I. Theme – Jesus’ presence changes our lives
Demon Possessed Man
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
First Reading – Isaiah 65:1-9
Psalm – Psalm 22:18-27
Epistle –Galatians 3:23-29
Gospel – Luke 8:26-39
Today’s readings focus on the understanding of how Jesus’ presence changes our lives. Past, present and future unfold before us in today’s scripture readings.
Isaiah describes God’s necessary judgment and promise of final deliverance and cleansing for the people.
The psalm conveys Israel’s experience of God in the past and extols God’s majesty and divine protection. The psalmist’s lips give praise to God, whose identity was never in question. The psalmist yearns for God’s presence, especially in times of suffering.
By the time Paul wrote to the Galatians, the heirs of the promise to Abraham’s spiritual offspring were claiming their inheritance. Justified by faith in Christ, no longer separated by the law from God or neighbor, Jews could be united with Gentiles. The blueprint of God’s kingdom was discernible on earth. Paul writes to the Galatians of their unity and freedom in Christ Jesus.
Following the chronological order of revelation, we move to scenes of those who come to know the mystery and majesty of Jesus. Jesus’ begins his mission to the Gentiles with the expulsion of many demons in this foray across the Sea of Galilee. The healed demoniac and his fellow villagers struggle with the implications of such a powerful figure in their midst. The demoniac is healed and restored to community through Jesus’ power. Although he wants desperately to follow Jesus, the healed man is directed to do his evangelizing first with his own family.
Two questions emerge in today’s readings: “What are you doing here?” and “What is your name?” In responding to those questions, fright and powerlessness are transformed into resolve and agency. Both Elijah and the man possessed by a demon are given the same instruction following their encounter with God, “Return.” Go back to the place where life fell apart; return to the community you fled out of fear and powerlessness. Go back to your household, Jesus tells the demoniac. Show your face again, but as a new creation, in the words of Paul, clothed in the mantle of divine power and purpose. What questions do we need to hear to experience healing, transformation, and courage?
God is at work among the people we don’t even know are there for us. God is at work in the restoration that will happen after the destruction. God is at work in our very lives. God is at work in us as a community, for we are the body of Christ. But we are the ones who put up barriers, who raise up walls, who divide and declare who is inside and who is out. We are the ones who do the damage, who divide the body. But Christ is at work in all of us, if we can remember that we are the body of Christ.
II. Summary
First Reading – Isaiah 65:1-9
Two major Isaianic themes are rehearsed here. One is judgement. There is a rehearsal of bad behaviors (sitting in tombs, thus making oneself ritually impure, the eating of swine’s flesh, the “broth of abominable things”) that could be assigned to either a foreign nation, or to a forgetful Israel.
Isaiah 65:1-9 follows the second thread in our Hebrew Scriptures on God’s fulfillment of the covenant, God’s promises being renewed. Today’s reading comes from near the end of the second part of Isaiah’s prophecy (chapters 40-66) that is primarily composed of words of consolation and encouragement for the exiled Jews. But even here, the Jews are reminded that they must show the proper reverence for God. The long history of improper conduct in response to God’s sacred presence in their midst cannot be forgotten. It will certainly bring God’s judgment.
Even though Israel will continue to fail, to fall away and to forget God, God will not forget them. The people will suffer the consequences of their own actions—their own turning away from God and turning to other earthly fulfillments will backfire on themselves—but God still is there, and God will welcome those who return.
This moment of judgment will give way to a time of blessing and restoration for the chosen people and their land. God’s loving faithfulness overrides the demand for judgment and punishment. So, despite the long catalogue of the people’s failures in relation to God, Isaiah once again affirms God’s promise of fidelity and restoration.
It is here that we see the second major theme – the theme of the “remnant”. “As wine is found in the cluster, and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it’” – clues us into this theme. There is something good remaining, as in the nascent wine resident in the berry of the grape. It is the kernel of faith that still exists with either people or foreign nation. This spark, God will not put out, but will bring them back. Here the image is one of a people returned to the land of their mothers and fathers, and, Isaiah hopes, to their God.
Psalm – Psalm 22:18-27
This is the psalm that is often said or sung at the Stripping of the Altar at the end of the Maundy Thursday Liturgy. Its references to mocking, being stripped of clothing, and being “dried up” are a comfortable match with the Passion of Jesus.
Psalm 22 consists of a lament and a thanksgiving. The psalmist describes the distress he is suffering and his trust in God. The lord has always been faithful to Israel and to him. But now he is tormented by enemies, whom he likens to savage beasts. The psalmist prays for God’s deliverance quickly, but also reminds the listener that God is the one who rules, God is the one who cares for all, especially the poor and the marginalized, and God will bring deliverance.
In this reading we focus on the latter verses of the psalm. Implicit in the sorrow of the author is the past mercy of a gracious God. It is these mercies that the author wishes to proclaim in “the midst of the congregation”. This gathering of people represents those truly in need: the poor, foreigners, outcasts, and even the dead. It is these that are invited to a “great assembly” which subsequent verses describe as a banquet that satisfies all.
Epistle – Galatians 3:23-29
Some early Jewish converts to Christ insisted that pagan converts become practicing Jews as part of their accepting Christ. The Apostle Paul overturns such distinctions.
Galatians 3:23-29 is the famous climax of Paul’s argument: there is no difference when it comes to who we are as God’s children. There is no Jew or Greek. There is no slave or free. There is no male or female. There is no old or young. There is no gay or straight. There is no normal or not normal. There is no disabled and abled. But all of us are one. It does not mean we are all the same, but rather our differences are who make each of us unique, and in Christ, we are one body (1 Corinthians 12). We are one in Christ Jesus, we are God’s children.
This passage is part of Paul’s message that faith in Christ fulfills the law of Moses. Through baptism into Christ, all are now “children of God” (v. 26), the Old Testament designation given to anointed kings (Psalm 2:7) and to the whole people of Israel (Exodus 4:22).
When verse 26 says, "Through faith you are all children of God," it means faith as described above, contrasted against religion as legal observance. To be baptized is literally to be saturated in Christ, and to be clothed with Christ is to conform to him in one’s external behavior, as well as internally. The distinction between Jews and Greeks (Gentiles) is abrogated, as we saw above; but it goes further: our unity in Christ abrogates distinctions between slaves and masters, men and women
Verses 28-29 are probably based upon a baptismal liturgy. In early church baptisms, the candidate entered the waters in the nude, and came out of the waters to be clothed with a white garment. Thus Paul says, that the candidate is “clothed with Christ.”
The baptized clothe themselves with Christ and adopt a new personality and a new way of life. Even today the new white baptismal garment reminds us of our incorporation into Christ’s body, the church. Baptism makes us all God’s children and so heirs of the promises to Abraham made long before the law was given to Moses.
Here distinctions end. All the usual ways of describing individuals are no longer useful, for “all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” In the final verse, Paul ties the Christian into the salvation history of Israel, implying the satisfaction of an ancient promise.
God’s delight in diversity leads to affirmation of differences and the equally important recognition that our differences are secondary to God’s presence in our lives. All the dividing lines dissolve in God’s graceful acts of reconciliation in Christ. We are one and yet many, but our manifoldness contributes to deeper unity in the body of Christ
Gospel – Luke 8:26-39
Luke 8:26-39 tells of the healing of the Gerasene Demoniac. This passage is hard for us to read today, but we need to recognize that in the first-century Mediterranean world, much that was unexplainable was explained by using spiritual terms
Jesus turns his attention to the Gentiles by crossing the Sea of Galilee into their territory. From the Jewish perspective, such a ministry would demand enormous cleansing since Gentile territory would have many possible sources of ritual impurity or “uncleanness” that would prohibit Jews from taking part in worship services. Thus it is not surprising that Jesus confronts a man who is possessed by a multitude of demons—so many that they are identified as a legion (the name for a large Roman military unit of 3000 to 6000 men).
What we do know is that Jesus confronted the demons of his day and healed people afflicted by them, including this man from Gerasene. And in a strange twist, the demons beg to be cast into a heard of pigs instead of “going back into the abyss” (vs. 31). But they enter the pigs and run over a steep bank into a lake and are drowned. Jesus healed this man, that his man was able to converse with Jesus afterwards “in his right mind” and with clothes on (vs. 35).
The dramatic healing is only the prelude, though, to the further development of the characteristics of Jesus’ mission. Jesus confronts the demons, requires that they reveal their name—thus giving Jesus power over them. When the people come out to see what Jesus had done, they find the demoniac seated at Jesus’ feet – the position of a disciple.
Naming our “demons” gives us power in relationship to them. We are no longer victims, but despite their destructive power, they are no longer entirely mysterious and inscrutable. We can find a way to respond to their alienating power, and even if we are not initially delivered from their control, help – and hope – is on the way.
The demons request that they not be sent back into “the abyss”, a reflection of the Hebrew place of the dead – Sheol. He grants their wish to infest a herd of swine rather than return to the underworld. The pigs rush into the waters, another ancient image of death. Is there hope for healing even among the demonic forces? Is there a Godward place even in that which is most disruptive of God’s intent for humankind? The demonic can’t stay put: when we challenge evil, it must go somewhere and the lake is the safest place for demons and humans alike.
The community is rightly afraid of a man like Jesus who has demonstrated the power and control over demons. This kind of power could be very upsetting to their community and its traditions. So because of their fear, they ask Jesus to leave.
The healed man, knowing how his life has been changed for the better, wants to follow Jesus and continue to be with him. The man finds himself healthy again, “clothed and in his right mind.” He is clothed in Christ’s healing love; he is no longer to be judged as a demon possessed man, but as God’s beloved child.
Jesus, however, speaks the words that might become the guideline for all his followers, reminding them that the first and most obvious place for their mission is their own household. Jesus tells the man to go back home, but also points to what God has done. Jesus never sought attention and recognition for himself, but rather chose to point to what God was doing right in people’s lives.
Thematically, we see in its image of the possessed man the people mentioned in Psalm 22, or even the returnees in the reading from Isaiah (he lived in tombs – an abomination). This is the only story in Luke that takes place outside of Israel, and it serves as premonition of the ministry to the Gentiles that will be so important in Luke’s program. The story is of an exorcism, a healing (or the word could mean “saving”), and the consequences. The presence of pigs underscores the “foreign” nature of this healing, and of the role that Gentiles will play in proclaiming the ministry of Jesus.
The man’s condition also challenges us to take seriously realities of mental illness in our community and recognize that God’s aim at healing is present in every health condition. No one is fully alien from us, nor is anyone fully cut off from God’s grace despite their current state of mind.