THE GERASENE IN ME

Luke 8:26-39

Imagine the scene.  Jesus steps from boat to shore off the Sea of Galilee. Stories are circulating about this itinerate Rabbi country preacher. There have been reports of miraculous healings and how he can even command the storms of nature to be still. He is preaching a message of love for God and for one another as essential for salvation and it has the religious leaders in a tizzy. Some say he can raise people from the dead. Large crowds are following him and wherever he goes people are pushing and shoving just to get a glimpse of the one who is causing such a stir. It would come as no surprise if he was greeted by a large expectant crowd bristling with anticipation. But this day is different.

Instead, Jesus and his band of followers are greeted by one man – filthy and naked – a man who literally lives in the tombs among the dead. A man who was out of his mind, a lunatic, a man possessed by demons. He is a man who has been pushed to the extreme margins both by his own people and by the inner voices that control him. And he fell at the feet of the poor one from Nazareth. Thrust on the ground, begging for relief from the demons who imprisoned him. I get the feeling that this is not the person the hospitality committee would have chosen as their official greeter.

There are a couple of interesting first-time occurrences in this story. This is the first and only time Jesus ventures beyond Galilee to the “country of the Gerasenes.”  It is Jesus’ only journey to a predominately Gentile region. Jesus is breaking with convention here and moving beyond boundaries. The message is clear. The grace of God breaks through all boundaries, and no one is beyond the grasp of the Divine.

Secondly, after the man is healed and restored to community, he is eager to follow Jesus. But instead, Jesus instructs him to remain with his community and “declare what God has done for you.” Normally, Jesus would encourage people to follow him, but this is the first time Jesus commissions another to instead stay behind with his own community to tell of the Good News of Salvation offered to all. As one who had personally experienced the life-changing healing grace of God and who was also a rehabilitated member of the Gerasene community, the man had an important story to tell, and it was one that was important to the work of God.

The story of the Gerasene demoniac may seem to be one of the more dramatic scenes in the Gospel narratives, but I don’t think we have to look too far to see the same scene played out in our everyday existence here in our own time. People plagued by all sorts of affliction of the human spirit are all around us. Opportunities to encounter the divine through human suffering are always available to us, if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Years ago, I had such an encounter in the Children’s Court building. As I was leaving the building, a man was sitting in the lobby. As I passed, he asked if he could ask me a question. This happens when wearing a clerical collar. I could tell that this person was one from the extreme margins. I could tell because I’ve been there. I know what it looks like. He explained that his female friend was schizophrenic and that at times she acted as if she might be possessed by demons. He said that recently she seemed to be having another episode and that her eyes turned dark and rolled in her head. When he asked what was going on with her, she said her name was “legion.” He asked me if I thought the episode was a real demonic possession or schizophrenia and we had quite an interesting conversation. At one point the woman companion appeared being escorted out the door by security. She too looked as though society had pushed her to the edge. Nonetheless, she stood, in a quite dignified manner, with her red house-robe over her street clothes and stated something that made no sense to anyone, and then calmly allowed her escorts to chaperone her outdoors. She seemed pleasant enough to me.

Now I don’t know if the woman’s primary affliction was schizophrenia, demonic possession or both. Those types of diagnoses are better left to other more qualified than I. What I do know is that when I was leaving the facility she was standing outside. When I got closer to her, she looked up at me, and…smiled. Then she said, “good morning.” It was warm and friendly and felt genuine. In that moment we didn’t seem so different from one another – her in her red robe and me in my black clericals – and I realized that any voice within me that said we were different from each other was, well, my own demons. I walked away feeling blessed by her. After I had retrieved my car from the garage and was driving out, I passed by the two of them standing together. There was a sort of poetic beauty about this odd couple. I waved at them. They waved back. Another blessing. I know it was a blessing because I felt better than I had before we had met. It felt like our own little private Gerasene community of three.

In our work with the incarcerated friends, we are immersed with those who have been pushed to the edge, both by society as well as by the torments of their inner demons that wrestle for control of their lives. Demons that try to tell them that they are unworthy, that they are forgotten, that they are unimportant, that they are defined by the worst thing they have done, and the biggest lie of all – that they are not loved. But these are all lies that takes us away from the truth that we are all beloved by God. We are there to remind them of the message of today’s Gospel story that says no matter who you are, where you have been, or what you have done, or had done to you, no one is beyond the grasp of God’s love and grace. We are there to remind them, and remind ourselves, that like the Gerasene demonic, we all have a divine purpose and that we are all important to God’s work here on earth.

In my life I have fought my own demons. It began with growing up in an alcoholic, drug addicted, abusive household with parents who were largely checked out. By the time I was 13 years old, I felt confused, lost, ashamed and angry. My own journey into drug and alcohol addiction was more than twenty-five years long before I was able to throw myself at the feet of Jesus and find relief from what we refer to in Alcoholics Anonymous as the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Today I am a very different man – living proof that no one is beyond God’s grace. I know that the Gerasene demonic and I are not so different.

Maybe it’s the same for you or maybe it’s different. The point is that we all struggle. We all have stuff within us that can potentially move us away from God’s desire for us. And many have worked hard to recover our lives from the grip of such controlling influences. And when we do, we can be of great value, even life-changing value, to others who feel lost and in the clutch of their own demons. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that is the foundational text for recovery says it this way: “No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.”  The great fourteenth-century Christian mystic Dame Julian of Norwich said that there is no purposeless suffering.

That is why the ending to the story of the demonic Gerasene is so powerful, so beautiful. When Jesus broke the chains that had bound his spirit, the Gerasene man then wanted to give his life to following Jesus.  And he did, but not in the way he thought he would. Jesus asked him instead to stay with his community, the community that had once banished him to the margins, giving-up on him, and leaving him to die – in fact maybe even hoping for his death – in the tombs of the dead. What more powerful testimony to the transforming power of God’s love and grace than to have this man now living God’s love among them in community.

The healed demonic Gerasene had an important story to tell his community. What is your story? What do you struggle with? What demons have you wrestled with? How can your story help others? Your story is important. Someone, somewhere, right this very moment needs to hear your story. Their very life may depend on your telling it.

Every time we come together for holy communion it is important for us to remember that we don’t come because we are worthy. We come because we are broken. We come to stand before Jesus in humility, offering our brokenness and reaching out for God’s grace. We come as one body of Christ, one community of God’s people. And having experienced the restorative healing power of God that is revealed as Jesus in the breaking of the bread, we can then go forth, like the Gerasene demonic, healed and renewed, and go into the world community and tell of the good that God has done for us. And that is truly good news for a world in desperate for some good news.

Brother Dennis