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The Healing Power of Love Over The "Demons".
Today's gospel lesson is about a psychotic man who ran naked among the cemetery caves along the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. This is a scripture passage that has never appeared in the pericopes since I have been a pastor. This past week, I have read magazine articles and commentaries on this passage, had my brother Hub (who is a pastor and a Yale scholar) to do research for me and I called a psychologist, Gary Klukken, and asked him for a diagnosis of this man. In spite of all this research, I still had a very difficult time writing this sermon. The basic question I asked myself was, "Where is the message of grace in this story?" or, another way of saying it is, "What is the message from God in this passage that should uplift us?" Finally, I decided I would tell today's story as if I was a first century writer and to read between the lines and to make some educates guesses about many of the details of this story that have been left out.
I begin my story by talking about Jesus. Jesus spent his entire life fighting the powers of evil. Shortly after he was born the Evil One planted the seed of murder in the heart of King Herod The Great to kill the baby Jesus. When he was thirty years of age, the Heavenly Father called Jesus to begin his ministry of proclaiming God's love and grace. Before he could start, Satan, the power of evil, tried to tempt him as Adam was tempted, to follow his own will rather than the will of the Heavenly Father. This was a picture of what he was to face throughout his ministry and right up to the time of his death when his fight against the powers of evil were so great that he sweat drops of blood. Satan tried to convince him that it was foolish for him to give his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the peoples of the world.
Jesus began to preach throughout the region of Galilee. One day after preaching and teaching all day he decided to go with his disciples on a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee over to the Decapolis which was on the eastern shore of the lake. On the way across a powerful storm arose which Jesus had to calm. This was going to be his first mission trip to the gentile Greeks who had immigrated there under the rule of Alexander the Great. As they approached the end of their trip they could see the rising mountainous shore line which had countless numbers of caves which many people used as their family tombs. They no more than docked teir boat when a naked man came running out of one of the caves screaming at them. In those days they said that such a man was filled with hundreds of demons. In today's world, we would say he was suffering from a psychosis called schizophrenia. He obviously was very dysfunctional and disconnected from reality; a man who had delusions and hallucinations, and one who had no skills with which to relate to other people. Here was a man who was filled with rage because he had been rejected by society and he had no way of escaping from his circumstances. he was a prisoner of his own demented mind.
I sall call this man Anthropos, rather than to call him by the depersonalizing names given to him like Legion or the Mob, which were names given to him as a way of referring to him as a person who was controlled by a number of demons; nor will I call him the Crazy Man or the Nut. Anthropos had a mother and father who had dearly loved him but as he got this sickness of the mind, his parents, along with everyone else, thought that he had sold his soul to the devil and so he was disowned by the parents and his neighbors. In those days whenever someone had uncontrolled behavior, seizures, involuntary actions, or incurable illnesses it was thought that they were being controlled by demons and that this came about because of a person's sinful decisions in life.
At night people could hear the echoes of Anthroposes' screams coming over the mountainside as he would mutilate himself trying to free himself from his mind and body. More than once, soldiers had captured him and even bound him with chains, but it seemed nothing could hold him for he soon would break loose and once again run to the caves. People were afraid of him and thought he had become one with the devil; a demon. It never entered anyone's mind that this man was sick and could become well.
When Jesus saw Anthropos he had compassion on him. Jesus knew that this man was suffering from a psychotic illness and that he was not a devil or a demon. Jesus knew the people thought Anthropos was filled with a demon and so he had to us the language and images they would understand and thus talked about casting out demons. At times, Anthropos was convinced that he was a demon, and also, there were times when he thought of himself as a personality of many demons. Time after time, Jesus ordered the demons to come out of the man. Anthropos responded as if he was a demon and told Jesus to leave him alone. Jesus never gave up on the man and kept commanding the demons to leave Anthropos. When Jesus reached out to touch and heal Anthropos, Anthropos went screaming at the top of his voice up the side of the mountainous shoreline to where there was a field of two thousand pigs. The pigs were frightened and began to stampede and ran off of a cliff into the Sea of Galilee and were drowned. My brother, Hub, humorously commented, "That was the day the price of pork went up." Anthropos interpreted that the demons had left his body and had gone into the pig's bodies and thus they were killed.
Some of my thoughts are guess work but one ting I know for sure from this story is that Anthropos was healed. Jesus cured him of his schizophrenia. When thousands of people had condemned Anthropos to hell, fearing and hating him, and calling him a demon, Jesus looked upon him with love and compassion and saw him as a child of God who could be healed, redeemed and saved. Jesus brought this man up from the depths of hell and raised him to live in the kingdom of God. When no one else dared to come near to Anthropos, Jesus came to him, stood before him, looked him in the eyes and placed his hands upon him, stood before him, looked him in the eyes and place his hands upon him and healed him. I can picture Anthropos after he was healed. I see the tears running down his face. He who had been totally lost, lost even to himself, had been found. He came to a place of self-discovery. I see him running to Jesus to thank him and I can see Jesus taking him into his arms and saying, "I love you, Anthropos. You are my brother. You are a beautiful child of God." I can picture Anthropos sobbing uncontrollably; crying tears of joy. Anthropos never wanted to leave the side of Jesus but Jesus said, "No, Anthropos, I need you to stay here in the Decapolis and to be my apostle proclaiming the good news of salvation and my power over all the powers of evil."
After my studies of this passage, for the first time I realized, Anthropos, no St. Paul, became the first apostle to the Gentiles. "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see."
EXCUSES! EXCUSES! EXCUSES!
There was a high school baseball who was so frustrated with his first baseman because he made a couple of errors in a game that they lost. The first baseman had some legitimate excuses but the coach was not about to cut him any slack and told him, "I don't want to hear your excuses." The following Monday, the coach said he would play first base and show the player how to play the position. At one point, a pop fly was hit and the coach dropped the ball. He said, "The sun was in my eyes." A while later a sharp grounder was hit to him and it went through him and he said, "It took a bad hop." A little later the third baseman made a throw to him it was wide and so the coach had to make a big stretch to catch the ball and he ripped the crotch out of his pants. The Coach was so exasperated that he screamed at the first baseman, "You have this position so messed up even I can't do anything with it." The coach didn't allow the first baseman to make any excuses but felt his excuses were legitimate.
It is a part of human nature to offer excuses but to discount the excuses of others. It begins with the very first parable story of the bible. When God confronts Adam as to why he had eaten the forbidden fruit, he excused himself by saying, "It was the woman you gave me that fooled me into eating the forbidden fruit." he not only was blaming Eve but was ultimately blaming God for creating a conniving woman. He was really saying, "I wouldn't have sinned if you hadn't given me this woman." When God confronted Eve, she said, "It's not my fault. The devil made me do it."
The comedian, Flip Wilson, got a lot of mileage out of this story for whenever he was caught dong something wrong in one of his skits, he would say, "The devil made me do it." In his humor, Flip Wilson was making a serious point and that is that we never want to take the blame for our mistakes or misdeeds. It's almost as if we are saying, "I would be perfect if it wasn't for the influences of others." We like to blame someone else and to justify our actions. There was a time that whenever I lost my keys, I was sure that it was Pat who had misplaced them.
In our gospel lesson, Jesus' disciples are furious with a Samaritan village that would not accept Jesus into their town. The people's excuse was that they felt Jesus loved te people of Israel more than he loved the people of Samaria. The disciple didn't want to hear their excuses. The disciples told Jesus that he should call down fire from heaven and to destroy them. The disciple showed the Samaritians no mercy for yet excuses themselves when they failed to be witnesses for Jesus at this trial saying they had to run away to save their lives.
In the second half of today's gospel we have three men who give excuses as to why they can't follow Jesus at this time. The first man say's that he will follow Jesus whenever he goes but Jesus, by his response, to him, is implying that when the going gets tough, the tough less get going. He sounds like the rich young ruler who says he wants to follow Jesus but walks away from Jesus when Jesus tells him if he is to follow him, he would have to sell all that he had to give it away to the poor. Jesus wasn't literally telling him, or us, that everyone who follows him has to give away all that they have but he is saying that his followers must give 100% of themselves to him. Jesus once said to the disciples. "I would rather have you hot or cold thn to be lukewarm." There is nothing worse than half-hearted believers. In the Old Testament we read of Gideon who said he would rather have 300 fully dedicated soldiers than to have 20,000 soldiers who are half-dedicated. In our Old Testament Lesson for today, we read of Elisha who demonstrated his total commitment to God when he sacrificed all of his oxen and burned all of his plowing equipment. He gave up everything that he had to follow the Lord.
The second man tells Jesus before he can't follow him until his father passes away. Jesus knew that might take years. William Barclay tells a story of a young man from the Middle East who was offered a full-ride scholarship to both Oxford and Cambridge Universities but he said he couldn't accept the scholarships until after his father died. His father was only forty years old and so it probably would be a number of years before he could get his education.
The third person said that he couldn't follow Jesus until he could say goodbye to his family members. What he really was saying was that he could not follow Jesus until all of his children were raised and out of the home.
It is so easy to make excuses as to why we are not more dedicated to the Lord. If you ask someone why they don't go to church or why they don't go more often, you probably would never hear the answer, "I don't love God that much" When I didn't go to church, my answer for not going was that I said my father was too harsh and judgmental in his preaching. One of my children's excuses for not going to church is that there are too many hypocrites in the church. I told her that there is always room for one more. Jesus was treated harshly by the religious leaders and he could have used this as an excuse for going to the synagogue but in the bible says he was in the synagogue every week.
At times, we might be like disciples or the three characters in our gospel lesson for today. Like them, we can give excuses for placing the demands of Christ on a lower priority list. Our excuses for half-hearted dedication can sound prett empty when we remember God put us first by offering all he had to us; the lief of his only begotten Son. God is not calling you to a convenient religion but he is calling you to a fundemental transformation of our lives; a life of commitment and responsible discipleship. We should not be like the three men in our gospel lesson who wanted to live religion on their own terms. We must not try to mold God into our liking. We must accept the demand of the cross. This means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to demonstrate this love for God by loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. It doesn't mean we just give God that what is good but it means we give to God our very best.
We are all human beings like the coach and the first baseman in my opening story. We all make errors and fail to do all tat we should do. It is better to admit to our sin and not to offer our excuses. God has promised that if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive you your sins and will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. God calls us to put the past behind and work to play the game of life today and try to play a better game today under the management of your coach, Jesus Christ.
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