Sermon on Luke 8:26-39

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

“Please, Jesus, just leave. You’ve done enough damage here. Just go.”

Not exactly the response we expect Jesus to get.

And that’s not the only weird and surprising thing in this story.

To begin with, Jesus just decides one day to cross the lake with his disciples. On the other side of the lake is Gentile territory—this is the first time Jesus goes to Gentile territory in the Gospel of Luke. And it’s not easy to get there, because there’s a big storm that starts filling their boat with water. Fortunately, Jesus calms the storm. The disciples are so surprised that they start asking each other, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?”

Then, they reach the other side of the lake safely.

All is not well, however.

In the land of the Gerasenes, there is a man who lives in the graveyard, who cannot be held by chains, who walks around naked.

This guy walks up to Jesus—not exactly the ideal welcoming committee—and he starts yelling:

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me!”

Jesus tries to cast out his demons, and the man only cries out louder.

Then, the demons ask Jesus if they can possess a nearby herd of pigs, and Jesus agrees.

I hope the demons didn’t pay their rent in advance, because their new living situation is short-lived: the pigs immediately run down the hill and into the lake.

The demons aren’t the only ones upset by this: the folks who were caring for the pigs go and tell everyone around what had happened. A whole crowd comes and sees the formerly demon-possessed man at Jesus’ feet—the posture of a disciple, a student—and they freak out and ask Jesus to move along.

There is more to this story than meets the eye. There is something wrong at the heart of the community. The man with the demons has been cut off from his neighbors. In that time, it was shameful—not for the man to be naked—but shameful to the community that did not give him anything to wear.[1] And he lives in a graveyard. He has no part in the life of the living around him, except when they try to chain him up.

Then, when he’s released from being tormented by the demons, the community prizes their livelihood over the wellbeing of one of their own. They don’t want Jesus around if he’s going to threaten their income, regardless of his healing ability and works of power.

And, what might not be obvious to our 21st century minds is that there is another character in this story: the Roman Empire.

The man with the demons says his name is “Legion,” which the Gospel explains as meaning“ many demons had entered him.” But “legion” didn’t just mean “a lot.” Legion was a specific term for “a unit of approximately six thousand Roman soldiers.”[2] This man’s body is occupied by a legion of demons, just as the land he lives in is occupied by the Roman Empire. Both are kept in check by violence and oppression.

Perhaps what the pig farmers are afraid of is not just losing their livelihood but incurring the wrath of Rome when they cannot feed the occupying armies.

There is something wrong at the heart of this community.

The occupying empire, as well as the occupying legion of demons, is threatening the wellbeing of the community.

Seven years and two days ago, something obliterated the wellbeing of a faith community in Charleston, South Carolina.

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a young white man walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and joined the folks there for Bible study. He sat and listened through the whole Bible study, and then, during a prayer, he pulled out a gun and shot and killed nine of the twelve people there.

The attack was motivated by white supremacy.

And, lest we think that the problem is hundreds of miles away and has little to do with us, the shooter grew up in an ELCA congregation.

White supremacy insults the image of God in every person. It poisons people and allows them to believe that there are people who are not beloved children of God.

White supremacy is a demonic and sinful belief system that should have no place in our nation or in our denomination. But it does.

White supremacy is insidious. It’s not always so easy to identify as a Confederate flag or a Nazi swastika. It also seeps in in the form of a bad joke, a suspicious glance at someone who looks like they “don’t belong,” and any number of other sly ways. It comes in drops that we might not notice on a daily basis, because it’s a system that floods the world we live in. Those drops build up into storms of violence and hatred and disregard for the image of God in Black people and people of color.

When the image of God is forgotten in any person, just as the community in Jesus’ time had forgotten the humanity of the man with the demons, there is something wrong at the heart of that community.

But Jesus doesn’t leave us to our own devices, throwing his hands up in the air, declaring that our communities are too messed up to do anything about.

No, God has authority over death-dealing systems. Just before this, we saw Jesus calm a storm that had professional fishermen quaking in their sandals. His own followers were amazed: “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?”

Even his own disciples don’t have a good understanding yet of how powerful Jesus is.

But the demons occupying the man in our story do. They know exactly who Jesus is and beg him not to torment them. Demons aren’t really supposed to be the begging sort, but they know who they’re dealing with.

And then, the people who had been watching the pigs saw everything, and they told everyone about this powerful stranger. Granted, the reaction wasn’t exactly positive, but everyone there knew Jesus’ power. And they were so frightened that they asked him to leave them alone.

God has power over death-dealing systems like occupying forces and even white supremacy.

The most violent, destructive systems that exist in our world do not have power over God.

But in our story, Jesus does honor the people’s request for him to leave. He does not smite them or rain down fire on their town—he simply goes on his way.

But he doesn’t wipe the dust of their town off his sandals either. He, in fact, leaves someone very important behind to do God’s work.

The man who had been possessed begs to go with Jesus, to become one of his disciples and follow him wherever he goes. But Jesus tells him to stay there instead.

Jesus is not welcome where they are, but this man has roots in this place. And he has a story to tell about Jesus’ power and compassion. There is work to be done right where he is.

There is work to be done right where we are, too,

in dismantling white supremacy wherever we find it,

in instilling anti-racism in our denomination,

in creating the Beloved Community that God envisions.

There is work to be done right here, especially for those of us who are white.

Those of us who are white have learning, listening, advocating, repairing, and empowering to do. Start where you are, learn something new, listen to your Black siblings and siblings of color, do what you can while following their lead.

Now all of you children of God, take heart. Our God is powerful. Our God is a God of liberation.

God liberated the man in our story from the occupying forces inside him.

God equipped him to share the story of Jesus’ liberating power.

Where all is not well, there is work to be done, and Jesus equips us to do it.

Two days ago may have been the anniversary of the shooting of the Emanuel Nine, but today is also Juneteenth, a celebration of long-overdue freedom for the people who were enslaved in Texas at the end of the Civil War. And today is the anniversary of the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—a step in the direction of honoring the image of God in all people.

God created us all to be free, to be cherished, for our communities to be whole.

We are made in the image of God, and there is work to be done here to remind the world of that.

Let’s make sure the world knows what Paul wrote to the Galatians in today’s reading: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[3]

All of us are one in Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God! Amen.

[1]Nerds at Church podcast

[2]Judith Jones, Working Preacher: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12-3/commentary-on-luke-826-39-4

[3] Galatians 3:28