A question for the day - Is today's Gospel relevant to last Sunday's Orlando mass shooting? I know there were sermons today preached in many churches around this idea. Certainly the temptation to draw that conclusion was strong since this week's reading is Luke 8:26-39. Simply say the ancients attributed mental illness or aberrations to demons rather than how we would now label them and presto! you have a sermon tied to today's headlines.
This relevance, however for me, diminishes the power and the richness of the details in this scriptural story. To think of the writer of Luke as a reporter of an event in the life of the historical Jesus and then relating it to a current event creates a distance between us and the story. For me it makes this scripture as disposable as yesterday's newspaper.
When I first read this passage with this understanding it did not promote the pity, compassion or tears that impressed me for the last two Sundays. Rather than comfort, simply saying demons can inhabit people and make them do evil things, does not illuminate a deeper truth but instills great fear and tempts us away from what Jesus taught. We find terror that becomes palpable.
As another alternative in his sermon Pastor Tom pointed out how we were, at least partially, like this man in the city being driven by demons. God's word definitely connected for me at that moment. I connected with many details, details that appear in other verses in the Bible as well. For example the story starts with Jesus physically moves from being on water to land.
Moving from boat to land brings to mind Peter's attempt to walk on the water. This is reinforced by another detail. Both Peter and the man in the city are described as being naked.
Life on land could represent the life of physical sensations. This man, like Peter and like all of us, is trying to live in the world of spiritual truth that Jesus presents to him. Being naked suggests he does not have the faith in the spiritual truth that can protect him. He also lives in the tombs. In other words he lives a life rooted in death.
Now his "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" is more meaningful and particularly poignant. This is the question at the heart of living as a Christian in a life bound to sin with chains and shackles. Like us, the demons that torment the man in the city are all things, other than God, that hold our hearts because we do not follow the first commandment,
This passage confirms the authority of Jesus over the demons. The demons recognize that authority. Notice, even when demons ask something of Jesus, Jesus grants the demons' request. Afterwards they stampede as a herd of pigs beyond the land that sustain them. The demon-possessed pigs end up in the lake that represents another spiritual state. This is where they perish.
This might serve to end this story but there is more.
The crowd who were present and who came after hearing the story from the swineherds find the man from whom the demons had gone clothed (with faith) and in his right mind. And, rather than seeking faith and deliverance as individuals, they ask Jesus to leave them. Jesus again does what is asked of him and leaves. And doesn't this seem to be our common response as we live our lives "on land". We don't want to live up to a life of faith. It might lead to a life of being a nomad, like Jesus.
The man from the city begs that he might remain with Jesus and live as a nomad. Jesus offers him a very different type of great commission than what Jesus gave to the disciples. Instead of complying, Jesus sends him away saying "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."
Here is another opportunity for connecting with God's word as the body of Christ. Thanks be to God!
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