Blogging toward Sunday

Scary story
By Debbie Blue
Luke 8:26-39
Sunday, June 24

This passage has all the elements of a scary story. Jesus and the disciples get into a boat and a horrible storm comes up. The disciples scream that they are going to die, reach the shore, step out onto land—and find themselves in a graveyard where a naked demon-possessed man is wandering about. I imagine hissing and whispering and Linda Blair, but maybe I’ve seen too many movies. As a kid I used to lie in bed at night trying hard to remember exactly what my Sunday school teacher said: If I had Jesus in my heart, the demons couldn’t possess me—but what if I doubted?

In this story the demons seem nothing at all like those I used to imagine. For one thing, Jesus speaks to them in a polite manner (James Alison says he is “courteous and gentle”), and never seems to have a very hard time with them. They know him—he says some words and they leave. The more frightening forces of death in Luke’s story are the religious authorities, the Roman Empire, the crowd in the end, the forces that conspire in his murder.

Karl Barth refers to this story as “burlesque” and “farcical,” suggesting that the demons more ridiculous than frightening, a herd of squealing pigs in a panic. Perhaps this story undermines the conventional understanding of demons (even the typical understanding of Jesus’ day) in order to reveal a different layer of evil.

Rene Girard’s reading of the text is interesting in this regard (see the 6th chapter of James Alison’s Faith Beyond Resentment or “Girardian reflections on the Lectionary”. The Gerasenes needed this man, an agreed-upon “bad guy,” to represent evil—he was someone out there, someone the social structure could cast out. This is how the system of the world maintains order; the community is unified by defining itself over against an other. In this case, the Gerasenes seize and bind the demoniac, but he keeps getting loose. This is actually convenient—perhaps the chains are purposefully made weak because the Gerasenes need his escape and recapture to maintain the system. Girard suggests that there is collusion between the Gerasenes and their demoniac; the demonicac becomes the repository for the community’s perversity, bearing the pathology of the system.

Jesus acts to humanize “the bad guy.” He rebukes the legions—the myriad voices of the social order—and restores the man to his right mind. The man is peaceful and free, but this scares the people of the town deeply because it messes with their order. Of course the man would like to stay with Jesus, but Jesus says, no, go home to show the city how its order collapses in the face of the gospel, the word of God. What an assignment!

Barth says demon possession is the “supremely visible and audible and palpable dominion of nothingness over [humanity].” Do we operate according to some hidden social mechanism of expulsion? Are our actions controlled by The Empire, Money and Power, The Economy? We may be more possessed than we know.

Jesus comes to scoop us up out of the death-dealing, death-making systems we create to maintain our righteousness or our security, and into the love of God.

Debbie Blue is a pastor at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Sensual Orthodoxy (Cathedral Hill) and From Stone to Living Word (forthcoming from Brazos).

Comments

[MJ]

For a somewhat different twist on this gospel, I'm going to preach on human vs. beast and speech as a path to peace. The townsfolk used all the force they could: chains, shackles, guards. Jesus used words, like God in creation. The man lived like a beast, unclothed and wild. Being made in the image of God we have the gift of speech, as God did. In a holy act of recreation, Jesus restored the man to his full humanity. We have tried bombs - smart as well as dirty, guns, rockets, etc. Could we possibly cast those away and use our Godly gift of speech? What would happen to the beastly industries of war and terror if we had peace throughout the world? Like the townsfolk many would be very unhappy at the loss of money.

[Dave Doreau]

I remember the first time I saw (or rather heard)a person possessed by a demon. It was at the First International Lutheran Conference on the Holy Spirit in Minneapolis the summer of 1973. It was at the end of the first day and there was a local pastor addressing the conference on demon possession. I was tired and the subject scared me. Suddenly I heard a loud terrifying screech and looked across the packed auditorium to see a woman writhing and crying out. People nearby gathered around her and prayed for deliverance and she calmed down. That evening and night and the next morning, I couldn't stop thinking about what I had seen. I was as scared as I have ever been. If being a Christian and right in the middle of a charismatic gathering couldn't protect one from possession, what could. I nearly didn't go to the second day of the Conference. But I did and things calmed down after that and I never saw anything like that again. Some years later, the sister of one of my girlfriends was baptized in the Holy Spirit and a few days later "slain in the Spirit." While the former experience was joyful, the latter really scared her and I could see her tension and the fear that she had over losing control in that way. I have since come to see that the evil in possession is that a person is taken over whether by a demon or by the "holy spirit". It's that kind of domination that is the core of evil. My experience with fellow Christians is that many times we seek to take over another person in the name of orthodoxy or evangelism or keeping good order in the church. The opposite of this possession is the tender friendship and companionship that is the true sign of the Holy Spirit. Maybe that's one of the things that can be found in the story of the Gerasene man: a person who found freedom in the friendship of Jesus.

[Mike Cook, Philippi CCDOC]

Wonderful insights! I wonder if this story is not "code" for the impact of the Roman legions on Israel,the kind of irrationality brought about by terror-based, imperial rule. That same irrationality causes people to fear Jesus, and ultimately leads to the crucifixion.

[MJ]

Mike, I think you are right on. There is the glaring name Legion!

And isn'it clever how, pursuant to their "request," Jesus departs, but leaves a witness there!

[Jim Gorman]

There is new documentary on the Maras Salvatrucha or MS13, a 100,000-strong gang the origin of which is in El Salvador. The documentary, which debuted in Seattle June 8th, is called "Hijos de la Guerra" (children of the war). The war in question is the war against the Contras in the 1980s which the US famously helped to finance and arm. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But in the wake of that war was left a crippling Central-American poverty coupled with children who are trained militarily and heavily weaponized.

I am intrigued by Girard's notion that the Geresenes needed this demoniac, a certified bad guy. These Maras are certified bad guys, but certifying them as such leaves us innocent of cause and effect. A final note: The word "maras," which Spanish slang for "gangs", is a take on the word for "deadly swarming ants." Made me think of swarming pigs.

www.hijosdelaguerra.com/

[Louis Kilgore]

I am reminded of my lessons learned from folks seeking recovery from addiction. Part of why it is so hard to life "free" is becasue when an addict find recovery most of the pressure to drink or use comes form thier family who can't stand them sober. I remeber a mom in family couseling who finally admitted that she preferred the problems thay had when her son was drunk.