2025-06-22 Pentecost 2

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

I was reflecting back over my pastoral career and I have been blessed to have been involved in many great moments of ministry. Tons of Baptisms and weddings, funerals, visiting the sick and shut in, services in care homes, counselling, house blessings and anointing the dying. I was fairly confident that I’ve done pretty much every pastoral thing there was to do. I’ve been there, done that, got the T- shirt! But then I was reminded that there is still one thing left to do. I’ve never done an exorcism before! So I guess, I don’t have the T-shirt after all! I can’t throw in the ministry towel and go sell real-estate just yet!

We have a very demon-possession-rich Bible story from the Gospel today. And it’s a fairly new reading to be added to our Sunday Lectionary readings. It’s only since 2006 that this story was added. I’m not sure exactly why this story was previously omitted, other than it is rather eerie in its spiritual content. Perhaps it’s because people today are rather hesitant to believe in the weird, supernatural, spiritual realm type stuff. We tend to be quite a cerebral people, we Lutherans. So, we might be more apt to simply write these demonic stories off as myths, as people who aren’t afflicted by evil spirits but rather are people who are plagued with mental illnesses like schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s or perhaps epilepsy. When you read the Scriptures, the symptoms of both demonic possession and severe mental illness appear the same. That’s where modern science would have us go. That’s where many scientifically minded people would have us go. But it’s not where the Bible would have us go.

The thing is, the scriptures are very consistent about this. There are evil spirits, these demons, that do things that are contrary to God’s will. They are real. Satan himself is one such evil spirit. In fact, he is a fallen Angel, as are all of the demons spoken of in the scriptures. They are created spirit beings that have fallen away from God and now work against Him and seek to harm God’s people. They have but one goal: to scare us from our faith. But here’s the deal, in our post-modern, scientific culture, nobody would believe you if you ran around hysterically crying out that Oma Schmidt had just picked up a demon when she was shopping over at Mohammad’s No Frills! People would be skeptical of your words at best, thinking you’ve been most likely tipping the bottle or are just plain crazy yourself.

It’s intriguing really, that when God’s angels are sent as messengers to His people, the very first thing they say is “do not be afraid,” “do not fear.” Contrast that message to the scene we see before us today in our Gospel reading. There is a guy who runs around homeless and naked and lives among the tombs of the dead in the cemetery. St. Luke tells us that many times this poor man had been shackled and bound with chains but he would break them and flee out into the desert. That would be a very frightening sight, I’d think! But we just don’t tend to see many examples of this in Canada. However, our inner cities are starting to resemble this more and more all the time. But in other places in the world, you hear of demonic attacks and oppression quite a bit. Especially in places in the mission field, I’m told that pastors do exorcisms like we do funerals! In those places, a demon screaming like a monster in the jungle at night would indeed be terrifying! But it is nothing more than an attack on the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me.” What does this mean? We should fear love and trust in God above all things. Fear belongs to God alone as it is the beginning of wisdom. Fear in anything else becomes a form of idolatry. And remember, when God sends His spirits to people, it’s always under the message of “do not fear,” “do not be afraid.”

Today’s Gospel reading comes to us right after Jesus calms the storm with the disciples. And right before that He had been preaching parables to the populace. The boat comes ashore in the region of the Gerasenes, somewhere along the east side of the Sea of Galilee. And then, immediately, they meet this poor demon possessed man. Talk about a weird welcome! The demon possessed Walmart Greeter strolls right up to our Lord. As I mentioned, he’s naked and living out in midst of the cemetery, crazed out of his mind. We’d look at him and think he was absolutely crazy – no doubt resembling someone with mental illness or a wild drug addict from the streets. But the interesting thing with this demon possessed guy is that as soon as he sees Jesus, he falls down before him. I can’t help but think of David and Goliath. When David smoked Goliath in the head with a stone, the giant fell down forward before David, bowing down in the presence of God. You would have expected that Goliath would have fallen over backwards. But he falls forward. And so here with the demon possessed man, it happens again. And even more incredibly, the demons know who Jesus is! “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me” (LK 8:28).

We’re told that these spirits would give the man super human strength so much so that he could break chains and shackles, then run off into the desert. And there truly is something about the desert that the demons just love. It’s like an abode of evil that dry desert wilderness. Just think, where was Jesus tempted by Satan for 40 days? The desert. Where did Israel wander for 40 years? The desert. In the Old Testament, on the day of Atonement when the high priest would transfer the sins of the people onto the scape goat, where was it sent? Yes, you guessed it, out into the desert, clippity-clop, clippity-clop, never to be seen again. All of the iniquity of the people was sent to Azazel (Lev 16:8,10,26), a Hebrew name for Satan, who dwells the place of darkness and iniquity in the vast wilderness of the desert.

“What is your name?” Jesus asks. This is probably a hat-tip to the ancient culture where using someone’s name asserts power and authority over them. That’s what’s being emphasized here. The Messiah has come to declare liberty to the captives and this poor man has certainly been taken captive by this legion of evil spirits. But the oddest thing is that they start to negotiate with Jesus. They read Donald Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal” and they try to put it into practice! They beg Jesus not to cast them into the abyss or torment them. This comes up again in Revelation 9, with the abyss described as a ‘bottomless pit’. Rather, the demons plead, send us into that enormous herd of pigs over yonder. What gets me is that Jesus shows mercy even to these terrible demons who have ruined this man’s life! We’d think that Jesus would take a few minutes to harass and torment them for a while, but He doesn’t. He takes no joy in tormenting them or causing suffering. So, off goes this legion of demons into the herd of pigs. The pigs go totally berserk then run down the bank and fall into the lake and drown. What a wild scene this must have been! Instagram Reels worthy! The demons take their revenge on Jesus’ mercy and kill all the pigs. The herdsmen, seeing how absolutely unbelievable this is all bolt and tell everyone about what just happened, no doubt none too happy that their livestock livelihood just went down the tubes!

You can well imagine what happens next. Everybody and their dog runs out and see this sight for themselves. What they expected to see was a literal bay of pigs, a whole herd of porkers floating on the water! But instead they see the man “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid” (LK 8:35). Crazy Clive is back to normal! This news is too much for the crowd to take in. The miracle is too miraculous! In their new-found fear, they ask Jesus to get out of Dodge! But Clive begs Jesus to join up as a disciple. ‘You gotta take me with you, Lord!’ he says. But Jesus has other plans for him. Clive, you’re gonna be an Evangelist! You’re gonna go home “and declare how much God has done for you” (8:39).

This becomes the real take away point of the passage for us. We realize that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. He heals the sick. He drives out demons. He breaks the chains. He makes the broken whole. He will die on the cross to destroy the power of death for all who believe. In this Jesus we can put our trust because His grace and mercy is unfailing and will never let us down. And we, like ol’ Crazy Clive, this man who was cleansed of evil spirits, we are cleansed of our sin and iniquity in our Baptism. And now we simply follow Christian Clive’s example. We declare to all the world how much God has done for us in making us His children in Baptism, forgiving our sins, giving us eternal life and defeating death by His cross and resurrection. We declare how awesome the Lord our God is and the amazing healing that His word has brought to us and can bring to everyone who will believe the Good News. We see ourselves in this story – we all were the man of the tombs, broken and filled with evil. But the word of God has reached us, cleansed us and filled us with the Holy Spirit and continues to do so as we gather around our Lord’s Table and taste and see that the Lord is Good. Thanks and praise be to God now and forever more! Amen!