"THE COST OF HEALING"

“THE COST OF HEALING – LUKE 8:26-39”

            I love this passage in Luke – I preached on it a couple of weeks ago for a sermon in Northern Ireland, at our friend Mark Gray’s Bannside Presbyterian Church in Bannbridge.  Jesus encounters a mentally ill person in the district of Gerasa in Gentile territory.  Jesus heals the man, but it is a difficult and costly healing.  Though it is an ancient story, it seems to me that it has a lot to tell us about finding life and our lives in these days of the triple scourges of racism, Coivid-19, and Trumpdemic.  I want to use it as the basis for these next two blogs.

             Jesus gets off the boat and hopes to get some R&R, but this man (whose name we never know) is naked and yells at Jesus to stop tormenting him.  Jesus had apparently told the demons who possessed the man to come out of him, but they do not obey him.  A couple of quick notes here – this resistance by the demonic powers is unusual in the Gospels.  The demons usually respond quickly to Jesus’ commands, but here they put up a significant fight.  Secondly, I am uneasy with the idea of “demonic possession.”  On one level, it seems like a primitive relic that is intruding into a story of mental illness.  I don’t believe that there are personal beings who hover in the air, waiting to possess us.  I would prefer the metaphor of mental illness, and while that more modern metaphor seems apt, I must be careful not to dismiss the insight of this story – this is not just a narrative about one individual’s illness. It is also about our collective captivity to powers beyond our individual sphere, powers like racism and sexism and homophobia and materialism and militarism.

            Jesus seeks to heal the man by asking him his name.  The man does not reply that he is Peter or Paul or Samuel – rather he says that his name is “Legion.”  He has lost his identity and now gives the name of the demons who possess him.  The author tells us that he proclaims “Legion,” because many powers have entered him.  We should also note that the word “Legion” is also the name of one of the most feared military units the Western world has ever known:  the Roman Legion.  Perhaps this man has PTSD from being abused by the Legion or has seen loved ones tortured or killed by the Legion.  Whatever his background is, he has given up his identity to this power.

            Then comes the weirdest part of a weird but profound story.  The demons negotiate with Jesus.  They recognize that Jesus has ultimate power over them, so they beg him to keep them out of the abyss, to send them into a nearby herd of pigs. Jesus accepts this and sends them into the pigs – they cause the pigs to jump into the lake and are drowned.  I always felt like Jesus was pretty harsh on the pigs (Mark’s version tells us that there were 2000 pigs!), but then I remembered that Jesus is a Jew.  The pigs are unclean anyway – no big loss, but quite a financial loss!  In his great sermon on this passage, Clarence Jordan wonders why there are so many pigs near Jewish territory, and his answer is that they are likely “bootleg” pigs.  Instead of trafficking in illegal liquor, the pig owners traffic in illegal pork.

            Though it is a difficult healing, Jesus does it – he frees this man from his demonic possession.  To those of us wrestling with such possession, to those of us captured by racism and sexism and homophobia and many other powers, this passage is both good news and bad news.  The good news is that there is healing available – Jesus is coming for us. The bad news is that it is difficult and costly – no instant healing here.  It is a struggle because the captivity is so deep, and the powers are intertwined with our own identities.    So, as we travel through these difficult days of the exposure of the power of racism and the existential threat of Covid-19 and the scary days of the Trumpdemic, let us take heart that healing is possible.  Jesus is coming for us and asking us to name our demons and asking us to find healing.  It is a costly process, but we can find healing and hope.  Next time we’ll look at the second half of this story.  In the meantime, where do you find yourself in this story?  Jesus who calls us into authenticity?  The man captured by the demons?  The disciples who watch all this?  The pigherders who are stunned to lose their pigs?  The townspeople who hear the news? Think about where you are and who you are and why you are.  And, of course, give thanks for yourself!