Dcn Leah Sandwell-Weiss

Dear friends,

In today’s Gospel (Luke 8:26-39), Jesus goes into Gentile territory on “the other side” of the Sea of Galilee. There he finds a man with demons whose situation has gotten so bad that his family and neighbors keep him in chains. He lives in the tombs, outside the city, to keep him away from others. He names his demons “Legion,” which could be a reference to the vast number of them or the trauma of the Roman legions in the area. The demons recognize Jesus’ power and ask that he not send them back into the abyss. He transfers them into a herd of pigs who then rush into the lake. Jesus has once again reached out to the “other” and healed him. He wasn’t afraid of any taint of uncleanness by being in Gentile territory and helping a Gentile man with demons.

A few points about what happens next:

First, the locals who saw this happen and those who heard about it are afraid and ask Jesus to leave. Jesus’ actions upset their livelihood, as well as their expectations of the way things are and always will be.

Secondly, the healed man wants to join—but instead of letting him, Jesus tells him to stay and be a witness to the power of God in the man’s community. He went back to his home, proclaiming “throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.”

How often when confronted by things we don’t understand do we try to ignore them and pretend nothing happened? How often when we encounter events that challenge our worldview or beliefs do we turn our heads away or chase the inconvenient truth bearer away? How often do we want to run away to safety rather than stay in community to share the good news? How often, as Pastor Eliza Buchakijian-Tweedy wrote in connection to this gospel, have we been “the townspeople, too afraid to invite Jesus to stay with us and work healing among us; to [sic] afraid to admit we, too, might be possessed.”[*]

Pastor Buchakijian-Tweedy wrote her post to address pastors who ignore the anti-gay use of this scripture. While perhaps not obvious to those of us from affirming churches, this story has been used to characterize gay and transgender people as people with demons who could be cured if they wanted to be. But any of us could be perceived as having demons that haunt us. We need to admit that we, too, might be possessed and need healing. Can we invite Jesus to stay and heal us as well?

[*] Eliza Buchakjian-Tweedy, An Open Letter to Preachers, https://sermonizing.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/an-open-letter-to-preachers/ (June 15, 2016).