Luke 8: 26-39
Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA
This passage in Luke’s Gospel this morning is a difficult one to preach on. To phrase it succinctly, there are two issues that we modern day readers come up against here that make it difficult to see the forest for a couple of trees that get in our way.
First, there are the demons. We modern readers don’t usually have firsthand experiences with the kinds of demons that first-century ancients believed in. You see, in ancient times, the people took for granted that evil spirits and demons really did exist. The ancient peoples believed that demons were active and regularly involved in their lives. These demons were very destructively working in harmful ways. It was the only way that they could explain conditions such as mental illness, schizophrenia, paranoia, addictions, obsessions, and other destructive habits. So, in the absence of medical science that could explain some of these conditions, they believed that evil spirits were actively working to make their lives miserable.
The second obstacle that we face today is how we feel we should treat animals influenced by our modern 21st Century sensibilities. Some people will listen to this story – of when the herd of swine is possessed by the demons that Jesus has extracted from the possessed man and who then run head long over a cliff and drown in the lake below – they will listen and take offense at how the treatment of the swine is depicted. They shake their heads and step back their vision clouded and unable to see what Jesus was doing and how he was working in the life of this possessed man. Some people can’t get passed the notion that Jesus would allow these animals to be slaughtered in such a way. They feel it is inhumane, and they shut down not being able to see – as I had said before – see the forest because of a couple of trees blocking their vision.
As I said, I had difficulty understanding what was happening here; so, in preparing for today’s message, I am relying heavily on an outside resource for insight. I found a commentary by a Professor of Preaching from the Lutheran Seminary of St. Paul, a person by the name of Michael Rogness. His thoughts on the passage helped me and I hope you to understand this it better.
OK. So, let’s get into it.
The first thing that will help us is that we should not be reading this as a stand-alone story. Our reading today comes from Luke 8. But we should note that it is the same story that appears in Mark 5. And in Mark’s version, in his condition, the man is doing a great deal of harm to himself. The man was “bruising himself with stones.” No one could restrain him, even with chains. The man, in his condition had developed unusual strength. In his rage, he was able to break whatever restraints that were put on him. So much so that the town people had given up trying to help him and preferred that he be consigned to living in the tombs [the dug-out caves] reserved for the dead. Finally, this man believed that he was so possessed by demons [plural] that they numbered in the thousands – as many soldiers as would be in a Roman legion. So many in fact, that when Jesus began to draw a demon out of him, he refused to believe that he had been cured. He fought and convulsed against Jesus’ efforts every step of the way.
So, we have some additional background being offered by Mark and that gives us more insight. But more than that, [again with the assertion that this passage should not be treated as a stand-alone story.] we need to look at some of the other miracle curing stories before and after today’s text so that we can begin to see the forest – the wider scope of the lesson the Gospel writers are offering us.
In the previous chapter in Luke, Jesus was invited into the home of Simon the Pharisee for dinner. While Jesus, his host and guests are seated at the dinner table, a woman, who we are told is a sinner, bursts in with a jar of alabaster. She rushes to Jesus and sits at his feet and washes his feet with her tears and then dries them with her hair. She then continues to kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.
Now in the story, Simon – the host, takes offense. He must think to himself, if this man [Jesus] really is a prophet, he should have known what kind of sinner this woman is and should have pushed her away. So, in his very unloving way, Simon accuses Jesus of being a charlatan [not the prophet everyone thought him to be] and the woman of being a sinner with whom no respectable person should be associating with. In the end, after Jesus has told Simon a parable which was meant to put him in his place, Jesus turns to the woman to tell her, her sins have been forgiven. “Your faith has saved you, go in peace.”
In this story, Jesus’ healing actions begin by forgiving the woman her sins. In other words, the comfort and healing Jesus gives the woman reaches into her soul to relieve her deepest pangs of guilt so that she could go in peace. According to Professor Rogness this is the first connected story that will help us to see beyond the trees and into the forest. It is that the scope of Jesus’ power and authority to heal goes to the very depths of our souls.
In the paragraph immediately preceding today’s text, Jesus and the disciples are crossing the Lake in a boat. You know the story. Jesus lay asleep at the stern of the boat a great storm comes upon them. The disciples are terrified that the boat will capsize and that they will most assuredly drown. They rush to Jesus to shake and awaken him. Jesus rises and Luke tells us that he rebukes the wind and the waves, and they cease to rage. The disciples may have believed that the storm was an evil force, a demon if you will. But Jesus shows us and them that he commands even the forces of nature be they demons or not. In other words, the scope of Jesus’ authority and power can heal even the forces of nature. The bigger message here is that Jesus’ role in God’s plan is to bring God’s Shalom to all of creation. Jesus has the power and authority to heal even creation.
The story that immediately follows today’s text is of Jesus double healing of a 12-year-old girl who has died and the woman who had been hemorrhaging for many years. These are the stories of an innocent girl who has died and a woman who according to the Law was ritually unclean.
Jesus has been summoned to the home of the young girl by the grieving parents. On the way, a woman reaches out from the crowd to touch Jesus’ robes. Jesus feels power go out from him and turns to confront whoever had touched him. He finds the woman. She tells her story. Jesus forgives her intrusion and tells her that her faith has made her well; go in peace.
Jesus then turns his attention to the parents who are begging for his healing touch for their dying daughter. But by this time, servants have arrived to them that the girl has died. Jesus hears this news and despite the fact that all have given up all hope, Jesus announces that the girl is not dead and that he will still go to her. “Do not fear [he tells the parents], only believe and she will be saved.”
Now Jesus goes to the house and despite jeering form the crowds who were assembled to grieve for the family and the girl. Jesus enters the house and resurrects the girl and gives her a new life.
Both lives in these stories were changed by Jesus. They were healed – one from a debilitating illness and the other from death. These healings we are told by Jesus are accredited to their faith – that of the woman and the girl’s parents. The power of Faith is another means by which we can see beyond the trees that block our vision.
Now in these connected stories, we can see how Jesus brings deliverance from a sinful guilty conscience, from demons, from a raging storm, from a long-term ailment, and even from death itself.
Now, I think we can turn our eyes to today’s text.
Jesus arrives in a gentile country on the eastern side of the Lake Galilee. It is an early attempt to reach out to a non-Jewish community. Immediately, he is confronted by a man who believes he is possessed by demons. Now the medical reasons for his ailment we can understand today may be mental illness brought on by schizophrenia, paranoia, obsessions, destructive habits and so on.
Whatever his condition was, the man believed [and the townspeople who knew of him believed] that he was possessed by demons. However, Jesus sees the man as he truly is. He is a broken person in pain. What were the causes? We don’t know the causes. But Jesus allows him to come to be comforted and healed much like the woman who reached out to touch his robe. Unlike the woman though the man struggled. He didn’t have the same faith in Jesus that the woman and the parents had in our other healing stories. He may have heard of Jesus, but he did not have the faith that the others had. He was fully convinced that he was possessed not only by one demon but by a legion of demons – as many as the size of a Roman regiment. So, despite Jesus’ attempt to heal his mind the man clung to his belief that his demons were still in control of his mind. So much so that he probably convulsed and screamed uncontrollably to the point that the nearby herd of swine were agitated and began to stampede. Following the lead pig, they rushed away down a slope and into the Lake.
At this point, let’s address that elephant in the story – the herd of swine. Let’s take a moment to understand that this story is being told from a Jewish perspective and in the Jewish culture pigs were an unclean animal – one which Jews had no care for. If a herd of swine were destroyed as a part of this story, our Jewish authors would not have been distressed about it. So, take this with that grain of salt.
So, at this point, Jesus may be using this unfortunate end to the lives of the herd to convince the man of his healing. That his demons had entered the herd and were gone. They had all perished with the herd. The man seeing this was able to finally calm down enough to be able to accept that Jesus had cured whatever his mental illnesses were, as well.
So, animal rights activists, let’s not let this tree block our vision of what Jesus can do for us. Instead, let’s focus on the point of the story – that the man had been healed. The Greek word used by Luke is “sozo”. Sozo can be translated as “saved”, “delivered”, or “made whole.” What we need to focus on is that this man was not only delivered from his demons, not only cured of a terrible burden, but all together healed, made whole and saved. The forest to see here is that is what Jesus and his miraculous healing powers can do for us.
Now we come to two important points at the close of this passage.
First, let us consider the reaction of the townspeople. Unlike the Syrian woman at the well when she realized she was speaking to – the Messiah. She rushed to the townspeople to share that good news, and they all rushed out to believe and welcome Jesus into their town. Their response was to accept the Good News.
Unlike that story, these town folk reacted with distain and asked Jesus to leave them immediately. They rejected the Good News of Jesus’ saving and healing touch. They were more concerned with the loss of their swineherd than with the healing of the wild man who was now sitting calmly at Jesus’ feet, clothed in the loving embrace of the Christ. It was unfortunate that they could not get beyond that tree. That loss blocked their vision, and they were not able to see the miracle before them.
Now the final piece of the story that we need to reflect upon is Jesus’ instructions to the man. Recognizing that Jesus had healed and saved him, he no longer wished to stay in this community. However, Jesus does not allow him to become follower. Instead, Jesus makes him a proclaimer.
This is something of a “Great Commission.” But instead of sending his disciples out to evangelize and baptize the nations, this man is sent back to his hometown to declare how much God had done for him.
This is perhaps the last lesson in this story for us. Our Great Commission may not be to go out into the world to proclaim Jesus is Lord but to go into our own communities, towns and villages. There, too, we are called to proclaim the risen Lord and what he has done to save, deliver, heal us and make us whole. We need to proclaim how Jesus has made us whole. We need to tell the story of our own salvation and rebirth in Christ. That is the forest that lies beyond the trees blocking our vision and that we need to see and proclaim.
We need to help the world to see the forest – that is the wider scope of Jesus’ healing touch. We need to do that by telling our stories of healing and how he has taken our brokenness and made us whole. You – each of you – have a story to tell. Go and share it.
Reference Source: article written by: Michael Rogness, Professor of Preaching from the Lutheran Seminary of St. Paul,
