Pentecost 5C
Galatians 3:23-39
Luke 8:26-39
While I have been on medical leave these past weeks, I
have accomplished many things: getting rid of cancer was a big one, of course.
Then all the little triumphs that go with recovery – first full night’s sleep,
first walk around the neighborhood, first time driving, etc. Another
accomplishment I’ve achieved that maybe you don’t know about… is that I have
watched all nine seasons of the popular and hilarious television show, The
Office. I even got my parents hooked on it. While I was cooped up and not able
to get out much, the people in this show became my world, such that I related
their life events to my own, and they even became a part of some of my dreams.
So it is only natural that, as I read today’s texts,
my mind immediately went to an episode I’d recently seen of The Office. In this
episode, one young mom unwittingly brings her 3-year-old’s lice into the office,
and everyone in the office has to be treated. One character, Dwight, takes this
very seriously. Dwight is a strange character with a unique upbringing and
bizarre family values. In one scene, he explains why he takes lice so
seriously. “Of all of the vermin in God’s great green kingdom,” he says, “lice
are the ones I detest the most. My first day of school I had lice and no one
would play with me. For 15 years they called me freak and four eyes and sci-fi
nerd and girl puncher, all because I had lice when I was seven.” As far as
Dwight’s could tell, this one little issue had defined him for the rest of his
school years!
Really, it’s not so unlike the situation of the
Gerasene demoniac in today’s Gospel reading. This is a sad text for a lot of
reasons: the Gerasene man, the man with the demons – his existence is not a
happy one. Of course, there are the demons that possess him, a whole legion of
them. Then there’s the fact that he lives not in a house, but in the tombs – as
if to say this man might as well be dead. He is captive not only to the demons
possessing him, but also bound by chains and shackles. No one wants him around,
he is self-destructive and nasty, he has no control over himself. It is truly a
sad existence.
But what is the saddest part of all about this man’s
situation is that his story is documented here as “the Gerasene demoniac.” For
the rest of time, he would be known not for what he gave to the world, not for
his willingness to follow Jesus, not for his miraculous healing, or his charge to
tell others in his Gentile land about what Jesus has done for him – all
significant parts of his story. No, this man goes down in history as “the
Gerasene demoniac.” The man possessed by demons. He will be forever labeled by
his ailment. And not just an ailment – by the demons, this thing that has
possessed him, is holding him captive, is keeping him from health and life and
joy. His demons define him.
We are not so different, either. For Dwight in The
Office, this was a silly thing – he believed the lice he had when he was seven
shaped how everyone thought of him throughout school. But this is no laughing
matter. How often we not only let others define us this way, but actually define ourselves based on our shortcomings, our setbacks, our
mistakes, our failures. Like the demons in the Gerasene man, these demons
possess us, cause in us self-destructive behavior, make us feel trapped, keep
us from living happy lives. We let these things be that nasty voice in our
heads, that Legion that has
possessed us, whenever a new opportunity comes up: “You can’t do that,” the
voice says. “You failed before, remember? No one believes you can do it.” Just
like the demoniac, we are kept from the joy and abundant life that God so wants
us to experience. We, too, are held captive. We, too, are Legion.
It’s more than sad. It’s devastating and debilitating.
But
the story doesn’t end, of course, with a mere description of the man’s
devastating state, and our story doesn’t end there either. In fact, this man’s
story starts by Jesus taking
action. The first line of the story says that Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee
to go to this man. It’s a small detail, one we may pass over, but it is
terribly significant. The land of the Gerasenes is not the sort of place Jesus
should be going. It’s where Gentiles live, foreigners. He is crossing a border,
going out of his way to go to this man. As soon as Jesus steps out of the boat,
he confronts the man’s demons for him. He commands them to come out. He argues
with them. And finally, he sends them out of the man and into a herd of swine,
who promptly run down a bank and into the sea, drowning the demons.
It’s
a pretty dramatic scene. It’s no wonder the people who saw it and heard about
it were scared – so scared, in fact, that they send Jesus away. Even though it
is so dramatic, and at first blush seems like nothing we’ve ever seen before…
it is also so very familiar. We all have our demons – those things in our past
or our present that we wish would go away, that possess us and hold us captive,
that keep us from living as fully and happily as we would like, and as God
would like us to. They are addictions, they are obsessions, they are actions
for which we can’t forgive ourselves or others, they are resentments, they are
cruel behavioral patterns, they are embarrassing habits. They are known, and
they are unknown. They make us self-conscious, and they make us angry.
But no matter what those demons are, Jesus goes out of
his way, crossing borders, to confront them. He talks with them, argues with
them, begs them to leave us, and finally sends them to be drowned – drowned in
the waters of baptism, drowned in the heartfelt words of confession, drowned in
a chalice of wine and a piece of bread. Drowned in the sound of praises lifted
to God.
Sometimes, this can be scary; even though our demons
plague our lives, they are a part of our lives, something with which we are
familiar, an unhealthy or unhelpful norm with which we have grown comfortable.
Indeed these demons become a part of our identity, as Legion became the
identity of the Gerasene demoniac. So their sudden absence can be hard to
grasp.
But Christ doesn’t want our identity to be based on
our setbacks and failures and shortcomings. That is not why Jesus came to
earth. It is not, “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son … so
that we might continue to perish at the hand of our demons and never experience
eternal life.” No, Christ came to earth to give us a new identity: as beloved and forgiven children of God.
This becomes so abundantly clear in our baptism, when our sins, our demons, are
drowned in those holy waters, and we are marked with the cross of Christ, and
sealed with the Holy Spirit. We take on that identity that Paul talks about in
our text today from Galatians: “As many of you as
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” We are no
longer clothed or weighed down by the things that hold us captive and torment
us, those things that keep us from life. Rather, we are clothed with the love
and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
And so, with the former demoniac, that man
who was so loved by God that God sent Jesus to cross borders and go to him and
heal him from his ailment and release him from his captor – with that beloved
and forgiven man of God, we too are sent to give thanks, to sing praise, and to
tell everyone what God has done for us.
Let
us pray. Liberating God, you know what holds us captive, what possesses us
and keeps us from living lives of joy. Release us from these things, drown them
in the waters of baptism, so that we will be free to proclaim with thanksgiving
all that you have done for us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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