June 20, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson)


Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke 8:26-39

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”-- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 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.     

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

In the Bible, geography is usually always more than places on a map. When Luke says the boat with Jesus sails to the “other side,” “the opposite side” of the great lake, it’s theology, not geography. Jesus is heading into the forbidden zone, that is, if he is to be a proper and good believer. Of course, as we see his story unfold week in and week out, Jesus rarely worries about the categories of “proper” and “good.” He is heading for Gentile land. And that’s a no-no. Why would God’s Son travel to the twilight zone of Gentile land? What’s more, by way of the ancient Christian text, the early Church takes us on board to sail with him.

Now while we are sailing with him to the opposite side, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves when we land and step out of the boat, there is a very important transition question. Don’t read the Bible and ask the question, “Did this happen?” Read the Bible and ask, “Where and how is this happening in my life today?” In other words, the Bible is not primarily about facts and history; it is a set of prescription lenses through which you see God’s hidden and controversial presence in life offering you an alternative vision to the one the world offers. So, the more important question for your soul is not did this story happen, but where in my life is this story happening.

Jesus steps out of the boat on to Gentile shores and immediately meets the man named Legion. Tormented people tell so much about us. Lacking the ability to hide their fear, they more honestly reveal themselves than we do. They are mirrors into the human heart we all share. Their chaos is the howling core of all humanity. Their fear screams publicly, whereas ours, more dangerously, voices itself in private.

But the tormented are no more Legion inside than we. Their crowd is simply seen and heard by any and all that encounter them. The mob that lives within us, on the other hand, can be controlled for a while and remain invisible and silent until in time its crashes through all our barriers hiding its existence. This is the great fear we who think we are not named Legion share with one another: the fear of the break down and the break out of inner chaos.

You have heard me say it before, but it cannot be announced enough. The most frequently mentioned command in the whole Bible and, therefore, the central announcement of this Lord’s Day assembly is “Be not afraid.” It is the announcement that begins and ends all the great episodes of God’s gift of freedom throughout the Jewish and Christian story. For us Christians, the announcement “Be not afraid” brackets both the Easter and the Christmas stories. God’s big time actions are always accompanied by the message: “Be not afraid.” It is the consistent message of the angels: “Be not afraid.”

“Be not afraid” does not mean we are forbidden from fear. In this life, even God cannot eliminate fearful feelings from us. Fear goes with our being “East of Eden” creatures. Do you remember the Genesis story about how God sent us out of the wondrous garden and stationed a shining angel with drawn sword to keep us humans from returning home? Humanity consigned to live East of Eden seems to be the plot line of our human story--out of the garden and into the chaos.

That primeval story is the original model of the story we read this morning in Luke. It is a story about us living in the human cemetery called earth where, because of sin, we are possessed as human beings of a warring madness and chaos which bind us in a self-defeating hostility toward each other and ourselves. It is a story about how we banish each other from places free of fear to live among the dead hopes and dreams of our broken human family, endlessly repeating lives of chaos from one generation to the next.

To me not only is the tormented man the symbol of us individually thrown into the chaos of existence, but he also symbolizes all humanity tormented by the madness we inflict upon one another that we read and hear about daily. The tormented man is fear shaped, fear trapped. The text calls him oppressed by demons. Even on this side of the Enlightenment, we know about our inner demons--not the literal kind but the more real kind, the shadowy torments that live and lurk within. Their steady howling is hidden from most but not from ourselves. These are the secret torments we mention to no one.

The man lives where all the tormented live: among the dead. This is what torment feels like: the experience of hopelessness. To be tormented as a child or adult is to be homeless and hopeless because you are so different. It is to feel as if you don’t belong to anyone or any place or any time. For a human in the image of God to feel as if you don’t belong is to be chained and housed with the dead.

If Jesus is the Son of God, and I believe he is, (and I don’t worry about the percentages of whether he was he 98 percent God and 2 percent human or 48 percent human and 52 percent divine, and in addition, I don’t believe his being male disqualifies him from being the experience of God in the feminine as well), Jesus is God coming fully and completely into our human torment and fear---100 percent of God taking into Godself through Jesus 100 percent of our fearful chaos. In other words, Jesus is taking up residence in the cemetery called earth in order, at the end of it all, to lead us back home to God. These stories tell us that God’s desire for us all and each is not torment but to bring us home free of all oppressing fears, to be fear shaped no longer.

Stepping out of the boat and on to dry land, Jesus, as the Son of God, immediately sees his relative—the tormented brother who is called Legion (so named because his inner chaos cannot be counted; after all there were over 5000 men in a Roman Legion of soldiers, and that’s quite an extravagant number of hang-ups and problems, don’t you agree?) One child of torment meets his brother named Jesus who has come to him on a mission to find him. This Brother Jesus chooses to enter into our torment fully so that we might become free through his undergoing and overcoming ours.

That’s the basic storyline for me in the Jesus story: what we have separated and torn apart God in Jesus improvisationally joins back together. This is the reason St. Paul, reflecting on the Jesus story in Romans, writes: “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus...”

The tormented one screams and cowers in fear, expecting more condemnation, more attempts to shackle and bind him, more interventions to chain him. My hunch is the tormented one wishes they would succeed in quieting him, but they never have in the past, so why would his encounter with Jesus hold anything but further pain for him? The raging and tormented one frightens others as he frightens me. I, too, would avoid him and move to the other side of the street the moment I heard or saw him. As a matter of fact, when he does appear in my life, I do all I can to avoid him. But, he fears our fear of him worse than we fear him. The Son of the Most High, Jesus greets him.

The story quickly shows the fear being removed from the man and his reputation and being transferred to Jesus. The text ends with Jesus being the one now feared, and Jesus ends up inheriting the loneliness of the tormented one. Jesus becomes the one who is told to leave. He sets the man free with Jesus-power, which I believe in, by the way, with no embarrassment
and yet no shortage of questions either. He sets the man free, and because it hits them in the pocket book, the bill fold, and their investment portfolio, the people are frightened by Jesus-power.

When the pigs jump over the cliff and into the water and drown, the local economy is burnt to a crisp. A lot of Gentile pig men are financially ruined. Jesus-power with its alternative vision can be threatening to business. “Let’s get Jesus-power out of town and quickly before it spreads” becomes the motto of the Gerasenes’ Chamber of Commerce.

Wherever Jesus is needed to go, he will go. Whatever Jesus needs to do, he will do. Jesus will take the fear that torments us and make it his own so that we might be given back our calmness, our dignity, and our good thinking. Look, here we are, telling one another through scripture stories, sermons, and sacraments what God has done for us.

Following a calm, thoughtful and orderly liturgy in the quiet dignity of being God’s children, even the demeanor of the Lord’s Day Assembly tells us that chaos is not our true home and being the children of torment is not our true identity. Even living East of Eden, we are the children who glimpse the joy of heaven on earth in the greeting and power of Jesus.

 

 


First Presbyterian Church • 1100 Austin Avenue • Waco, TX 76701 • (254)752-1665

Questions, comments, or broken links? Please email the webmaster at bgilliam@firstpreswaco.org.

Unless otherwise stated, all material contained in this web site is Copyright © 1999-2005 First Presbyterian Church of Waco, Texas. Right is hereby granted for any congregation or governing body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to copy and use this material only as long as proper credit is given as to its source. The scripture quotations contained within are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All quotations from the Book of Confessions are reprinted by permission and are Copyright ©1996 by the Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (USA).