Luke 8.26-39
Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.
As 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.
When he saw Jesus, the man fell down before Jesus 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”
— for 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.)
Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?”
He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him.
The demons begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding;
and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these swine.
So Jesus gave them permission.
Then 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.
When the swineherds saw what had happened,
they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.
Then 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.
Those who had seen it told them
how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.
Then 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.
The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with Jesus;
but Jesus sent him away, saying,
“Return 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.
***
I can’t decide if I would have liked to have grown up here. There is something really alluring when you nostalgically talk about how long you’ve known people, remembering the day you met in sixth grade, or someone’s energy in your square dance club decades ago, or old Baker families whose names are on signs, and creeks, and mountains, or the history of the church with its linage and fading connections infrequently reinforced on Christmas and Easter. You reflect on the small ways things have changed - like the downtown, or the Interpretive Center, or the Leo Alder Parkway, but mostly stayed the same, the Kerns Family’s property, the first Saturday in March Harrell Bull Sale, or Anthony Lakes’ - Same As It Ever Was, and those backroads that I am still piecing together but you know like the back of your hardworking hands. There are times, I wish I was a part of this history, because to be so would mean I’d feel truly included and could call it home forever. This place and its people, like that of the Gerasenes. I don't imagine it much different.
Here we know Warren by his first name and outlandish dress but he’s kept by the town, at least at an arm’s distance, and I suppose the man with demons was like this, but an extreme case, kept by the town, “under guard and bound with chains and shackles, until he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.” The possessed man was like the mentally ill, or the addict, where in a small town you know their name and their pattern and never expect any different. Its where the newspaper reports the latest misdemeanor, and people take note and never seem to toss that note to the wind. It is the part I am thankful for not having grown up here. I have watched people be defined by what they were like in high-school or by one grave thing they did once to someone, or to you. At my high-school I was pretty quiet, the daughter of the librarian surrounded by wealthy rich kids, who were arrogant and privileged to my self-consciousness and strictly middle-class upbringing. With my other friends, I was loud and silly, the Katy you know, but they went to the public school and were wrapped up in their football and dance-team in a way I wasn’t included into. I am thankful that neither the girl who didn’t talk to anyone and felt stupid at private school, nor the girl who didn’t fit in with the Texas football hoopla, doesn’t precede me here. Sometimes too, I think about what if I married my high-school sweetheart like people here, oh Gosh, I would be married to Matt Padron, who was a the cliche of a Texas football player, lack of intellect included. Thank God, I am not that Katy still and that you didn’t grow up with me to remember how we dated in high-school and who that means I must be now.
The man with demons’ reputation precedes him in this Gerasene town. He is the crazy one, physically, with his shouting voice, mentally incoherent, and frequently goes off into the wilds. People are scared when they find him quiet and sitting at Jesus’ feet. Something equally unnerving must have taken place. What power does Jesus have to change this man from who(m) he was? What power does Jesus have to change people from who we have always known them to be to who perhaps they might be today? The people are scared. What if everyone you knew from high-school, from those old church histories, from the stories of old ranching or Oregon Trail families, changed into something different? What if all the names of the places you knew and their signs became names that instead described God’s creation in this valley, rather than the humans who tamed it? How lost would you be? What if you looked toward the mountains and saw not whose was whose but you couldn’t tell because it had been all shuffled? This is what has happened to the man and the people are scared. You wouldn’t feel more comfortable if everything changed even if it became more peaceful and neither do the Garesenes so they ask Jesus to leave.
And this is the part I really feel for (besides the pigs off the cliff but that is a different sermon). Here is the man, completely changed, the epitome the definition of all that is different and healed and he begs to go along with Jesus. Jesus has made his life clear, he can think straight, he is in control of his body, he can interact with people. I don’t he knows what to do besides follow the one who created all that change. I imagine he is scared too but also supremely thankful. Maybe he wants to follow in gratitude, he truly owes his life to Jesus. If someone changed your life this drastically would you not want to follow them around rather than remain in the place where you had always been, with the people who will always remember you as you were before?
But Jesus doesn’t just heal one person, Jesus’ healing is always a healing to community, so he says to the man formerly possessed by demons, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So the man who owe to his life to Jesus commits it so. So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
This healing was not only for himself but for the community. It was healing that asks each person who sees the man, hears the man, encounters the man, to give up what they knew before. They have to give up that one story of that one time on the softball field, that story of that one time in a meeting, that one time when they made a comment at the gym, that one time at church, that bunch of times in high-school, or heaven forbid middle-school, those times that person’s name was in the paper for going off the rails, or that story they heard of the person running off to the wilds. That person has sat calmly at Jesus feet and is now sitting next to you, standing before you, and perhaps, is you. They are different then they ever were before, its scary to trust them again, to open your heart to what they have to share, but these are the people proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus has done for them. Listen and be healed. These are the places within yourself that have changed into something different, go out into this town proclaiming how much Jesus has done for you. Me, I don’t live in Texas anymore, thank God, but maybe you’ll let me call this home, because I too belong in this place, proclaiming all God has done for me.
