First Reading:
23Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Second Reading:
26Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which
is opposite Galilee. 27As 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. 28When 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
— 29for 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.) 30Jesus
then asked him, What is your name?
He
said, Legion
; for many demons had entered
him. 31They begged him not to order them to go back into
the abyss. 32Now 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. 33Then 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. 34When the
swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city
and in the country. 35Then 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. 36Those who had seen it
told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been
healed. 37Then 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. 38The man
from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but
Jesus sent him away, saying, 39Return 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.
Today's scripture reading is an exorcism story… it's a story of Jesus casting out demons… It's not unique, there are quite a few exorcism stories in the gospels. But this is an exemplary one. You see, in all of the exorcism stories, there was a power that threatened someone… it was almost always a mortal power and an oppressive power that held a person captive and kept them from participating in the normal relationships of society and everyday life. In this story, it's clear by the man's behavior that he's caught… He lives outside any accepted norms of society… he lived among the tombs, naked and outcast… the gospel of Mark's version of the same story tells us that he spent night and day howling on the hillsides and bruising himself with stones. The people of the town couldn't even protect him from himself. When they tried to restrain him with chains and shackles, the man broke them and went out into the wilderness. He was out of control and seemed to be totally at the mercy of the oppressive power.
Now there are lots of parts of the world where this story is preached
as Jesus literally overcoming demonic powers… Here in this
country there are many people who deny the idea of demons and
understand that Jesus cured some sort of mental illness…
Depending on the worldview you hold, both of those could be valid
interpretations but there's something else lurking here if we look at
this passage in a broader context; something that might be helpful for
those of us who plan to be involved in the church for the foreseeable
future… because this exorcism story speaks of a
specific demon.
And that demon is named Legion, for they are
many.
In the Roman world a Legion was the most powerful military force in
existence. At full strength a legion would consist of 6 thousand men,
armed and trained by the state. They were put in place to enforce the
will of Caesar in outlying areas of the empire especially anywhere
there was continued tension… And Legion is the name given to
the force that oppressed this man. Luke has references to the Roman
military throughout his gospel and it is significant to note that
there was a legion of the Roman Army that was stationed in the country
of the Gerasenes in the year 6 C.E. Thousands of trained, armed
soldiers were working together to keep peace in the region by a
display of force… they were given the authority to use any
means necessary to squash any sort of rebellion or anything that
disturbed the peace. So, while it is reasonable to think that the
people who originally heard this story heard it as a healing miracle.
It's also reasonable to think that they heard it as a story of
liberation from the most powerful force of political, economic and
ideological oppression that was conceivable at that point in the
world's history. And the force that was Legion
was waiting for
Jesus when he got off the boat in the land of the Gerasenes.
And it made me wonder: What is it that's going to be waiting for us when we get off the boat into the ministry we engage in over the next months and years looking forward? What are the forces that oppress our church and our communities? If you read any publications about the future of mainline denominations in this country, you'll see all sorts of statistics about how we're dying. And I think that in large part we struggle against what may well be the most powerful force that we can imagine at this point in history…
Now, obviously I am not talking about any sort of imperial military…It's not gone that far. I hope it won't and don't think it will… but there are, it seems, at least 6000 forces working on every church and on every person that are trying to define us. It is increasingly difficult to keep an eye on who we are, and at least as important to keep an eye on whose we are.
No matter where you look or listen there's always someone or something telling us that our needs can be met by the products we buy, the status we have, by the things we do and the things we own. These messages come from the fact that we have needs… and there's no doubt that we all have needs…We need to feel accepted, we need to be loved for who we are, we need to have something that gives a sense of meaning to our lives. The list could go on… and our culture has become really good at telling us that we won't be and that we can't be good enough, or smart enough or something enough. The advertisers would have us believe that their products will help us… but the problem goes deeper than that because we all have enough stories of rejection and things that have hurt us in the past that it's easy to believe little bits and pieces of the messages… to get anxious and to buy into the notion that we aren't enough and no matter what we do we never will be.
When it comes to churches there's the same sense of not being enough
and it may even be easier to pinpoint the source of the
anxiety… for years across the board, the mainline denominations
have been declining in membership… the most recent Pew Survey
of the Religious Landscape in America showed that the number of people
who are not affiliated with any religious group is nearly equal to the
number of total mainline protestant Christians in America… and
almost certainly, unless something dramatically changes, the not
affiliated group
will be larger within a decade… and so, at
a very broad level, the church has become one of many institutions
struggling to survive… the church has become one of many
institutions focused on self preservation. There are lots of churches
out there who feel stuck clinging white- knuckled to something that
worked once upon a time even though it hasn't worked for quite a
while, and there are also lots of churches that spend enormous amounts
of energy running around bouncing from one new, latest-and-greatest
ministry program to another, hoping to find something, anything that
will bring people back through the doors. Both of those ways of being
are just filled with the same kind of anxiety that's pervasive in our
culture. In fact I'd even go so far as to say that they're driven by
anxiety.
For the most part, I believe that people come to church to connect
with each other and to get in touch with the divine, and I think
churches do a disservice when we mimic the anxiety of the culture
around us… and that anxiety, or perhaps better the things that
produce that anxiety are the legion I'm talking about… Peter
Steinke in his book Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times says
that Anxiety is an automatic reaction to a threat, real or
imagined.
It can be good, but it can also be paralyzing. As we
strive to faithfully minister to our neighbors and friends, to the
community and even to the world in the ways that we can, there will
always be voices that bring up anxiety… they will say things
like: don't do it, it's not worth the effort; or you can't make a real
difference anyway… there will be voices that say we tried that
before and it didn't work; or we've never done that before and we
don't know how… there will be some questioning that's valid and
well reasoned and there will be some questions that simply come out of
fear. But for all of them, there's a question that comes first…
what is God calling us to do right now? If we can answer that
question, the other stuff becomes secondary— and if we can
maintain our focus on that question, much of the legion that is
anxiety producing will lose some of its power.
In our story, the first thing Legion did at the sight of Jesus was to
bow down and shout What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the
Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.
When Legion stood
face to face with Jesus, there was no doubt where the power
was. Legion knew that it was outmatched. So it begged to not be
destroyed. And when Jesus allowed Legion to enter the swine, I think
he knew that the legion just might destroy itself because destruction
is always the kind of power Legion holds.
I don't think it's coincidence that the symbol for the tenth legion of the Roman Army, the one that was stationed in the land of the Gerasenes, was a wild pig… The head of a boar was on their flag… When people heard legion, they may well have pictured six thousand men being led on the march by a pig's head. And by sending the legion into the swine, Jesus may well have been saying go… Take your oppressive power and if you must destroy something, destroy yourself because this person that you are oppressing, this person is mine. You may not destroy this person. I will see this person through to health and to wholeness. And he did. The man never asked to be healed.
In fact, we don't know if he ever even recognized that he was being oppressed. But at the end of the story, a herd of swine ended up in the sea, Legion was no more, and the guy sat with Jesus, healed. The other people of the town didn't get it… they were afraid 1) because they didn't understand and 2) because they were concerned about themselves… The townspeople were afraid because their little corner of the world was altered by the healing… it was hard for them to imagine what life would be like if Legion wasn't oppressing the man and if Jesus really did have the power to overcome legion.
Isn't it ironic that with all the changes that have occurred in the last 2 thousand years when it comes to our own lives and the systems that we're a part of, we still resists change. Imagine the resistance we will face in our churches and in our lives if we started living without the anxiety that is legion. In the church the kind of healing I'm talking about is a movement from an institution focused on self preservation to a group of people deeply committed to God's work in the world… from an institution focused on the bottom line to a family committed to health and wholeness… from an institution driven by anxiety to a to a church rooted in love, a community of authentic connection with other people and with God. It is not a need that everyone recognizes. But the one who was oppressed did not have to ask for healing. Jesus claimed him, just as Jesus has claimed us and claimed our church.
And if you need evidence, look around… you see the word of anxiety is derived from a word meaning to choke… I read an author who used the metaphor of a boa constrictor that squeezes the joy and the life out of everything that's going on… but in this place, the United Parish of Bowie, definitely in what I've seen in the year and a half I've been here and I'm sure it started long before that: there may be anxiety… we can't get around it… but what is more prevalent is a willingness to act… to not be choked out and held down…to not let anxiety have the last word, even if it does slip a word in edgewise sometimes…
So the way we are able to overcome the legion that is anxiety is to continually turn toward the way of Jesus Christ. Because there is no doubt where the power stands when anxiety and love are face to face.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on Recognition Sunday, June 20, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
