The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

June 24, 2007

Preached at Providence Lutheran Church, Holland, O.

by Pastor Dennis R. King

"Jesus Is the Key to Wholeness!"

Luke 8:26-39

The Grace and Mercy of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with You All. Amen

Demon possession. It does get one’s attention. What do you think about demon possession? We do have in this gospel, no matter what one thinks about demon possession per-say, a powerful text about powers at work that take away the wholeness God intends for all of creation.

One of the world’s famous rivers, The Ganges (gan-jez), flows through India. (The Arizona Republic, 2-11-07, Tim Sullivan, A.P.) “For those who are of the Hindu religion, the Ganges is a living goddess, capable of washing away sin.” The problem is that the river is incredibly polluted. “It’s more than just dirty. Scientists say sewage has devastated the 1,550-mile river, which spills from a Himalayan glacier and cuts through India’s plains before flowing into the Bay of Bengal. Scientists have found places where the bacteria count is nearly 4,000 times the World Health Organization Standard for bathing. By some estimates, one person dies every minute of waterborne diseases in that river basin.”

The Ganges (gan-jez) has the potential to be all God created it to be, but it is so polluted, in a symbolic sense, so filled with demons, that it is now not an aid to people, but a threat to their well-being.

In today’s lesson we are introduced to a man identified only as “one who had demons.” In this man we get a picture of what total depravity looks like… There is no humanness left in this poor man. Here is how the gospel writer describes him…He wore no clothes. He is naked. He lived in tombs - Symbolic of no life. He hurled insults at others. He is totally without community or loved ones. Chains often bound him because he could be so destructive. He was so wild and strong and out of control that he at times broke free of his chains and escaped into the desert.

We are all aware of how severe mental illness can be…and maybe it has touched people you know and love. It can be a dreadful thing. In Jesus’ time there seemed to be little understanding of the complexities of the human mind. We have reason to believe that people suffering from what we think of as mental illness were thought to be possessed by demons. We don’t really know how Jesus approached these issues or how he categorized them. What we do know is that he had compassion.

We can’t be sure as to what was in the gospel writer’s mind when he chose to record this strange series of events. However, we learn from this gospel a powerful message. The description of the man possessed by demons is a look at what life can become when people let the demons in…or when people are pre-disposed if you will, to break downs of one kind or another. The man in the lesson represents all of the social and mental ills in the world…He represents all those things that take away dignity and wholeness. The message of this Gospel is two-fold.

All demons are subject to Jesus.

Jesus is the key to wholeness.

I struggle with thinking that people with mental illness are, to use the gospel’s language, demon possessed. On the other hand people who make wrong choices, who are raised in dysfunctional settings, who are surrounded by bad things and bad people, do have what we might call demons at work in them. So…whatever you think about all of this…we do have some bad things going on in many people, that takes away the wholeness God intends for them and for us.

You have probably heard the following story in different forms, but there is a man in Miami who claims that his Aunt Isabel’s car stalled on a Florida highway. Traffic backed up behind her. She tried to restart the car with no success. The driver behind her began blowing his horn. Aunt Isabel got out of her car, walked over to the driver’s window. When he rolled his window down she smiled and said, “I can’t seem to get my car started. Would you be kind enough to start it for me? And I will stay here and blow your horn for you.”

We do have our moments. Are those demons? Or is it just life? And then there is the NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak. Back in February she was arrested on charges of attempted murder and attempted kidnapping of a woman she said was involved with the object of her affections. Nowak is the mother of three, a member of a church, a respected astronaut who has journeyed into space. In Jesus’ day would actions of this bizarre nature be seen as demon possession? It is hard to understand how a person who is so intelligent, so disciplined, could get something so strange into her head, and pursue it in such strange ways.

Matt Stearns, of McClatchy Newspapers, wrote an interesting column that questioned if anyone could change the culture of our nation’s politics. He wrote, “On the heels of a scandal-plagued Congress that saw three lawmakers indicted, Democrats came to power vowing to purge the sins of everyday life in Babylon-on-the-Potomac. But despite just-passed, much-trumpeted ethics legislation, the entrenched Washington culture appears to be adapting and enduring.” Stearns goes on to say how no matter which party… elected officials represent they are under such pressure to immediately and continuously raise campaign money that they find ways to work the system. Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said, “I don’t think people come in evil. The way the system works is inevitably corrupting. People who do favors for you, you’re more likely to help. It’s just human nature.”

Stearns is pointing out that there are…my words now… demons dancing around. We set those demons free in systems, and then those same demons enslave the people who work the systems. Speaking of systems…the media has been all over the hospital in Los Angeles that released an indigent patient to a hospital van and driver. The driver eventually dumped the patient on the streets of skid row where he crawled in human waste with his belongings in a bag clinched between his teeth. There are demons. The demons are often in the systems in which many of us feel helpless. This gospel makes it very clear that if we followed Jesus these system demons could be cast out. I know that this is complicated, but let’s permit the gospel to say that we too often surrender to the demons in systems. The gospel clearly says that the demons that torment society and individuals can be destroyed.

The gospel for today acknowledges the complexities of life. Verse 30 says that the demons are many. It also says that they don’t want to be cast out. Isn’t that so true? So many profit from the systems that end up hurting so many that we often don’t want change. Anyway Jesus says that the demons should not be in people and in the lesson the demons beg to be allowed to continue to live and ask if they can reside in the swine who are feeding on the hillside. Jesus allows that, but the swine cannot tolerate the powerful demons and they rush down the hillside into the lake and drown themselves and the demons. It is a powerful story. Even the swine cannot tolerate the destructive demons.

The gospel goes on to tell us that with the demons gone from the man he is now completely whole. He is clothed and free and in his right mind…and here is the key. He is sitting at the feet of Jesus. That’s the message of this lesson. There is the invitation to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from him. He is the key to individual and corporate wholeness. The point is that this is the message of the gospel and only as we dare believe this message do we make a difference.

In summary, what do we have so far in this lesson? Demons are present. They come in all sorts of ways. Illicit drugs can be demons taking over. So can cheating and dishonesty and everything that is not of God. When demons enter there is always a price to be paid. The man in the gospel became complete in depravity. Demons destroy the wholeness God desires for all of his creation. All demons are in the end subject to Jesus if we bring that power to bear. Jesus is the key to wholeness.

Then we come to what can seem to be a puzzle in the closing verses of today’s lesson. When the people of the area in which the man lived who was healed of demon possession found out about this… When they observed this man now completely whole…how do you think they reacted? Verse 37 tells us that they were so upset…fearful is the word used in the lesson. So upset that they asked Jesus to leave and so he did. The healed man wanted to go with him, but Jesus told him to stay and “declare how much God has done for you.” And so he did.

Why were the people upset? They had seen a man set free of every conceivable darkness…why would this make them afraid? If we think of this in a symbolic sense… why don’t we want Jesus in our systems? The answer unfortunately is that not everyone wants the demons driven out. If you have any problem with the concept of sin this is a powerful reminder of how deep sin is rooted in our world…and even in us. The great sin that goes on and on is that we want Jesus around only in ways that we can control…and when he gets out of hand or what we consider impractical…we put him on a boat and ship him out of town. Listen to anyone discuss politics or religion or other issues…and then ask… how much Jesus can you recognize in these discussions… even when those discussing these things are all Christians?

But let’s end on a positive note. We can be set free. It is really rather exhilarating to leave all our built in prejudices and emotional attachments behind and sit at the feet of Jesus. That’s what the man in the lesson experienced. And then he went willingly into a hostile environment to tell others about this great release and freedom he now enjoyed…all because of Jesus. That’s the incredible good news of the gospel. We can leave the demons behind. We can give our life over to the Lord and sit at his feet. We can leave the tombs of death and embrace life in the light of the Gospel. It is a marvelous invitation. Amen.