Sermon: “Return to Your Home”

Text: Luke 8:26-39

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

June 20, 2010

Sermon.  All three of the synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—have some version of this story.  In each case it is preceded by the story of how Jesus, in the boat with his disciples on a dangerously stormy Sea of Galilee, ordered the wind and the waves to cease.  The pairing of the stories suggests that Jesus was no ordinary person, but like God had power over both the natural and the spirit world.  In both cases—the stormy weather and the man whose inner life was a storm of conflicting impulses—Jesus confronted a chaotic situation and by his power rendered it peaceful, whole, and healthy.

Before I get to my main point for this morning, I want to touch briefly on a question that may well be on the minds of many of you.  That question is, “Do demons really exist?”  During much of the 19^th and 20^th centuries scholars attempted to find natural explanations for what appear to be the supernatural occurrences in the Bible.  Some, for example, have identified the demons exorcised by Jesus with mental illnesses.  Jesus’ calming and directing influence, some would say, actually freed persons from the effects of mental disease.  Following this reasoning, the armchair psychiatrists among us might say that the man in our story today—who the Bible says had a legion of demons within him—was suffering from an acute case of schizophrenia—a multiple personality disorder. 

A funny thing about the scientific revolution, however, is that the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.  And so it is that even experienced psychiatrists like the author M. Scott Peck, as evidenced by his book People of the Lie,[1] are willing to entertain the possibility of something like demonic possession.  In the thousands of cases of mental illness that Dr. Peck has treated, in only a handful has he concluded that the victim is possessed by an external and evil force.  Most cases of mental illness are just that—an illness.  It is only the rare case, Peck would say, that suggests demonic activity.  I, myself, try to keep an open mind about demons.  There is much we do not know, especially about the spirit world.[2]  It seems to me that if we believe it is possible for Jesus to live in our hearts, then it is also possible for something else to live there.  As a practical matter, even if we believe in demons it is best for us not to become consumed with thinking about the occult and demonology.  Traditionally Christians have believed that such an obsession opens the door to demonic power.  Rather, we should fill our hearts with Jesus and let him worry about the demons.  And if we have concluded there is no such thing as demons, well then I suppose we can still agree it was a miraculous demonstration of Jesus’ power and insight for him to have healed with a single command someone with a multiple personality disorder.

One of the most thought-provoking parts of the story comes at the very end.  Remember that the man who had the legion of demons, after he had been healed and was clothed and in his right mind, wanted to go with Jesus and the rest of the disciples.  The man “begged that he might be with [Jesus]; 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.”  Sometimes, even when we give our hearts to Jesus, he does not send us to the places we want to go.  I know a man who when he was young wanted to be a foreign missionary.  He was a brilliant student and was highly motivated.  He could not wait to get to the mission field.  But some family matters came up that prevented him from becoming a missionary or even a preacher.  Instead he pursued a different profession—teaching—and received many awards for his work, helping countless young persons discover their own directions in life.  God does not always call us to the ministries we would choose.  The important thing is to be faithful in the areas to which we are called.

That is exactly what the man in our story did: he faithfully told the people of the city where he lived how much Jesus had done for him.  Surely this would not have been an easy job.  Remember who these people were.  This was the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee.  Most of them would not have been Jewish, so they (and perhaps the healed man, as well) would not have the background that would help them recognize Jesus as the Messiah.  Preaching to them would have been an uphill battle.  What’s more, they already had decided that they feared Jesus and did not want him around.  Luke tells us that “all the people . . . asked Jesus to leave them.”  They were the swineherds and farmers, whose livelihood Jesus had allowed to be destroyed as the demon-possessed pigs drowned themselves. 

Perhaps worse than the loss of the pigs was the loss of their comfortable routine.[3]  Before Jesus came, there was a man possessed by demons, but as long as you stayed away from the tombs you were OK.  There was no need to worry about him or his demons; that was his problem.  But after Jesus came and sent the demons packing, here was this same man, clothed and in his right mind—and he was preaching to them about what Jesus had done.  Is it possible that these villagers had had some part in opening this man up to the demons?  Maybe he was cheated out of his property.  Maybe his family rejected him.  Maybe he was an outsider who had never been welcomed into village life.  Maybe he always had been prophetic, and they just didn’t want to listen to him.  Now that he was back, wouldn’t his very presence be a reminder to them of the problem he had been before?  Now they had to deal with him again; his healing upset the unhealthy balance that village life had achieved before Jesus came.  But achieving a new and healthier balance required the villagers and the healed man to come to some point of reconciliation and understanding.  By shaking up the established order, Jesus’ act of healing made it possible.  But the man had a lot of work to do, and so did the villagers.  Perhaps this was as Jesus intended.

How many systems and organizations in our lives have achieved unhealthy balances?  It can happen in families, in schools, in the workplace, and even in churches.  If a family member is abusive toward others in the family, those others—particularly children—actually experience the abuse as a natural part of life.  They learn to accommodate it, even to expect it.  Other family members may see the signs of the abuse, but they say nothing out of fear that upsetting the tenuous balance would be even worse for the family.  Soon there is a culture of secrecy within the family system that is virtually impermeable to those on the outside of the system.  Tragically, those children who have been abused often grow up to abuse their own children, or as adults seek out the abusive relationships to which they have become accustomed.  Similarly, larger systems—organizations—can develop unhealthy balances.  They have forgotten the purposes for which they exist—some common good—and concentrate instead on self-preservation.  Think of some parts of our government or of various corporate scandals.  Persons who come to the organization from the outside and who are not familiar with the balance that has been achieved either learn quickly how to survive in the unhealthy organization—often by taking on the bad values that the system represents—or, if they resist the system’s values, they become the target, the scapegoat, the one who is finally rejected and expelled from the organization or who flees from it in a desperate act of self-preservation.  Anyone who has been caught in a system like this—and some of you have—can recognize its demonic complexity and power.

But our Christian hope and faith is that Jesus has the power to upset the equilibrium, even the unhealthiest and most demonic.  He fulfills the prophecy of old Simeon, who said of the baby Jesus, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed . . . .”[4]  As Jesus himself said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”[5]  As followers of Jesus perhaps we can learn to think of Jesus’ sword as a scalpel, cutting away the disease and allowing the healthy tissue to flourish and even to take the place of what before was unhealthy.  Sometimes we are the man who has been liberated by Jesus from oppression and given a different way to see the world.  Sometimes we are the villagers who need to achieve a different and healthier balance in our communal life.  Either way, our focus should be on our “homes”—our families, our workplaces, our church—as we tell, and experience, how much God has done for us in Jesus Christ.