Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Garasenes asked him to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear; so he got into the boat and returned. — Luke 8:37
In polite society we have not wanted to talk much of demons and the demonic. In our liberal, educated culture, we believe that sin was due mostly to ignorance and that evil could be eradicated by education. In our psychologically enlightened times we have avoided the more ancient religious and mythological language of devils and evil. We have instead preferred words like repression, impulses, sublimation, drives, complexes, phobias, regression, neuroses, psychoses, manic-depressive, schizophrenic, and schizoid — to name a few.
If we have been suspicious of religious healers, exorcists, and spiritual counselors, we have been implicitly trustful of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, counselors, and therapy groups. If we have been doubtful of prayer, meditation, and conversion, we have been trustful of amphetamines, barbiturates, and tranquilizers, not to mention alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana. If in our time witch doctors have disappeared, strangely enough witches have reappeared by the thousands. Even exorcists are making a small comeback after considerable media exposure and hype.
Whether demons and the demonic are widely acknowledged in our time may be debated, but that they were common in Jesus' time we can have no doubt. In his time, when most illness was attributed to sin, it was but a short step to attribute all mental illness or epilepsy to demonic power actually residing in the person and controlling him or her. Thus to cure a person of seizures, dementia, schizophrenia, or melancholia, the healer had to have power not only to name the demon but the power to cast him out — to throw the demon out of the center of the person's self.
In the ancient world, demons were almost beyond number. They could inhabit almost any living thing and take control. More than that, demons, and especially the prince of the demons, the devil, were thought actually to have the world under their control.
Thus, not only could physical and mental illness be attributed to them; catastrophes, disasters, and evil events of all sorts could be attributed to their power. Therefore, if one was to gain control of human life and history, one had to contend with demons and devils and to wrestle with "the powers of darkness of this present world," as Paul put it.
It is no wonder that the early church was fascinated with this intriguing story of Jesus and the Gerasene demonic. Mark's version of the story is probably the original. Matthew names two demoniacs in place of one. Luke, the beloved physician, emphasizes the man's state of mind before and after the healing or exorcism. More than that, as the only non-Jewish writer of the New Testament, Luke likes to emphasize Jesus' interest in all people, including Gentiles. (This exorcism takes place in Gentile territory and the cured man is asked to bear witness to his healing among the Gentiles.)
The early church was fascinated with this powerful story and so are we. If we are to have healthy lives and a healthy economy, we need to deal with our demons.
I.
Let us consider the demoniac. We may understand him more than we realize.
The gospels tell us he lived in the carved out caves or tombs near the Sea of Galilee. Ostracized from society because of his initial mental illness, the demoniac's condition is exacerbated by society's total rejection. Wild in his efforts to resist rejection and exclusion, the authorities chain him down by his hands and feet.
In a surge of frightened, defiant, maniacal strength, he refuses to be entrapped by the ancient equivalent of a straitjacket. He bursts the bonds, ripping off his clothes as a rejection of all constriction and runs wildly among the rocks, shrieking and screaming obscenities at the unjust, uncaring, hypercritical world, while bruising and cutting himself in the process.
Thus it is with considerable courage that Jesus comes into the presence of this terrifying creature. If the ancient equivalent of a tourist bus might have come within viewing distance of the "local attraction," none, out of fear for their lives would have dared confront this maniac.
No one except Jesus. Jesus, the integrated man; Jesus, the man in whom the centering powers of the universe found a home; Jesus, in whom the healing powers of God were focused; Jesus, the prayerful man at peace with God and with himself. This calm, strong, and fearless Jesus approached the frantic, frenetic, disintegrated man with faith and assurance.
Rather than pouncing on Jesus and tearing him to shreds, this frenzied, distorted intelligence falls down before Jesus and cries out, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the most high God? I beseech you, do not torment me."
The flailing, frantic, disintegrated man sensed he was in the presence and power of someone whole and integrated; someone controlled more by faith than fear; someone more loving than defensive; someone more accepting than judgmental; yet someone who would not patronize him or trivialize his illness or belittle his lack of strength to cope with the power that had gained control of his very being. "Jesus, Son of God most high, what do you have to do with me?" The answer was, and is, everything.
II.
He has everything to do with societies torn apart by the demonic.
No doubt most of us would resist being called demoniacs and many of us would hesitate to allow that our society might be demonic. Nonetheless, the more sensitive and perceptive among us see swirling powers and forces in our midst that threaten to take control of us and destroy us. The forces of disintegration and fragmentation make it more difficult to hold ourselves together. Are there not times, when as one person told me, when we are ready to strip off our civilized clothes and run into the wilderness shrieking primal screams of utter despair?
If the demoniac was schizophrenic, ours is often a schizoid, divided life, says the late Rollo May, popular psychoanalyst and author. Like the demoniac, we feel more and more alone, more and more empty, more and more rejected, more and more forgotten, passed by, and neglected. More than that, our inward self seems diminished.
Consequently, as Dr. May observes, "when the inward life dries up, when feeling decreases and apathy increases, when one cannot affect or even genuinely touch another person, violence flares up as a daimonic necessity for contact, a mad drive forcing touch in the most direct way possible" (Love and Will, pp. 30-31).
Like the demoniac thrust out of society into the caves and rocks, we seem thrust out of our self-hood in an impersonal, institutionalized, systematized, bureaucratic society.
How many of us have raged at another company's computer only to install one in our own company against which our customers rage? If we think talking with a business or company is bad, try talking with the government or the Internal Revenue Service, where you are assumed guilty until proven innocent.
In a society where we feel oppressed or powerless, in a system where we feel inconsequential and exploited, in a culture that seems controlled by alien forces, we react like the demoniac in violence or distorted sexuality. In an effort to touch someone, in a craving to know and to be known, in an effort to be something more than a social security number on an IRS form, in our struggle to be more than middle- or upper-middle class serfs to a government despicably wasteful; in such an effort, is it any wonder we react in violence and distorted sexuality in a desperate effort to feel, be connected, count somehow, and make a difference?
Our schizoid world may not be far from that of the demoniac's. If artists and neurotics are predictive and prophetic as Dr. May suggests, Picasso's painting Guernica, with its fragmented bulls and torn villages of modern war, is predictive. The atrocities of our wars, the wasted lives, the utter, barbaric brutality, the waste, the disorder, the lack of discipline, the drug addiction, and mental derangement — the smoke and blood of real battle on our televisions during our cocktail hour — all this is a symbol of the disjointedness and disintegration of our own society — a society not unlike that of the demoniac.
So in the ancient despair we shriek, "Jesus, Son of the most high God, what do you have to do with us?" And he answers firmly and quietly, "What is your name?" We reply, "Legion," for like the ancient demoniac who may have gone berserk after witnessing the horrible atrocities of war, we too say "Legion," 6,000 demons like a legion of Roman soldiers exerting terrible power and influence over us and our society.
Then Jesus says, "Come out of him, come out of them." In the context of the church, in the surroundings of the worshiping community, amid a people committed to wholeness and balance, to saneness and integration, amidst a people singing and praying and centering on God in faith, hope, and love — in such a context, the powerful, peaceable voice of Jesus is heard, saying, "Come out of them, you negative, destructive demonic power. Come out of them, you oppressive ideas, you controlling compulsions and obsessions. Come out of them you powers of guilt, regret, and revenge. Come out of them you faulty self-images and harmful habits. Release them. Let them go. Be healed. Peace be with you."
Again Jesus comes, making his assault on demoniacs and demonic societies, making them whole and peaceful and integrated. Christ's gospel, says historian T.R. Glover, "took terror out of men's souls… and greatly purified and sweetened life. Whenever the church returns to him there is a resurrection," says Dr. Glover, "an evidence of new life. As the demoniac was made whole, so might we be" (Jesus in the Experience of Men, pp. 7, 13).
III.
If Jesus has power to heal demonic societies, he also has power to change economies.
When you think of it, there may have been some humor in this story. Consider this: Jesus, a practicing Jew, consorting among Gentiles who, of all things, were raising forbidden pigs for non-kosher pork. Even more ironic, it may have been some back-sliding Jews who were raising the forbidden pigs to sell at good profit to the neighboring Gentiles.
When looking for a place to put the 6,000 demons, Jesus honored the demons' request to go into 2,000 pigs (that's three demons per pig!). Now demon possessed, the pigs, in a demonic frenzy, rush off the cliff into the lake and drown. So much for the forbidden pigs and non-kosher pork. At least, thought the more faithful and Orthodox Jews, the pigs were put to good use!
The economic question here is, is a man worth 2,000 pigs? The former demoniac is now sitting calmly at Jesus' feet, clothed, sane, whole, peaceful, and ready to lead a productive life as Jesus' disciple to the Gentiles. Think of it, from demoniac to disciple. But the herdsmen, thinking of the lost pigs, ran into the city to tell the owners. They in turn came rushing out to the scene. In disbelief they saw the wild demoniac they had rejected and chained now sitting peaceably and calmly in his right mind. They were amazed.
Then another reality took hold of them — the reality of lost ham, bacon, and pork chops. I don't know how many of you trade in hogs and pork bellies, but I recently noticed hog futures were about $.90 per pound. So for a herd of hogs at an average of 150 pounds per hog, those 2,000 pigs were worth about $288,000 by today's prices! Is it worth 2,000 pigs or $288,000 to cure one demoniac? What if the pigs belonged to you or me?
Should we care more for dollars or for people? If our pigs had been lost, would we have focused more on them than on the man made whole? Would we, like the Gerasenes, ask Jesus to leave our city, country, and economy? Have we? One scholar quips sadly, "All down the ages the world has been refusing Jesus because it prefers the pigs" (Levertoff, quoted in Matthew, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, R.V.G. Tasker, p. 94). It doesn't need to be pigs or healing. It can be both.
Bill Gates, America's richest man, dropped out of Harvard to start what is now Microsoft. He went back to Harvard in 2007 to give the commencement address and they awarded him his degree much to his attorney father's relief.
Concerned now about world poverty and disease, Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have set up a foundation with $33 billion to address health and education issues. Warren Buffet, America's second richest man, will contribute another $30 billion to the Gates Foundation to make it the world's largest charitable organization.
Bill Gates told his Harvard audience that at one time he had no real awareness of the appalling disparities of health and wealth that condemn millions to despair. When he got more involved in charitable work, he assumed the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver medicine to save the millions of dying children. But the world did not. In the words of our text, "saving the pigs," that is, saving the prevailing economy and mindset, was more important than saving children.
So Gates concludes that we "can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism" (Network World, June 8, 2007). Yes, creative capitalism can make enormous strides toward making people whole and well. And when you think of it, the neighbors of the Gerasene pig farmers could each have contributed some pigs to build a new herd to compensate for the loss. A man is worth 2,000 pigs especially when it is our man.
When Jesus comes into an area, he not only casts out demons, he changes the economy because he changes people like Bill Gates, who was raised in the Congregational United Church of Christ, as was Warren Buffet. In all economies, rich or poor, Jesus calls for humane, compassionate, and creative ways to care for the mentally ill, the developmentally challenged, the homeless and helpless, the emotionally distressed, and the poverty stricken.
Yes, as in Jesus' time, we have our own demons and demonic problems. But Jesus has come to make us whole and to bring peace. May it be so with us. Amen.
