Luke 8:26-39 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Jesus Heals the Gerasene Demoniac
26 Then they arrived at the country of the Ger′asenes,[a] which is opposite Galilee. 27 And as he stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes, and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.” 29 For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him; he was kept under guard, and bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.) 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. 31 And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 32 Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 36 And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Ger′asenes[b] asked him to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear; so he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but he sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
There are so many things of equal importance in this passage that it’s hard to decide where to start.
First: Who were these “Gerasenes,” anyway? They were, first of all, Gentiles – foreigners. They lived on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, outside of the traditional Jewish homeland, possibly in the area of the Decapolis – the “Ten Cities” – in a region known as Paraea. One thing that we know about them from the passage is that they raised pigs – so they ate pork, which is a big clue that they weren’t Jews, as Jews do not eat pork. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the people of that region as Syrians.
Second: What was Jesus doing in “the country of the Gerasenes” in the first place? As our old friend David Lose, writes, “What’s easy to overlook in this odd story of eventual healing is that this whole encounter between Jesus and this man lost and living in the tombs is the result of a nearly inexplicable and totally unnecessary detour. This larger scene is set in motion by Jesus’ decision to cross to the other side of the lake. Luke’s narration makes it sound so incredibly happenstance: “One day, Jesus got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let’s go across to the other side of the lake’” (v. 22). That’s it. No rationale, like pressing crowds or the need for rest. It’s not a shortcut to some ultimate destination. And no plan or purpose is made apparent. Just a desire to cross from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from the known countryside of Capernaum and Galilee to the land of the Gerasenes… and to this man.”[1]
No discernible plan. No identifiable rationale. You’d think that there were plenty of other people well within the borders of Galilee and Judea who had similar afflictions, but Jesus chooses to go very far out of his way and heal this young foreign stranger. Was this kid that important? There’s nothing in the passage to suggest he was.
Or was his affliction just so far beyond the norm? There is a clue in the text regarding that – when Jesus asks the demon its name, it replies “Legion,” because many demons had entered him. But a legion was the Roman term for 6000 soldiers. The Reverend Dr. Judith Jones tells us the following about that: “For people in the ancient Roman world, however, “Legion” had only one literal meaning: a unit of approximately six thousand Roman soldiers, the occupying army.[2] Suddenly an exorcism takes on social and political significance, and Luke’s word choices throughout the story invite a closer look. When the man confronts Jesus, Luke uses a verb that he employs elsewhere of armies meeting in battle (Luke 14:31). When the demon “seizes” the man? That’s a verb used elsewhere when Christians are arrested and brought to trial (Acts 6:12; 19:29). The words for the hand and foot chains, for binding and guarding, are the same ones that Luke uses in Acts when the disciples are imprisoned. In short, the language of the whole episode evokes the experience of living under a brutal occupying power.
“Furthermore, the region of Gerasene is the setting of a horrifying historical event. According to Josephus, during the late 60s CE, toward the end of the Jewish revolt, the Roman general Vespasian sent soldiers to retake Gerasa (Jewish War, IV,ix,1). The Romans killed a thousand young men, imprisoned their families, burned the city, and then attacked villages throughout the region. Many of those buried in Gerasene tombs had been slaughtered by Roman legions.”[3]
If you follow this interpretation, this was Luke’s covert way of proclaiming that Jesus is more than even a remarkable healer, but one who has cosmic, God-given authority to free people from occupying powers, both internal and spiritual and external and temporal – like the Romans.
I also think that it was no accident – because God does nothing accidentally – that Jesus went into the region of the Decapolis to perform this astounding miracle. We have seen his own people reject, time and again, his words and question his motives. These people did not have the baggage of centuries of Jewish tradition and expectations. When the people surrounding that young man saw what Jesus did for him, there was no opportunity to analyze it – it hit them with all the raw force of a tsunami.
For us this morning, here’s one takeaway: Jesus truly is the Lord of heaven and earth. Nothing whatsoever can get between us and his saving power.
And even more than that, Jesus is the personification of love and compassion. Reading this lesson, you can’t help but feel deep pity, not just for the possessed young man, but for his entire family, particularly his parents, because it stands to reason that that poor young man – out of his mind, out of control, running naked among the tombs – had a family. A family who worried about him. A family who was powerless to help him. A family who did not know where to turn. A Mom, siblings, and a Dad whose hearts were broken. Maybe they had been praying and hoping that God would intervene on their behalf and help their son. And God answers their prayer by sending Jesus into that foreign country – a place where no Jew had any business being – and their son is healed. God’s grace is extended to people who don’t expect it, and, perhaps more tellingly, are considered by others – in this case, the Jews – to not even deserve it.
But God does not think the way we do. The children’s message this morning sums it up perfectly: God loves those who follow in his way, and loves those who don’t just as much. We’re the ones who create the divisions. We’re the ones who like to exclude. Because we live in an imperfect, broken world, we sometimes have to do all of that. But today’s lesson tells us that this is not the world God wants. It tells us that we need to do whatever we can, wherever and whenever we can, to work with God’s mindset.
And this passage has another message for us, too. Consider the tombs mentioned in the passage where the young man was forced to live. But others live in tombs in a more metaphorical sense, but those tombs are no less painful or real. People trapped by mental illness, addiction, or physical disabilities live in tombs. Those who are in despair over a terrible loss are trapped in tombs. Those in abusive relationships who see no way out, are trapped in tombs. Those who feel so terribly alone live in tombs. Those who feel that something they’ve done, or something that has been done to them, disqualifies them from acceptance, are trapped in tombs. Those who have been rejected because they do not conform to the norms and identities others dictate to them, are imprisoned in tombs. Those who struggle to find any sense of self-worth in themselves or purpose in life, are stuck in tombs. If we expand the meaning of what it means to “live in the tombs” in this way, there is likely not a single person who has not had this experience.
But here’s the good news – Jesus didn’t go out of his way to help this man and then just stopped. Jesus is still doing that. Here. Now. Today. Among us. Whatever our tomb is, Jesus meets us there to heal and restore us, to give us hope and courage when hope and courage are in dreadfully short supply.
And this empowers us to do what the world around us considers unthinkable – to love others, no matter who they are, to help others, whatever their need; in short, to do as Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
We can start by using the greatest tool God gives us for the healing of the world, and pray.
It works. Even if we don’t see it happen, it works!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Lose, David, “Pentecost 2 C: Inviting Us Out of the Tombs,” http://www.davidlose.net/2019/06/pentecost-2-c-inviting-out-of-the-tombs/
[2] See the masterful discussion of Mark’s account of the Gerasene demoniac in Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man. A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2008), pp. 190–194. In my opinion, Luke’s word choices make his telling of the story even more politically resonant than Mark’s.
[3] Jones, Judith, “Commentary on Luke 8:26-39,” http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4108