Saint Luke 8:26–39
I‘ve got good news and bad news for you this morning.
The good news is that the primary election in the State of Illinois is only a week-and-a-half away. The bad news is that the primary election in the State of Illinois is still a week-and-a-half away.
The worse news is that the general election is not until November.
That means that we have at least five more months of grainy, hastily produced ads with voice-overs that sound like the announcer (man or woman) is whispering as if they are at a golf tournament after smoking three packs of unfiltered Camels and downing a couple of glasses of Jack Daniels.
All the commercials are the same. You can always tell who the ad is for or against from the second it starts. Ads that favor the candidate are in colour while ads that oppose are in black-and-white. Outside of this the content is pretty much alike.
Ads purchased by the candidate make them seem like they are a combination of Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, and Mahatma Gandhi. Their candidate will bring safety to our streets; health to our communities, and, in one case prayer back to our schools.
{This, from a venture capitalist whose net worth is worth is estimated at being at least $1.5 million.1 With dough like, if he wants his kids to learn to pray in school, he should send them to someplace like our school, Saint Luke’s Academy, where we will not only teach them to pray but teach them the theology behind it.}
On the other hand, if the ad is from an opponent the candidate is portrayed as a spawn of Satan, who is in favour of all manner despicable things. He or she will raise taxes, cause crime to run rampant on our streets, roll back any progress in the cure for psoriasis, and cause a marked decrease Sunday School attendance. There is no unsavoury thing this candidate is not capable of.
The truth is that no candidate is perfect, and neither is anyone else.
Not even saints like Paul have perfect records. The same man who wrote the beautiful words we have before us today: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”2 And, who wrote that beautiful Ode to Love that is required reading at most weddings: “Love is patient; love is kind...”3 “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”4
The same guy who gave us those words also gave us passages from The Good Book from which has come much mischief.
Like this: ‘Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church... Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”5 How’s that one working out for you, fellas?
Or this: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.”6
That list was so all-encompassing that it led the wonderful Roman Catholic Political Columnist Mark Shields, who passed away just yesterday, to memorably observe when tele-evangelists and others were using it as a cudgel to condemn. “If this is true, heaven is not only going to be sparsely populated it's going to be poorly decorated.”
And finally, this little tidbit that has kept and, in some cases, is still keeping women out of leadership rolls: “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home.”7 I am reminded of our Lord’s words: “[I]f the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”8 Jesus knew that being a male would not automatically make one the go-to-guy on matters of deep theology. Think of how much talent was lost by the misuse of these words from Holy Writ.
The two sides of Saint Paul, the two sides of all of us, means that the distinctively Lutheran tenet that we are at the same time sinners and saints is most certainly true. That can be bad news for some, but the good news is that it means nobody, no one, is unredeemable not even the crazy, naked man in the graveyard.
This guy was not asking for help. He is not asking for healing. He is asking Jesus to leave him alone.
Perhaps that is where he has been all these years, alone. Alone with his thoughts, his fears, his anxieties, his depression, as if they were a legion of soldiers stomping around in his head. It could have been a “mob” because of all the noise that was going on inside of him. When he says his name is Legion, “the man had acknowledged that he no longer had any individual identity. He had lost his name. He had lost his individuality. All that was left was a boiling struggle of conflicting forces. It was as though a Roman legion was at war within him.”9
He also had lost his community who had devised countless ways to keep the poor fellow and bay and themselves safe. They thought they had him under control. They thought their chains would have been strong enough to keep him bound-up for at least a little while. Yes, he would break loose but when he settled down, they would bring him back to the cemetery and to his isolation and have him under control again. But that wouldn’t last and soon the voices in his head would get the best of him and he would be loose tearing through the streets and disrupting their lives.
The bad news is that they had all grown quite used to this. Both the townsfolk and the man were doomed to this vicious “rinse, wash, dry, and repeat” cycle. Until Jesus shows up and turns all of their worlds topsy-turvey. At this point they can’t decide whether what just happened was good news or bad news.
The good news is that when Jesus heals the man, he solves one problem. The bad news is that now they all have another. Pigs are running through the streets and flinging themselves headlong into the sea. The townsfolk must have been terrified and the pork-producers livid. “All this uproar for the freedom of one man.” they must have thought. “The old ways may have had their moments of madness but at least we believed we had them under control.” Now things are going to be radically different, and the people just aren’t sure just exactly what kind of news this is.
Everybody, that is, except for the man who is sitting at the feet of Jesus “properly clothed and quite sane.”10 For him this was more than good news. It was great news! He was restored to himself, now he could be restored to his family, his friends, his neighbors, his community. For him it was all good news.
Meanwhile, that same community, which should have been rejoicing, throwing a party over one who was lost being found, wasn’t so sure. I love the way Dr. Eugene Peterson, summed up their reaction perfectly in his paraphrase: “too much change, too fast, and they were scared.” 11
For them the news wasn’t so good, and their reaction was making it unbelievably difficult for the man to return to his hometown where he was so well known. People would be watching him carefully for a long time waiting for a relapse. It would take a while for all that happened between them to be forgotten.
Is it any wonder that the man doesn’t just ask, he begs to go with Jesus.
He wants to go with the one who healed him, the one who wasn't afraid to come near him, who didn't walk on the other side of the street. He wants to go with his new teacher and Lord and learn more about the kingdom of God. He's ready to follow Jesus.
To others along the way Jesus issues the invitation, "Come, follow me," but to this one he says, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."
Jesus does bid the man to follow, but in this case the following, involves staying rather than leaving. Jesus does not reject the man's application for discipleship but accepts it fully. I even have a first appointment all lined up for you, Jesus says from the boat. Your congregation is standing right behind you. No, go and tell....12
That is the man’s job and ours! And, of course, it is full of good news and bad news.
The crowds we face are just as tough, if not tougher, than the crowds the man faced.
The crowds we face seem to like, if not gravitate to, candidates that tear one another down rather than build their communities up. The bad news is that negative political ads work!
The crowds we face idolize, to the point of idolatry, a leader so much that they would risk the Republic on his behalf.
The crowds we face worship their guns more than God.
And the worse news of all, the crowds we face may be indifferent to Jesus' message entirely.
The good news is we can still tap into the God’s power to transform the painful brokenness of what is into the hopeful promise of what ought to and can be.
The Good News of God’s promise is still there when brave men and women stand up to the powers of this world that hurt, and disparage, and destroy and say, “that is not of God, and we will have none of it.”
God’s promise is still there when we stop thinking that the way things are so shall they ever be and come together to make the world a better place for Dawson and all baptized believers like him.
God’s promise is still there to remind us that God loves our differences. God loves our diversity! God likes the idea that there are Jews and Greeks, males and females, gays and straights, bi’s and trans. God promise is that the words of the old Sunday School song are true – “red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in God’s sight.”
Understand this: “It’s not the division, it’s the rankings that are shattered.”13 No one person or group is better than anyone else in God’s eyes. There are no deplorables or irredeemables and certainly no one who is righteous beyond measure in the eyes of God.
And this most radical of all thoughts! That God’s promise is still there for Democrats, and Republicans, and Independents and can be seen in all of them when they don’t divide up into camps but work together for the common good.
God longs for the day when we are freed from our fears, restored to our right minds, and living out the promise of not only the Gospel but all of Scripture when all God’s of children are one united in God’s love.
May that day come soon for when it does it will be good news indeed.
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1. Anish Dahal, “What Is GOP Candidate Jesse Sullivan Net Worth in 2022?,” Mixed Article, May 25, 2022, https://www.mixedarticle.com/gop-candidate-jesse-sullivan-net-worth-i.
2. Galatians 3:28. (NRSV) [NRSV= The New Revised Standard Version]
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