From the Daily Lectionary for Monday in the Nineteenth Week after Pentecost
Luke 8:26-39
Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
We post-Enlightenment people don’t believe in demons anymore. We have the benefit of scientific knowledge when it comes to illness and natural disaster. There are rationales to explain social and economic ills. We generally have a reasonable explanation for everything. For the ancients, demons represented the presence of evil, disease, and suffering in the world. As there were gods among us, so too were there demons. There was personal possession as in mental illness, and there was structural possession as in being occupied by a foreign power.
This famous story in Luke is more about the latter. Jesus asks the demoniac his name, to which he replies, “my name is Legion,” because as Luke tells us, he had “many” demons. The reference to “legion” would not have been lost on the audience. They would have been reminded of the Roman troops, legions, occupying their homeland, and their abusive oversight. So the story becomes one about the dire situation in which Israel finds itself. The demoniac becomes a metaphor for the plight of Israel, a people who are at their wits’ end, stripped naked, living among the tombs, shackled and chained. Their well-being and dignity, their sustainability as a nation, are sorely compromised.
Jesus’ ministry is about salvation, which is the same as saying that Jesus’ ministry is about well-being and dignity. The demoniac, whom we now know to be a representation of Israel, is healed, restored to sanity, and perhaps more importantly is given back his dignity, set free from the evil that besets him.
The word pandemic means “all demons.” Today we live amid pandemonium. We are beset by a legion of demons: the demons of racism and violence and disease; we are subject to the demons of corruption and lawlessness; the demons of self-interest are ravaging our economy and our climate.
Perhaps the moral of this story is that the demons that beset us don’t have the last word. Jesus commands them to be swallowed up by the sea. We, good people, are heirs of such authority. Demons can’t survive the mindful forces of love and truth. By whatever name we call it, we, as followers of Jesus, have the last word over evil and suffering, even death. We just have to muster the courage to speak it. If ever there were a time to rebuke the demons of our world, it is now.
A Prayer for Healing (Sarapion of Thmuis’ Prayer-Book c. 350 C.E.)
O Master, let every Satanic energy, every plague, every scourge, every pain, every labor or stroke or shaking or evil shadowing, fear thy holy name which we now have invoked and the name of the only-begotten; and let them depart from the inward and outward parts of these thy servants, that his name may be glorified who for us was crucified and rose again, who took up our sicknesses and infirmities, even Christ Jesus and who is coming to judge the quick and the dead. Because through him to thee is the glory and the strength in the holy Spirit both now and to all the ages of ages. Amen.
