The Healing of the Gerasene
Demoniac
Our text from the
gospel of Luke this morning/today is often referred to as “The Healing of the
Gerasene Demoniac.” The Healing of the Gerasene Demoniac. Here we are, right
away, with at least two words that don’t make sense to our modern ears: What is
a Gerasene? What is a demoniac? Allow me to offer this astute theological explanation:
Don’t worry about it. Don’t trouble yourselves with those words. They don’t
really matter.
Almost every time I
have heard a sermon preached on this text the preacher spent a good few minutes
describing the first century Jewish worldview and how it understood demons, how
it understood pigs, and the precise location of Garesanes, the town where
today’s story is set. But as you all know, my sermons tend to be short, and I
don’t want to waste your time, so just know this: For the purposes of
understanding this gospel, Garesanes is “the other side of the tracks,”
and a demoniac is a person living in the absolute depth of human suffering. We
don’t need to develop a theology of demons to know what this man was going
through.
When we meet Jesus
today, he has just stepped out of a boat with his disciples, having travelled
to a town quite different from Galilee, a town populated by Gentiles whose main
subsistence is swineherding, cultivating those animals that Jewish tradition
deemed as distinctly unclean. As soon as they moored their boat and sloshed out
of the sea onto solid land, they are encountered by the town outcast, a man so
troubled—so consumed by that which is not God—that he lives in the wilderness,
naked, and scorned.
We know this man.
Or, maybe we have been him. If our troubling lack of identity, our inability to
find control in our lives, did not lead us into an actual wilderness, it may
have led us very close. And how many of us have watched, confused, helpless, as
a friend or loved one struggles to gain footing after despair has swept them
out to sea? We know the Gerasene demoniac, and Jesus knows him too.
The man approaches
Jesus and his disciples and the demons inside of him beg not to be tormented.
They beg to remain, untouched, living as hosts inside his body. But Jesus, in
his quick-thinking compassion, casts them out and allows them entrance into a
herd of pigs. The pigs, frantic, rush in a single movement toward the edge of a
cliff and finally, into the sea, where they and the demons perish.
Imagine the chaos
in Garesenes at that moment. A group of unknown strangers landing on the
seashore. The town’s primary outcast approaching the group and falls to his
knees. Voices begging, pigs squealing, finally a whole herd of livestock
sacrificed for the health of one man. Only Jesus remains calm. Only Jesus is
unflinching. The text tells us that the swineherds, having witnessed the event,
high tail it into the town center where they share the news of what they have
seen. People begin to gather around Jesus, his disciples, and the former
demoniac—probably hesitating to get too close—and fear overtakes them. They ask
him to leave. They run him out of town.
Like many of the
gospel stories, this one provides us with a couple options of entry. There is
the demoniac himself, whose life appears to lack meaning, whose whole identity
has been stolen from him, replaced by something that he cannot understand, that
he cannot overcome. As I said earlier, whatever you believe about demons, all
you need to accept is that this man is suffering. Perhaps he is suffering like
we have suffered? Or like someone we know well?
And then there are
the townspeople. Normal agrarian folks, Gentiles, working with livestock, who
may as well be a world removed from Jesus, his Jewish context, his identity as
Messiah. In an immediate society where Jewish Temple culture defined the
important structures of the day, this group of people were certainly on the
fringes, outcasts themselves. And the one person that they could claim
authority over, that they could say with certainty that they were better than,
lived alone in the wilderness, naked and possessed by demons.
And along came
Jesus.
When hearing this
story, one might wonder why the townspeople were so eager for Jesus to move on.
Wouldn’t they be amazed by his healing powers, we wonder? Wouldn’t they want to
be healed too? Surely someone’s child was sick at home, someone’s brother was
dying or mother was unable to make ends meet? Wouldn’t they want Jesus to stay
awhile and spread his miracles around? After all, if he was able to heal the
lowest member of their social structure, they must have recognized that he
could do just about anything else.
It is for all of
these reasons that I can identify with the townspeople when I enter this story.
Maybe you can, too.
As I have gotten
older [LAUGHS], I have noticed a strange phenomenon, one that I am willing to bet has
been around since the beginning of human communities. I have noticed that
oftentimes, when a person gets well, gets their life back on track, the people around
them—their families, their friends—can sometimes have an incredibly difficult
time accepting their newfound health.
Here is an example
that is particularly timely considering our economy. A family is in debt. They
are so far in debt that they are considering having to file for bankruptcy,
something that they never imagined having to do. They are ashamed. They are
afraid. For years they have been making decisions that they knew were not
financially responsible, but they had trouble stopping. They built a life for
themselves that swelled well beyond their means—buying things they could not
afford from houses to cell phones, cars to computers. Their life became
confusing. The debt was so large that it didn’t make sense anymore, so it
seemed impossible to turn around. Their marriage is strained, they have trouble
sleeping, they are overwhelmed. Somewhere along the way, they realize, they had
lost a sure sense of their identity. They hit rock bottom.
Through the counsel
of financial advisors, this family is slowly able to start getting their life
together. They learn about their debt—they stare that big number in the face
and they don’t look away from it. They set boundaries. They consolidate loans.
They sell cars. It takes time, but they start feeling in control again. They
are proud of their good decisions. They can see a very bright light at the end
of the long tunnel that had held them captive for so long. While they still
have a long journey ahead of them, they are in the process of being restored to
wholeness, to health.
Now, wouldn’t you
think that the people surrounding this family—the friends and loved ones who
have known them the longest—would rejoice in this newfound freedom? Some do,
certainly. But others are immensely uncomfortable. Their own feelings become
confused. Deep down, their own shameful realization: They resent this family’s
new health. Not because they wanted them to continue to suffer—not at all—but
because the boundaries of their community just changed.
Psychologists might
call this family the “identified patient” in their social circle. Things aren’t
going well for them, so everyone else gets to focus their attention in that
direction, effectively allowing them to not look too closely at their own
problems, issues, demons. When the
identified patient gets well, the structure around them has to scramble and
re-orient itself. Suddenly and uncomfortably, friends and family have to look
within themselves at their own need for healing. This can be an awkward and
painful process.
We can see this
pattern play out in a variety of healing narratives. The alcoholic who gets
sober, the abuse survivor who can finally tell her story. While we rejoice in
wellness, we chafe against the discomfort of a new person, filling a new role.
The man in
Garesenes begs that he might stay with Jesus. He is well now, and this is
his escape route. He can leave town and start a whole new life for himself. No
one will remember him as the demoniac hiding in the woods, no one will know
where he came from. But Jesus has something else in mind: “Return to your
home,” he says, “and declare how much God has done for you.” In other
words—tell your story. Go and tell your story, even to those people who knew
you before, the people who mocked you, who feared you, who pitied you. Tell
them the good news of what happened here on the shore, and in time, others will
be brought to wellness, to healing, too.
The good news—the
gospel—in this story is found in two parts: First, the incredible, complete,
full way in which Jesus can heal us and bring us to wholeness when we submit
our lives to him, and second, the way that our own health can transform our
communities, and first awkwardly but ultimately gracefully.
Return to your
home, and declare how much God has done for you, Jesus says. So he went away,
proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Comments