Strange Or Not Strange?

Finally--we have made it to the season after Pentecost. Propers 7 through 29 stretch out ahead of us. Miracles, parables, conflict, and comfort all lie ahead of us. Twenty weeks from now, I am sure to be ready for a change in the season, but, for now, I'm glad to be entering the ordinariness of ordinary time. And this Sunday we kick it off with a real gem of an encounter between Jesus, the demon-possessed man, and the community in Luke 8.

You remember the story: Jesus and his disciples come ashore in a boat; Jesus is met by a man with a Legion of demons; and Jesus casts the demons out into a herd of pigs that then drowns itself in the sea. But do you remember what the people of the city do when they come out and find the wild man clothed and in his right mind, sitting at Jesus' feet? They are filled with fear and ask Jesus to leave. Strange? Or not strange?

The drama of the story is surely contained in Jesus interaction with the Legion. This wild man has been a nuisance and threat to the community. He has broken every chain and shackle that the people have tried to place on him. He terrorizes them. Before letting their children play outside, parents check to make sure that the man isn't anywhere nearby, and, even then, they won't let them stray far for what the man might do to them. At any time, he could come and create havoc. Mostly, though, he lives amidst the tombs, in the unclean place of the dead, where a demon-possessed man belongs

As soon as the man sees Jesus, he identifies him as the "Son of the Most High God," a name that lets the reader know that the demon recognizes Jesus for who he really is. The demon has power over the man, but it recognizes that Jesus will have power over itself. Legion is a Roman name, reminiscent of the military brutality that the Empire has brought to this land. Yet Jesus commands the demon (permits it?) to enter a herd of unclean swine, which then races down into the water, killing the pigs and returning the demon to its primordial home--the sea.

The effect is immediate. The man is no longer wild. He gets dressed and sits quietly, attentively, at Jesus' feet. But, when the townspeople come out and see it, they are filled with fear. "Please leave," they say to Jesus with one voice. "We don't want you here. Please be on your way. You are not welcome here." Strange? Not strange? Jesus had given them the relief that no one else could give. He had restored sanity to the man and to the community. And the people ask him to leave. Why?

They could be upset because the pigs were killed--a substantial loss for the pig farmers. Or maybe this is Jewish-Gentile conflict. Maybe the death of the pigs represents in their minds a triumph of Jewish identity over their Gentile culture. Or maybe Luke wants us to see the imperial connection and understand that Jesus isn't just banishing a demon but attacking the demonic identity that the Empire, with its military Legions, represents. Maybe the townspeople don't want any outside agitators in their midst, thank you very much.

I may not know the specific thing that the townspeople had in mind when they asked Jesus to leave, but I know why they asked him to go. Change is incredible threatening, and Jesus was offering radical change. Sanity always seems so attractive from a distance, but, when it's your chaos that is being exchanged for someone else's peace, you find yourself fighting against the change.

Have you ever been to AA? Have you ever been to Al-anon? Why do you think your mother fell and broke her hip one week after being moved into the assisted living facility? Why do you think your preschooler keeps biting her classmates? The human psyche is wildly strange, but its predictable responses to change aren't strange at all. All of us would rather have the crazy we know than the peace we don't. All of us find God's reign and the reordering of our lives that it represents threatening. This week, as we watch what Jesus does for the demon-possessed man, don't forget to notice what happens to the community. If we are going to accept the peace that Jesus brings, we, too, must be transformed--not from the outside but from within.