“How Much Has God
Done For You?”
Sermon delivered on
In the Gospel lesson for today we witnessed an
interaction between Jesus and a man oppressed by too many demons to count. He has lost himself in the cacophony of their
voices and has ceased being a self, an individual, a person. As a result he spends his days raving alone
in the wilderness, a danger to himself and others, separated from his community
and even from himself. While we may, or
may not, have experienced such dramatic interactions with the demons in our
lives, I would guess that most of us have met with times when we felt
disconnected from God and from the person God intends us to be.
One of my personal demons is weight and by extension,
fitness. I’ve struggled with my weight
for as long as I can remember, certainly back to my elementary school
days. Being a fat kid with glasses
decades before it was commonplace didn’t do much to help my self-esteem, and it
kept me from fully experiencing big chunks of my youth. I was embarrassed to go to the pool, afraid
to wear t-shirts and other snug-fitting clothing. Compounding this was the sad fact that I had,
and have, very little in the way of athletic ability and you have the formula
for a highly introverted kid who threw his energies into schoolwork and
music. Not that these are bad things,
mind you, it‘s just that when my peers were out playing ball most of the time I
was inside reading. I’ve overcome my
weight demon several times over the years, and it always seems to come back for
a visit. During my Coast Guard career, I
had to meet weight and fitness standards or run the risk of losing my
commission, so I did fairly well but still I heeded the call of Double Stuff
Oreos washed down with Vernor’s (diet, of course) way too often and had to
scramble to be ready at weigh-in time and for fitness evaluations. Personal demons can be darned pervasive
things…
In both of today’s Scriptural readings, we heard stories
of several becoming one. In Paul’s
letter to the church at
The Gerasene demoniac symbolizes all that the Jewish
culture and tradition considered unclean. He was not in his right mind, which ancient cultures often identified
with the power of evil. He ran around
naked, violating a cultural norm of modesty. The Gerasenes were so threatened by this man
that they kept him under guard and bound with chains and shackles that he would
often break and be driven by the demons into the wilds. He lived in the tombs among the dead,
about as ritually unclean as you could get. Heck, he wasn’t even Jewish, and still Jesus took pity on him and
cleansed him of his affliction. And by
doing so, he ordained the first Gentile disciple although this fellow didn’t
quite follow his instructions to the letter; Jesus told him to declare how much
God had done for him, he went into the city of Gerasa proclaiming how much
Jesus had done for him. A minor point,
perhaps but remember how insistent Jesus is throughout the gospels that the
glory go to God, not him. I wonder how
the other disciples, all of them devout Jews, felt about all of this? We’re still fairly early in Jesus’ ministry,
he and the others have just crossed the Sea of Galilee, Jesus has calmed the
storm that threatened to capsize their boat and once they safely reach the
other side Jesus uses his extraordinary power to heal a deranged Gentile,
violating one Jewish law after another in the process. It’s easy for us to look at this story and
interpret it as evidence that no one is beyond the reach of Christ’s redeeming,
healing love. But to a group of first
century Jews who thought Jesus had come exclusively to free the children of
Israel, this must have been a bit tough to understand. Allowing the demons to inhabit a herd of
swine, which Judaism considered unclean and utterly useless would have made
some sense to the disciples but little else that had just happened would have. And what do we make of the reaction of the
swineherds and other people in the country of the Gerasenes? I think we can sympathize with the
swineherds, whose livelihood had just run headlong into the sea, and to some
extent with the citizens for whom swine represented a source of food and
economic stability but the Scripture says that the people asked Jesus to leave
because they were seized with great fear. Fear of what? Fear of the power
of God that Jesus had just exercised? Fear of the loss of money represented by the herd of swine? Or fear of having to embrace the ultimate
outsider, the now-healed demoniac as an insider, as one of them? Why did the Gerasene swineherds and townsfolk
send Jesus away?
I suppose you could argue that the former demoniac isn’t
really an insider, after all Jesus left him behind even though he begged to go
with him but he now had a job to do, to tell his story to all who would listen
so to some extent he’s still on the outside looking in. But now he’s not easily dismissed. He looks normal, he sounds normal, he has
several witnesses to his healing so he can’t be written off as a crackpot. He has to be dealt with on his own merits,
just as we have to deal with those among us who have overcome personal demons
on their own merits. And we don’t always
that particularly well, do we?
It is simply much easier to stick with what we know than
it is to change our paradigms. Even
while we might admire the hard work someone has done to lose weight and get in
shape, even when the change is undeniable and we offer praise to the person with
words like “wow, you look great! I’m
really impressed with what you’ve done!“ how often when we think of that person
do we see them in our mind’s eye as overweight and weak? If you know someone who has always, always
been a lousy golfer, so bad that you
avoided playing with them and they took lessons from a top-notch pro, improved
their game to the point that they cleaned your clock the one time you consented
to play with him, do you write that off as a one-in-a-million thing, you had a
bad day, he must have cheated rather than accept that he worked hard to change
and then accept him as a worthy opponent? On a far more serious note, what do you think about a recovering
alcoholic or drug addict, those who have gone through the agony of overcoming a
debilitating disease? Are they always a
drunk or a crackhead to you? Or do you
welcome them as the new creations that they in fact are? Those who have faced up to their demons large
or small, those who have not given in to the seeming ease of the status quo,
those who have done the sometimes monumental work of wrestling their personal
demons to the ground and defeating them are indeed new creations, made in the
image and likeness of God through the power and presence of Jesus Christ. They have claimed their birthright as
children of God, they have as Martin Luther did when he felt oppressed by the
devil shouted “I am baptized!“ as an acknowledgment of God’s claim on his life
and been saved. They have come to
understand how much God has done for them, and we ought to recognize and
celebrate that right along with them.
And what of those who have fallen away from a life of
faith and then come back home after a time? It seems to me that this is sometimes the hardest demon of all to
overcome, and the hardest one for us to forget. To live a truly Christian life is perhaps the hardest path to take, one
that is fraught with danger. Danger of
rejection by an increasingly secular society, danger of falling short of the
goal of oneness with Christ, danger of giving in to the temptation of
shortcuts. Danger of others not allowing
us to be the new creation in Christ that we have become. Danger of our doing the same to someone else.
Where do those who are changed fit into our world? Who are the Gerasenes in your life, and are
you ever a Gerasene, one who reacts with fear when confronted with the power of
God that transforms a life? Do you ever
say “thanks God, that’s nice but leave me alone?” What do we do with those who have been freed
from their demons? Do we allow people to
claim their new life in Christ, or do we keep them (and ourselves) in the
prison of demon possession even after they’ve been freed? After we’ve been freed?
If we are honest with ourselves, each of us has taken
detours on the road of life that has led us away from God and the person God
has given us to be. Each of us has
succumbed to a personal demon or two and rejected some portion of our
birthright as children of God and followers of the Risen Christ. The good news is that, just as the Gerasene
demoniac we can be cleansed of our demons and brought into right relationship
with God through the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Only you know what demons possess you. Only you can decide if you want to be freed
of them. Ultimately, only you can call
for help to overcome those demons. When
you put out the call for help, make sure the first one you call on is God. He’s done a whole lot for you already, but I
guarantee you he’s more than willing to do a little more.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
