Ours is an age that is filled with demons. There is more possession going on in the first decade of this 21st century than has gone on in many a century. And the problem is that we don't want to mention it because demons are part of the mythical past. We in our scientific world do not believe in demons. That is because demons are powers that take away our control and leave us at the mercy of powers outside ourselves.

Now, I realize in saying this that there are those of you who are immediately thinking to yourselves, "Oh-oh! The pastor has just stepped off the deep end (again). He's turning into one of those religious cultists who see demons behind every tree and bush. Next he'll be warning us of the devil and his minions." Well, I want to put your minds at rest, at least a little, and invite you to hear me out before you put your brains into neutral and start thinking about the roast in the oven, the possibility of getting to the restaurant before the other churchgoers, or the golf game you gave up to come to church this morning.

I want to look at this story for what it is, to see how Jesus deals with something that makes us feel uncomfortable and to see how we might learn from this story. I think if we can translate some of what is in this text, we just might gain some useful tools in dealing with our world.

Jesus and his disciples had sailed across the Sea of Galilee to the territory of Gerasa. Gerasa was on the non-Jewish side of Galilee, where many Jews resided as strangers in a strange land. The first person he meets is an individual who is possessed by demons, a man who lives in the local cemetery for lack of a better place. He is feared by his neighbors, who have apparently tried to chain him up and keep him clothed for his own safety and that of the community.

He verbally assaults Jesus because, we are told by Luke, Jesus had ordered the evil spirits to leave the man. We are a little amazed by the fact that at this point Jesus has a discussion with the demons who possess the man. Jesus inquires about the name of the demon, who exclaims, "My name is Legion." The demons then beg Jesus not to banish them from the earth by sending them to the abyss, the way station for evil spirits that had to wait for their final punishment.

Jesus does not send them to that final destination; instead he decides to inflict them on a herd of pigs that happen to be nearby, reminding us once again that this is not Jewish territory. The infected pigs rush down to a nearby cliff and like an army of lemmings hurl themselves off into the lake to be drowned. The pig herders rush off to spread the news of what they have witnessed, and no doubt to report the loss of their pigs to the local authorities.

The local people race out to see for themselves what has happened, and discover Jesus in a congenial discussion with the man they knew to be just shy of a full load. The possessed man is sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. The demons are gone and things seem to be absolutely normal. And how does the crowd react? They react with fear.

They are told by eyewitnesses about how the healing occurred. They see that the man has been cured. And their appreciative response to the healing? They ask Jesus to hit the road. "Take your boat and go back where you came from! We don't want your kind around here."

The man who had been healed begged Jesus to allow him to go with them, but Jesus sent him away, telling him to go back home and tell what God had done for him. The last we hear of the man is that he is doing just that.

Now you see, the problem we have with this story is that we get caught up with the demons that appear in it. We start conjuring up all sorts of possibilities to explain the demons. Maybe they are these little supernatural creatures that look like gargoyles on the tops of medieval buildings. Maybe the man was suffering from seizures from some sort of medical malady. Maybe the man was prone to manic-depressive episodes that needed to be treated with medication. Maybe ... Maybe ... Maybe.

You see, we get caught in the story and perhaps miss the point. Jesus has the power to overcome the demons that infest our age. That is what Luke hoped to suggest in his repeating of this story. Remember that Luke was a physician, someone who, even with a very primitive understanding, still understood some things about the nature of human beings and illness. The Greeks were much more advanced in medical understandings than most other cultures of that time. They were aware of some of the physical and psychological problems that infested human beings. Their world-view included a mixture of science and myth. Some of their medical practices were still widely used until fairly recent times and some of their observations still inform medical understandings today. But Luke was also aware of demons and how they affected the world and people's reactions to those who had demons.

You would think that someone who had been healed of demon possession would have been the center of joy and celebration, and the one who was responsible for that healing would be treated with great respect and admiration. Instead, Jesus is run out of town. Healing someone with demons may not be the way to get praise and adoration.

When we hear the words "demon possession," many of us go back to the movie The Exorcist. We think of the sleepless nights and unspoken fears that were created by that film. Youth leaders back in the early '70s were deluged with teens who were terrified by nightmares filled with possessions and exorcisms. And when filmgoers discovered that the movie was based on a real situation, their fears were even greater. But that kind of demon possession only serves to make this story more distant, rather than helping us realize how many demons there are all around us.

You see, demons were the supernatural creatures that took control of an individual when they were not expecting it. They made individuals act in ways that were not acceptable. The individual was lost, and the demon became central in all that the individual did. That is why Jesus was able to speak with the demon that possessed this man. It was as though the individual wasn't even there. The man was an observer who could not participate in the world because the demon was in charge.

The demon was different than sin. You see, sin was what an individual did. It was disobedience to the will of God. A demon took control and in many ways, the individual was beyond the arena of sin. When you had a demon, you were not yourself. The demon and the self were in a constant struggle for control. In the case of the man that Jesus dealt with, the demon had already won. By chaining him up, his friends were actually doing him a favor. They were keeping the demon at bay.

Jesus stepped in and ended the demon's control. Perhaps that is why the local townsfolk were so afraid. Jesus was showing a power that was greater than the human world, greater than even the spiritual world. More than once, people asked, "Who is this that can control even demons?" They were pondering the possibility that Jesus might be more than human.

One of the things we need to deal with is that there are demons in our world. We speak of them all the time. Drug addiction is a demon. Addicts are always speaking of being possessed by the need for their chemical demons. Heroin, cocaine, crack, meth, call them what you will, but they are still "Legion" in the battle for human souls.

Power is a demon. And it not only affects individuals, people who must have power to prove their worth, be the power guns or political influence or the power of terror, but it also affects nations. Nations seek to control and maintain without a sense for the need of justice and mercy. And when that power rises to a crescendo, we see the results in a Hitler or the Klan, or other groups that thrive on hatred and fear. There are the skeletons of many burned-out churches in our land that testify to the demons of power.

Illness is a demon. With all our scientific expertise, you would think that we would be able to put away this demon, but we haven't. In all likelihood, that was the demon of the story we started with this morning. Mental illness is still just as powerful and divisive as ever. It comes as a curse, and we treat its victims as pariahs to be shunned and isolated. The word cancer can make us squirm with discomfort and fear. We run away rather than offering our support and care. AIDS is just as demonic as any other worldly creature. It ravages individuals while others seek to pretend it will go away if one ignores it long enough.

Greed is a demon, threatening to make us slaves of want. Avarice has always been one of the deadly sins, but today the desire to have and to hold is something that many in our society prize and encourage. Things are often more important than people, more important than faith.

As the scripture passage reminds us, the demons are legion. They enslave the individual, destroy the valuable, and release the very worst in us. The only way we can hope to cope with them is to come face to face with one who can drive the demons out and make us willing to sit at his feet, clothed and in our right minds.

And when that happens we need also to be aware of the fact that many of those around us will not be able to cope with our healing, for their fears are often as powerful as the demons that inhabit our world. For the demons are legion and the fears that we have about them are often just as powerful. They infest our world. But our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ. With his presence and strength, we will drive the demons from our lives and our world and abide in the Kingdom of Heaven, now and forever. Amen."