19 Jun SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2022
At first I thought, no way am I going to preach about this guy on Father’s Day. He represents a man who is ultimately tortured and has no dignity. For a long time he has lived naked among the dead without so much as one human companion. And yet, he’s aware he needs help. As Jesus steps out on land, a man of the city possessed by demons meets him.
He was not one of many standing on a median strip or sidewalk holding a sign and waving. He was one who fell down before Jesus and began shouting. This week Steve and I walked by a middle-aged woman who sat on a half wall outside a large apartment building downtown. She was kind of talking to herself, her body movements seemed irregular, and her gaze was at an odd angle.
As we approached, she mustered up the broken words, “Excuse me,” in a very raspy voice. By the time I realized her intent, we were ten feet ahead. I looked back. She appeared silent and unfazed at being ignored. We were on a street where several other tenants made the sidewalk their evening porch. Having already encountered about six people thus far, I was afraid to stop or offer her anything. Others would be watching us. I made myself feel better by thinking that I tried to make eye contact, but couldn’t. She was staring upward while she mustered the wherewithal to utter words.
The man of the city possessed by demons shouted because Jesus had already commanded the unclean spirits to come out of him. He responded at the very sight of him without assessing who was watching or what else would be expected. Instead it is we who cry, “What have you to do with me? I beg you, do not torment me with your signs and pitiful circumstances.” Jesus did not tell the man to go down the street or somewhere else for assistance. He addressed him directly. I think our hesitancy, in part, is knowing we don’t have the solution to their problems as Jesus did.
Recently, I saw the guy on Cameron Street who’s made it into a couple of sermons. It has been a while so I asked where he’d been. He said, “I was working, but I just lost my job yesterday. I’ll be trying to get another one.” In the meantime, someone else had taken his spot along the sidewalk there, putting in around the same hours. What things seize certain individuals and for all intents and purposes bind them with chains and shackles?
Oftentimes, things like emotional or physical trauma, illness, a history of abuse, and multiple losses factor in. The world itself keeps guard and reinforces their victim/prisoner status. This man of the city never stopped fighting back. When he succeeded at breaking some forms of restraint, the demons would drive him into the wilds which in modern terms could be the wilderness of addiction, to solitary places of shame. As Bill Wilson and Bob Smith who founded AA would say, “Only by acknowledging and submitting to a higher power could the man find hope.”
When addressed by Jesus directly, the demons must respond truthfully. “What is your name,” Jesus asks. Why would the many beg to not be ordered back into the abyss or bottomless pit, one translation adds, “where they would be punished.” CEV The abyss is also the place from where the beast of Revelation will rise.
The city opposite Galilee was said to be known for its large herds of swine. Like Iowa, Minnesota, N.C., Illinois and Indiana the area apparently raised a large percentage of pigs for food. In seminary we learned that what happened with the swine may not have been literal at all, but an ancient example of negative press.
Referring to a large herd of swine feeding on the hill seems to reflect local sentiment to Roman occupation. Referring to the presence of soldiers on their hills as swine, the demon’s destination seems a bid to send them to Hell, so to speak. To destroy themselves by drowning rather than be there, period.
If they were really pigs, they were not being raised for mass destruction. No wonder Jesus was asked to leave.
When people have much at stake, when they are threatened with losing significant revenue, when they are desperate to be part of society and belong as equals they will act. It’s interesting to note that in the first reading, when Isaiah wrote about God describing the worst of the worst, he mentioned those who sit among tombs and eat swine’s flesh among other things.
And yet, Jesus has mercy not only on a man who sits among the tombs and probably eats pork, he has mercy on a legion of demons. It seems that Jesus offers mercy at the expense of the majority. The majority’s livelihood depends upon a certain commodity, yet Jesus sacrifices both the majority’s preferences and their options for the sake of one person and a bunch of frightened spirits. Why? Because the man and even demons seek a home rather than banishment.
God is ready to be sought by those who do not ask and found by those who do not seek. Romans 10:20 quotes Isaiah as saying, “and shown myself to those who did not ask for me,” saying, “Here I am, here I am,” to people and a nation that do not call on God’s name. The world is full of a variety of fathers: Some who ask God for help. Some who never go to church. Some who will celebrate today by playing golf, grilling steaks, or being on a boat to go fishing.
God holds his hands out all day long fishing, too, for rebellious people who walk in ways that are not good, for people driven to follow their own devices, for people who provoke God and say, “Keep religion to yourself. Don’t come near me for I am free from guilt, blame or moral impurity.” The man who was possessed may well have been free from guilt and blame, but the presence of demons alone made him impure.
Our country seeks to pass gun laws which would prevent certain persons from having access to them. I wonder if such laws would forbid this man to own one. He had issues. He had demonstrated extreme instability and a tortured demeanor, super-human strength and anti-social behavior. Others had seen him break handcuffs and shackles in an attempt to restrain his movements and curb his outbursts.
Compassion must be extended to all parties. Not only the locals invested in their property and natural resources, not only those who have a product to manufacture or a business to run, but those who witness what happens when one person makes a decision that affects everyone. Those who witnessed what happened that day saw two things: a tragic event combined with one man’s miraculous healing.
When witnesses band together to report what happened, first within a city, then to surrounding neighborhoods, then out to the country at large, a movement begins. Not until people see what happens for themselves will they be moved to act and do something. If we’re only going to watch what happens for the sake of becoming informed but never acting, we are watching for some other reason, enjoying the fact that it happened to them and not us, that it didn’t happen closer to home, to our herds or town.
What will it take to move the emphasis from guns to overall concern for the troubled psyche? For young men demonized as mentally ill, criminal or at the very least, maladjusted? We project our fears on those who live differently, who appear anti-social, won’t join in or prefer to live as loners. We misunderstand what even demons desire: to be in relationship, belong and have a home.
In their right mind, they would be clothed and sitting still. Perhaps they’d be sitting on a half wall trying to muster up a coordinated effort to speak to the couple about to walk by. Those who only witness and aren’t directly involved are afraid because they don’t know the whole story. They only know how what happened affects them. Great fear seized them not unlike demons seized the man.
Jesus got in the boat and left even though the man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him. Had the man left the area, the story would have taken on a life of its own, possessing the minds and hearts of those with an agenda to push. From his own mouth, the man declared throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. He alone could give a credible firsthand account of what happened.
When we have learned to disregard the effects of violence, people like the man possessed by a legion of demons goes unnoticed.
We are becoming desensitized to trauma. When the credible firsthand accounts of those who were there when people got killed no longer move us, when a news station can dismiss video footage by saying, “We didn’t see anything new.” When we have learned to disregard the effects of violence, people like the man possessed by a legion of demons goes unnoticed.
He becomes like many a young man or fellow next door who goes unnoticed until he acts out, runs around naked, threatens to take his own or someone else’s life. Isn’t the loss of his dignity, his opportunity and place in this world enough for us to take notice? Jesus responds at first sight, takes notice and uses all his power to command immediate change. He advocates for the man and his demons, understanding that each needs relationship, to belong and a home.
Decades ago, society thought better of institutionalizing people and confining them against their will. But decades later, we still banish them. We banish them behind bars which is no better than banishing them to an abyss. How do we respond as Jesus did? This year for Father’s Day, I suggest we begin by honoring the dad’s we have or had.
Not the ones we wished we had or could have had. Imagine the family of the man possessed. They’d probably lost track of his whereabouts and given up ever seeing him healthy. I hope part of his story involved returning home and being welcomed with open arms, not mistrusted for his earlier behavior, not still banished as a precaution. Perhaps he could ease his way back into their lives over time by proving he was no longer under the spell of whatever might have explained his failures and outbursts. Let us pray.
Dear Lord, life is crazy complicated because people are complex and societies are flawed. Help us to make the world a better place for all and not just seek to protect our interests by driving away that which produces fear. Give us a compassionate wise heart to discern how to address the many personalities that make up humanity. Give lawmakers a desire to care for the rights of all, not only the innocent, but for lost souls, too. IYHNWP, Amen.