Driving Out Demons
Fifth Week in the Time of Jesus in Galilee
Sometimes, anger sweeps down on us and makes us do things we never thought we would do. Sometimes, we are filled with unexplained anxiety and they say we are having panic attacks. Sometimes, we are invaded by an internal demand for revenge. And sometimes, we are overcome by an unexplained fear that makes us want to crawl into a corner and hide. And often, we are driven to turn away from our own reason by addictions that make us do things in spite of our thoughts and our will. We are given explanations for all these things, but the explanations do not make them go away.
In the scriptures, these things are called demons. If they become severe, they can totally demobilize a person, making them destructive to others or self-destructive to themselves. In the story we read in scripture today Jesus gives us – gives his disciples – a way to understand these demons and a way to drive them out.
The Gerosene demoniac is feared by all in his town. He is both violently self-destructive and violently destructive towards others. Jesus sees the demon in him and calls it out. “Tell me your name,” Jesus demands. “My name is Legion,” the demon replies.”
Now “legion” was the name of a Roman military formation that today we might call a company or a division. The people in this village were occupied by the Roman Empire and lived in fear of its army. More than just the fear of these armed men, the people lived with the arrogant superiority the Romans wore like crowns, so that every confrontation with them was also a humiliation.
The demons in the man feared Jesus and begged for their lives. Jesus took them out of the man and put them into pigs, the animals most looked on with disdain by the people. The pigs then ran into the water and were drowned – the way long ago Pharaoh’s army were drowned when they tried to follow the Israelites after God parted the waters for their escape.
The man, once tortured by demons, was now again in his right mind. The man had been liberated! He was no longer feared and hated. He no longer hated himself. He sat at Jesus’ feet and begged to go with him.
Jesus told him instead to go back among his people and tell him how he had been saved. It would take more than one miracle to prepare the people for what was to come. In fact, when the people of the town returned and saw what had happened, they begged Jesus to leave them – for they feared what the Romans would do when they found out what had been done.
What can we expect of our faith? Jesus is preparing his disciples to form communities of faith in the diaspora they will soon become. Will those communities offer relief for the pain of exclusion, for anxiety and depression – for the pain of divisions among the people, the pain that comes from what we do to each other? Will these communities, growing in great numbers in their celebrations of the faith, be able to call on the Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat to calm the storms of life? Every week, thousands gather in different churches in this country to celebrate the peace, the calming of the storm, that believers in Jesus Christ feel. “Repent of your sins, accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, and the storms in your life will just disappear.
Well in the Gospel of Mark, in the 27th verse of the third chapter, Jesus explains that “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless they first bind the strong man; than indeed they may plunder his house.” He is telling us that our communities of faith must be also communities of resistance.
There are many among us who suffer these demons – some big, some small. It is just true that they need our love. The love Jesus showed the demoniac separated him from the demon. We need to show each other the same love. We need to work to build communities in which every person is respected and loved as a child of God. Too often the demon that occupies a person drives us away from him or her. We need to learn to see the demon and name it – but also to see the person and love that person. A community that loves and heals is at the same time a community that resists the strongman.
Today, we have a “strongman” in the White House. He has just proven that he can defy even the laws of this country and continue in power. He is the commander in chief of the military, able to order troops into battle and to deploy the most powerful and dangerous weapons of war ever created according to his whim. He leads a government that reaches into our lives with devastating repression – and the constant threat of it. Millions live with the threat of arrest and deportation hanging over them and hanging over their family. Millions remain in the grasp of the criminal justice system – of prison and parole and probation and the stigma of a criminal record. Hundreds of millions live under debts which could crush their lives and hopes at any time.
We call this a democracy – and yet we have the lowest participation in elections, even among citizens, who actually vote of any country in the world! Why? Because we live in fear of the “strongman” taking away what we hold most dear!
In truth, Jesus perceived that the people were not ready to take on “the strongman” – the Roman Empire. The demoniac was liberated and wanted to follow Jesus – but the town’s people asked him to leave before the Romans came back and found out what he had done!
In Jerusalem, Jesus will confront the hypocrisy in the temple – but it is the Romans who will crucify him – and it is from the Roman crucifixion that his resurrection will provide the seeds of the movement that will endure and outlast the Roman Empire. The disciples are being prepared by “the baptism of Jesus” to organize communities of faith that are also communities of resistance.
Jesus is still in Galilee – and we are in the Galilee of our renewal this year. In Galilee, Jesus is gathering his movement and seasoning his disciples. We are asked to gather our movement and to bring in our families and our neighbors to our communities of faith. We are called to name the demon and confront the strongman. We are called to challenge those churches who gather each Sunday to ask Jesus to wake up and fight their battles for them. “Oh, you of little faith, pick up my cross and follow me!”
Jesus calls us through the centuries to become his disciples. To build our community of faith – and resistance. Yes, there is a storm around us and terrible waves hovering above us. Yet there is one in the back of the boat that seems to be sleeping. Jesus is in that person and when he wakes, he commands the winds and the waves. That person is here today, sitting next to you. Together, we ARE Jesus! We are the Body of Christ!
Jesus Is looking for disciples and soon he will send some of you out to heal the leper and the paralytic – and to drive out demons. Make yourself ready! Build oday’s church of Jesus Christ! Give us the faith we need. Give us faith as we prepare for communion today.
The Holy Scriptures for the 5th Week in the Time of Galilee
Luke 8:22-25 Jesus Calms the Storm
One day Jesus said to his disciples, Let us go over to the other side of the lake. So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.
Luke 8: 26-31 (part 1) Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man
They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me! For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places. Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.
Luke 8: 32-39 (part 2) Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man
A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.`\