I.N.I.
A sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, Virginia on 20 June 2010, that is, the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and based on the Holy Gospel for the Day, St. Luke 8:26-39, the healing of the Gadarene demoniac
Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord!
Dear Friends in Christ,
One of the ways to study stories from the Bible, and to develop a deeper sense of how these stories are meaningful to each of us today, is to work your way through the story thinking of yourself as one character, then another. What would the miracle at Cana have meant if I were the groom or the bride's father, for example. Or if I were one of Noah's sons, how would the whole story about the ark and 40 days of rain have affected me? Maybe we could try something like that with this story from Luke's Gospel.
We could, of course, think of ourselves as one of the disciples safely on shore at last after the wild, windy trip across the Sea of Galilee during which we woke up Jesus and He calmed the storm with just His words. Or maybe we could imagine ourselves as the villagers who came out to see what happened, after it all happened, and then asked Jesus to please leave town. (Have we ever politely asked Jesus to leave?) Or what would it have been like to be one of the local pig farmers who saw their entire flock suddenly rush down the steep bank like lemmings and drown? (Jesus can turn our world upside down, but is this the kind of thing that means?) Or what would it have been like to be the pigs in the story?
Or what would it have been like to be the naked crazy man who lived in the cemetery? Has your life ever gotten that far out of control? Have you ever felt like you've been losing touch with reality enough that you might as well be this guy? Have things ever gotten wild enough, overwhelming enough, stressful enough that you have thought “You know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad just to let everything go, cut all my ties with society, check out of normalcy.”?
We can learn some good lessons from this poor man's experiences. Even if we've been in control enough that we've never felt pushed to or over that edge, we can learn some things for our good from his story. Let's see what there is in this story for us.
First of all, the core of this passage from Luke's Gospel is also found in Matthew and Mark. It seems that God wanted to be sure we listened to this story, so he had three of His evangelists record it, not just one. And, as often happens, each of the writers includes details that the others leave out, maybe simply because they got the story from a different witness. Matthew, an eyewitness himself, tells us that there were actually two demon-possessed men there who “were so fierce that no one could pass that way” (Matt. 8:28). Mark tells us that the man “was always howling and bruising himself with stones” (Mark 5:5) and that there were about 2,000 pigs in the flock. Luke tells us that after the healing the man was seen “sitting at the feet of Jesus” (Luke 8:35).
Next, we know, I suppose, that the central point of this story is the same as of every story in the Bible: the story tells us about our need to be close to God, and how that comes about through Jesus our Savior. So why do we need to hear that lesson again? Why is it again the central point of a Scripture lesson and sermon that we are in need to salvation and that Jesus is our one and only Savior? Simply because we keep coming up with new ways of fomenting rebellion against Him and inventive ways to slip away from God. Here's how it is illustrated here in Luke chapter 8:
The naked man is one side of this coin, and the villagers are the other. And I think that they actually can be said to alternate the ways in which they show us separation from God. What they are teaching us in the end is that we – you and I – can live closer to Jesus, both healed of our craziness and un-distracted by non-essentials. We don't know just why this man was tormented with these demons who proudly named themselves “Legion.” We don't know whether maybe he invited them in, believing that he could control them and use their strength to gain money or power. There are certainly lots of examples in history and literature and the daily newspapers for us of people who make bargains with the Devil and end up polluting themselves and those around them with destructive drugs or dissipating habits, with wasteful living, with – in short – sinful intent. Oh, yeah, they may start out saying, I'm going to be different from everyone else; I'm going to control this habit; I'll do good with this stolen money; I'll help people with this excess power. But it's always a bargain that breaks the people who try to keep it. And this man in the tombs was certainly being broken by the demons in his life.
It could be that the demons weren't invited into his life, but invaded one day when his defenses were down. It didn't matter to the Legion, because they were enjoying themselves terrorizing the man and the villagers and people who tried to pass by. Satan's long-term goal is chaos and destruction, and he had the demons taking this man and those around him further down that road day by day. They delight in rebellion against the Creator. They enjoy, in their own twisted ways, taking people away from God.
The villagers were, I said, the other half of the picture. How were they siding against God? Well think about it: here's someone they knew, someone related to a lot of them surely, someone it great need, a man who who could most use a helping hand, and what had they done? They made sure he stayed away. When he came near, they tried to keep him in chains. This is no way to care for the helpless. This is no way to treat the poor and needy. This is not how the least of these is to be treated. It isn't how we say we would treat Jesus.
And then, later in the story, these villagers come rushing out to the cemetery to see for themselves what the pig farmers had told them. I mean, who could believe that there were actually 2,000 pigs floating upside down in the lake? Disasters always attract nosy people who aren't going to lend a hand. That's what was going on here. These are the people who tie up traffic on the interstate trying to get a look at the accident on the other side of the median. And what happened here? They got out to the spot, saw Jesus teaching the man (this is the significance of Luke's mention that the man was “sitting at the feet of Jesus” ... disciples sat at the feet of their Masters; this man had already become a disciple of Jesus!). So did they naturally join in? Did they sit down, too, to enjoy a “Sermon in the Cemetery”? No. These villagers were so distracted by the non-essentials that they just up and asked Jesus to leave them. They wanted to see dead pigs. They wanted to see the crazy naked man. They wanted some kind of excitement. But all they had was Jesus teaching “the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” (Luke 8:35) The villagers were afraid, Luke tells us. Some of the eyewitnesses tried to tell them how the healing took place, but with one voice “all the people of the surrounding country ... asked Jesus to leave.” So they missed out on their one great chance to be with the Savior. They thought it was better to slip away from Jesus, to get a great distance between Him and themselves. It was really a quiet rebellion against God.
Our own lives sometimes follow these patterns. We, too, rebel. We, too, invite in demons or demon-like things that take us away from God. We, too, get distracted from God by things that simply are not essential. We, too, try to slip away or to send Jesus quietly packing. Do we abuse our bodies with things or practices that hurt them? Do we abuse our relationships with force or control or demands or legalism? Do we abuse our world that God has given us? Then do we go looking for things that appear bright and shiny, but simply serve to distract us from important spiritual matters? Do we seek out people, places and things that just don't make us stronger disciples? Do we collect the earthly things that are temporary and unimportant instead of storing up treasure in Heaven?
These are the ways of the naked crazy man and of the villagers. But, as we've heard, there is a better way.
If our goal is indeed to live closer to Jesus, both healed of our craziness and un-distracted by non-essentials, then the way to get there is to listen to the voice of Jesus, to His words of healing and His teaching. In this Bible text, the demon-possessed man is the only one who did so. So he turns out to be the character in the story that we should be seeing ourselves in. This nameless man is the one who was completely turned around and entranced by the words of Jesus. The 12 disciples just disappear out of the narrative for some reason, probably so that we focus on the one convert. The swineherds witnessed the healing and immediately left the scene. The villagers heard the story from the swineherds, but instead of letting their story be a saving Gospel story, they had it become a sensationalist news story. It is only the healed man who heard the Savior's call and became a disciple.
And like all true disciples this man fervently wanted to be with Jesus. He begged Jesus to let him come back to the western side of the Sea of Galilee. 'Jesus, I need you so much. Stay with me. Let me come with you. Just don't send me away. I've been so lonely without you, Jesus. Life has been so hard. People have been so cruel.' But Jesus had a special plan for this man. His story of healing, a vibrant and exciting story of redemption and grace, a story of Law and Gospel, a story of God's love breaking into a man's sin-darkened world, a story of renewal and of forgiveness and of a new unexpected beginning ... this man's story simply had to be heard. There were people in the village there who needed to hear it again and again. There were people in the other Ten Towns (the Decapolis) who had to hear.
So this brand new disciple is sent out to share the Gospel with the distracted people on the wrong side of the Sea of Galilee. “He went away,” Luke records, “proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.” (Luke 8:39) And then he fades from history. Sort of.
The Bible never tells us his name (it's not important). And it doesn't really tell us anything much about his lay ministry activities. Except this: back in Mark's Gospel this story is recorded in chapter 5 where it ends with the words that the man “went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.”. (Mark 5:20) Then in Mark chapter 7 there's this: after Jesus healed the daughter of the nameless Syro-Phonecian woman, “He returned from the region of Type, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis” (Mark 7:31). There the crowds – crowds, mind you! – brought Him a deaf man to be healed. The parallel in Matthew's Gospel says that “Great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the mute and many others. They put them at His feet and He cured them.” (Matt. 15:30).
Now, how do you suppose the people in these Gentile mountain towns on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, away from the places Jesus spent so much of His ministry, how do you suppose these crowds knew about Jesus and the fact that God's healing power flowed through Him? Do you suppose that just maybe the words of one man, formerly known as the naked crazy man who lived in the cemetery, had made a difference in this territory? I have to admit that the Bible doesn't tell us, but it's an awfully attractive explanation for the instant recognition and popularity of Jesus in this foreign land.
Whether or not this man's words were the earthly explanation for the later spread of Jesus's ministry there, for changing the hearts of villagers and swineherds and others into hearts ready to listen to Jesus, we do know this: Jesus changes hearts. The evidence is here in this healing story recorded in three of the four Gospels. And the evidence is here in our world today. People's lives are changed for the better when they listen to the calling voice of Jesus. People escape the clutches of their demons. People are forgiven by God. Our sins are washed away because Jesus took the punishment we deserved when He died in our places on the cross outside Jerusalem. We are clothed in the righteousness of God and we are set right, just as the man in the tombs was clothed and returned to his right mind. This happens today. It has happened to you as followers of Jesus, even if the demons you have been released from were not as dramatic as this man's Legion of demons. Maybe, instead, you were called away from the distractions of this world where you were looking for floating pigs and other disasters rather than a gentle Savior to learn from.
Either way, God has changed lives right here. And He calls us first to discipleship, and then to telling others about this change in our lives. As God's dearest children we are all chosen to live ever closer to Jesus even if, yes, for a time we have to leave His side to carry out His business preparing His way. We have all been healed of our craziness. We have all been pulled away from the meaningless distractions. Recognizing this fact helps us focus on how we are to live as Christians. The Holy Spirit comes to us in the means of grace (God's Word and Sacraments) giving us the power and focus to be God's children in a hostile world. And we are empowered to be His witnesses wherever we are. Let us so live. Amen.
May the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
S.D.G.