Proper 7
19 June 2016
Luke 8:26-39
Miracle by the Tombs
A Defeated man
A sick and suffering
slave. Next, a dead man. Followed by a prostitute. Now, today, a lunatic. Controlled by demon
possession. Luke piles one story on top of another showing how Jesus is willing
to include those who are seen as contaminated and corrupted. They are the
unclean.
A nameless man has been exiled to the margins of human
existence. He's filthy. Naked in public. He can't control his speech. He's so
violent that people can't come near him. All attempts to restrain him have
failed. He exhibits the most common form of self-harm even today —
self-mutilation. He suffers from demon possession.
This mad young man,
in an unclean town, a town on the far side of the Sea of Galilee, in which
Jewish people made their living by herding pigs. Jewish law tells us the pig is an unclean
animal. But the town has found it profitable. To raise them and sell them
to their pagan neighbors who were pork eaters.
The maniac is
untouchable. The people of the town had decided that he was good for
nothing. His uncontrollable rages have brought them to drastic
measures. They have put him in chains and chained him among the dead. In
the town cemetery. Where his roaring would bother the living less. Even
so, he manages to escape now and then and takes off into the woods. Why
does he return? Because they go after him. Because there is nowhere
else to go. Because hunger brings him back to the food, they will supply
him.
"My name is Legion!" this homeless
man screamed. "For we are many."
Tortured in body, mind, and spirit, he embodied the scope of human suffering. For
a Roman "legion" consisted of 5,000 soldiers.
And so, his
community did what we still do today. They banished the man. To the safe and
solitary margins of society.
A delivered man
When Jesus arrives
by boat from across the Sea, there is no crowd waiting to greet Him.
But Jesus and the disciples can hear the fellow in the cemetery. They go
to him. By the end of Jesus’ time with him, the young man has been
restored to sanity. He is calm. And he rejoices in his acceptance by them all.
But something else
has happened. The demons and the madness have gone out of the young
man. And, at Jesus’ direction, they enter into a large herd of swine. The
swine, in horror at their own corruption by unclean spirits, run to the edge of
the cliff.
They jump into the
Sea and are drowned. Now the people come running. They crowd around. Horrified
at the loss of their valuable swine. And they are terrified of Jesus – so
terrified they ask Him to leave.
A directed man
They ask Jesus to
leave. He abides by their request. But the man who was freed from his long and
lonely days of isolation and terror went about telling anyone who would listen
how much God had done for him. And we need to be clear on this. It is, “How
much God has done…” not how much you have done. We bear the message
of freedom from evil dark powers. But it is Christ who secures this freedom.
Jesus seeks not only
to cure the "disease" -- the demon-possession; but also to heal the
illness -- to restore this man to the community from which he has been
estranged. He is to go home.
The man who sat at
Jesus' feet and who learned from Him wants to go with them. And what are his
options? He is standing on the beach with Jesus. The disciples in the boat are
in front of him. The townsfolk who banished him to the graveyard are at his
back.
He wants to go with
the One who healed him. He wants to be with Jesus. The One who wasn't afraid to come near him.
The One who didn't walk on the other side of the street. He wants to go with
his new teacher and Lord. He wants to learn more about the kingdom of God. He's
ready to follow Jesus. There's room in the boat. And he'll leave without looking back! There's really no one to say good-bye to. But
Jesus says no.
To others along the
way, Jesus had issued the invitation, "Come,
and follow Me." But to this one He says, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."
This isn't simply a
story of one man's healing. It’s a story
of one man's calling. Jesus does bid the man to follow; but in this case, the
following involves staying rather than leaving. Jesus does not reject the man's
application to be a disciple. He accepts it fully. “I even have a first appointment all lined up for you,” Jesus says
from the boat. “Your congregation…is
standing right behind you. Now, go and tell....”
Words – 845
Passive Sentences –6%
Readability –83.2
Reading Level – 3.9
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