Sent back home

‘… return to your home.…’ (Luke 8:39)

Luke 8:26-39 (Year C: Trinity+4)

Reading the scriptures in the 21^st century

Reading the gospels in the 21^st century has many challenges. One of these challenges is to understand as best as one can the cultural context in which these sacred writings were composed and honed from word of mouth to the written parchment to assembly into a set of writings. These writings gained authority and credibility in the emerging community of followers of Jesus in the decades that followed his life on earth. 

This Sunday’s gospel raises some puzzling issues. The writer or story-tellers behind Luke lived, thought and assumed – as we do today – in a particular cultural and scientific context. It was believed then, and was believed until recent centuries, that people with various characteristics of behaviour, thought and speech were ‘possessed’. In the Irish (Gaelic) language there was a saying until comparatively recent times ‘Tá na seacht ndeabhail ar an té sin’ (literally meaning that the seven devils were upon that person). 

Thanks to the insights of psychiatry and other disciplines as well as a rediscovery of the ageless virtue of compassion we understand various ailments, conditions and patterns of behaviour in a different light today. That is not to deny the very reality of serious ill-health or, indeed, serious evil allied to ill-health or not as the case may be (one certainly does not need to be unwell to be very evil). Our daily world newsfeed is a reminder of this.

The idea that the man from the country of the Gerasenes ‘had demons’ would have been quite common in the context of the 1^st century middle eastern world.  The ‘Gerasene demoniac’ in this story was by all accounts a troublesome sort – he refused to wear clothes and would not live in a house but hung out in caves probably shouting and terrifying anyone who came near him and he was given to intentional self-harm. Little wonder that he was subject to involuntary restraints by others.  Luke tells us that he was frequently bound in chains only to be broken loose as he wandered about in the wilds. He didn’t even have a name in the gospel story. When confronted, he described himself as ‘legion’ implying meaning persons or personalities in conflict with each other.

……We get the picture.

Enters Jesus in the story….

‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?

Steady on….

What did the demoniac just say?

He uttered a profound statement and confession of faith in Jesus as ‘Son of the Most High God’. He may not have been to theology school and may have had serious health issues and for all we know he might have been ‘possessed’ by evil forces (which again is not to be confused with mental ill-health which may or may not be the symptom of such forces), but he recognised at once Someone who went beyond the normal or prosaic. Confronted with such a force for good the ‘Gerasene Demoniac’ was aware of a confrontation of values. He had no desire to be troubled by the goodness and healing of Jesus?  I suspect that the answer is complicated. Wallowing in his captivity to forces outside his control Ger (lets give him a name and not just a label that was assigned to him by the village community that would have nothing to do with him) was open – just a little bit open perhaps to something that was new, positive, life-giving and healing. Nobody was pushing their way into the secret world of Ger.  But, Ger spotted Someone passing by on his way. We do not know if had ever heard of Jesus (after all who spoke to Ger anyway for years?). The point is that deep called unto deep. The compassion, gentle power and insight of Jesus brushed up against some spark that had been planted in the being of Ger. In other words Ger – by the grace of God – was more than just his demoniac behaviour or his disturbed state of being. Ger was, too, a child of God like everyone else impossible as it was for everyone in the country of the Gerasenes to see this.

(The transfer of evils spirits from Ger to a herd of pigs raises questions. Was the owner of the swineherd ruined financially? And what about the swineherd workers – were they out of work for a time? If pigs could fly).

The story of the healing of Ger has a curious ending (verses 38-39):

The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Wanting to follow Jesus on our terms?

Such was the impact of this extraordinary inner and outer healing of Ger that he ‘begged’ Jesus to let go with him as of his disciples. But, Jesus ‘sent him away’ to his home with a clear mission, viz., to ‘declare who much God has done’ for him. There are times when, perhaps, we are so overcome with an experience of grace and favour that we want to follow Jesus in a particular way. In Mark’s version of this story we are told that Ger ‘went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him’ (Mark 5:20)

Not a few will tell a personal story of wanting to follow Jesus in the way of a special commitment and path only to discover that their call was to follow Jesus where they were among their own families, neighbours, work colleagues and friends.  This can be a difficult path because those who know us closely know our strengths and our weaknesses.  We may feel that we would be better appreciated somewhere else or that we might achieve more somewhere else. Alas, staying where we are, contending with the problems of the place in which we have been planted and conquering our own selfishness and lack of kindness is the call directed to us. We should note that Ger was among the first Gentile evangelists. In other words, someone from outside the boundaries of the chosen tribe of God was enlisted to witness to the power and healing of a loving God.

Can others say of us the following?

Your insight, care, or sensitivity, or compassion, or generosity, or humility, which may be so evident to other people, has come out of your broken past. If they only knew what you know. God knows. Jesus has promised to seek and save the lost, which may apply to some part of your own past, where you were lost and are now found. (Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist – Wrestling with God)