms known or unknown.
In any event, it is obvious that the problem is not medical or political – it is a spiritual issue.
It’s about forces of good and evil as we learn from the Creation narratives of Genesis.
Prior to our Reading today from Luke, Jesus and the disciples had gone through a terrible storm on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples had panicked because all they could see was their demise. Their hearts were captured by fear.
They woke Jesus, crying "Master, Master, we are perishing!"
Jesus stood up and rebuked the wind and the waves, and the wind and waves stopped. The disciples were amazed.
Now, as they now step ashore, (as we have with today’s reading) a man filled with demons meets them. This was another dangerous situation, even more frightening than the storm of the previous night.
- The place was isolated; it was a foreign land and Gentile territory. No one around to help them if the man would suddenly have a seizure.
This story reveals that the possessed man had the strength of a dozen men. People had bound him with chains and shackles, but even those he broke through.
He spent his days running naked and wild in the graveyard. There was no telling what he might do. If he came after Jesus, there would be no stopping him.
But we note that Jesus was not afraid. He asked the man's name. He responded that his name was Legion -- a name associated with the Roman army -- a name for a military unit consisting of thousands of soldiers.
(Scholars believe that Luke used this name, because many demons had entered into him. He was filled with demons, hundreds, even thousands of demons.)
But this name, Legion, did not describe the man – it described the demons who dwelled within him.
The point is this: The man as a human being had no identity.
He had lost his identity to the demons who possessed him.
The Gerasene neighbors dealt with the situation by binding this man with chains and shackles, but the demons helped him to break free.
However, this freedom provided by the demons was a false freedom, because it only worsened the man's dehumanization and isolation.
He ran naked and unrestrained, an uncontrollable and frightening community presence, a demonstration of forces of evil and darkness.
In many ways, this is exactly what we experience because we all know people whose lives have been taken over by demons.
Often our desire to care and cure denies the real problem, masks the issues, and deals with effects rather than the causes.
Because of fear or guilt, we find ways to accommodate and make excuses.
- We all know or have known people whose consuming passion, or only passion, is finding that next drink or next fix.
- We all know people who are not only destroying their own lives, but are destroying the lives of spouses, children, family and friends.
- They cannot stay away from alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, and/or violence against spouse and children or other innocents.
- We all know people whose lives are being destroyed by their “demons.” But we desire not to label them as demons – we call them addictions; emotional disorders; disturbances.
But in light of our Gospel text, wouldn’t it be more accurate to label them as demonic forces that have not seen the true Light?
When such dark forces begin to destroy lives, there is a deeper issue happening. This becomes an obvious and blatant obstacle to the Light, to love and divine grace, to God himself, whose desire is for all to know true and everlasting life.
It is not at all freedom, but absolute bondage to dark forces.
You and I witness a similar phenomenon among people today whose addictions destroy them physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually.
Like the demoniac, as one theologian has commented:
“they live in marginal surroundings -- on the streets or under bridges -- isolated from community. They are free from nine-to-five jobs, time cards, and dress codes -- free from rent payments and car repairs -- free from obedience to cultural norms. But, in the ways that really count, they are the least free among us.”
They are the least free among us.
With our story today, we cannot help but note the sheer courage demonstrated by Jesus who is setting an example not only for his disciples but for us today in dealing with damaged human beings.
As Theologian, William Barclay records: “His fellow-men were...terrified of him, ... but Jesus faced him calm and unafraid. “
Believers are strengthened by the presence of Christ and our faith in our baptismal union with him. Daily we face great danger and are able to do it with great courage and prayer. It is the power we all have as believers because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We have the ability to stand up to darkness and evil.
It is a rather interesting detail that is important to notice with Jesus’ encounter with the man named Legion. It is the demons who begged Jesus to send them over the abyss – the place for evil spirits and the dead. They acknowledge who Jesus is and that they cannot defeat the power of our God.
They begged not to be sent home, but to be conquered. And they were.
This was to put an end to their dark deeds. And the man was healed.
So how is it that we are to deal with the forces of darkness and evil in this world?
This is the life-challenge every human being faces.
It is the challenge of every believer, of every follower of Christ, of the baptized. No one is spared.
But for the believer, the follower, the baptized there is hope as well as abundant help. We are not left alone in this struggle. We have a God who loves us and is with us through all of life’s challenges, giving us the strength and courage to conquer darkness.
Prayer is another tool to assist us. As children we learn the Lord’s Prayer. We pray “Deliver us from evil.” Deliver us from evil. We know that Jesus who taught us that prayer came to do just that. He delivers us from all darkness and evil and brings us into the light.
I want to end this sermon with an illustration of a story that may not be known to all, though the person is known by many. This is about the American music icon, Johnny Cash.
He appeared that he was a most successful and well-off person. But in reality, he was a being destroyed by drugs for years. He wrecked cars, had fits of anger that destroyed property, jailed for drug possession, had a wife who divorced him, and he lived on the edge.
In the year 1967 he hit bottom, high on drugs and filled with despair. He drove into a cave near Chattanooga, then wandered for miles underground till his flashlight batteries died. He decided to lie down and die.
In his own words he said:
"I felt something --
that love, the warm presence of God that I knew as a boy.
I understood that I wasn't going to die,
there were still things I had to do.
'But how can I? I don't know how to get out of here. I got no light.'
Then the voice seemed to answer back, 'Get up and go.'"
Cash got up and started moving through the darkness. At some point he smelled a bit of fresh air, and he followed that to the cave's exit -- and to a new life.
His struggles with his demons was not over. Drug relapses haunted him for years. He said:
"I've been in that dark place.
I fight the beast in me every day.
I've won a few rounds with God's help.
And that's what matters most to me now --
feeling good about my relationship with God."
With our Gospel today, when the man filled with demons was at last free, he asked to join Jesus and to become one of his disciples. Instead, Jesus sent him home to show himself to the hometown people who knew him best. Jesus called him to ministry, but he called him to a particular ministry, just as he does with each of us. Jesus called him to the place where people would most benefit by the witness of his deliverance.
When we are released from our demons, Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit given to each of us, calls us to share the salvation with which we have been saved. In may be a call to foreign places where we are needed, but in most cases, it is simply a call to serve where we are.
We are all dealing with demons. Some less than others. And we need to thank God for that.
Out text begs the question for each of us: are we allowing the Light of Christ to diminish the darkness and demons that surround our hearts and lives? And when it does, where is our joy taking us to serve? Amen.