Thursday, March 9, 2023

Today’s Scripture Reading
Mark 5:1–20

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed. (NRSV)

Reflection

The Gerasene demoniac is one of the more vivid healing stories in the Gospels (parallel accounts of it can be found in Matthew 8—where there are actually two “demoniacs”—and Luke 8). The man’s condition is described with an unusual level of detail, as is Jesus’ method of exorcism. There’s a lot that can be said about both, including historical-critical speculation about what we would label the man’s condition (schizophrenia?) and historical-critical explanation about the symbolism of pigs for Jesus and his first audience. But I’m less interested in those things today than I am in the reaction of the healed man's neighbors.

Afraid? Why? Because Jesus has done something supernatural, displayed a measure of power they’ve never seen and can’t account for? Perhaps. But I wonder if their fear doesn’t also have something to do with what the change in their neighbor’s situation means for them. Could this man’s neighbors have become dependent in some way upon him being the way he was, banished to tombs, away from civilization? Had he harmed some of them or people they cared about? Was he related to some of them, their cousin or brother? Have they made peace with a lost cause, a person who is beyond help, and grieved him already as good as dead?

Exorcised, he is reborn. Natashia Deon writes in her novel The Perishing: “Being born or reborn is like walking onto the stage of a play already in progress. There are already characters developed and on stage and people seated in the audience—whether you’ve invited them or not. Your arrival is forcing everybody else to change who they thought they were to each other and to you.”

Jesus knows who the demoniac is. He knows who his neighbors are too. And Jesus is the one with the parable about the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in the fold to search for the one that’s lost. Jesus does not know lost causes. He knows the way communities adapt themselves to disease and dysfunction, such that a bad status quo they understand is preferable to the possibility of healing, because who knows what that might involve? Jesus’ healing of the Gerasene demoniac and the fear it opens up in all the Gerasene non-demoniacs shows something important about him and them.

They’re not beyond Jesus’ healing either.

Prayer

Great Healing God, may the disease and distress of our neighbors always be a source of disquiet for us. Forbid that we should ever come to rely on their misery as an offset to our contentment, and move us, with you, to joy and celebration at their healing. In the name of Jesus, our physician of our souls. Amen.

Written by Rocky Supinger, Associate Pastor for Youth and Worship

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