Luke 8:26-39 (Prince of Peace, Spokane, during Pr. Skindlov’s sabbatical)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you so much Prince of Peace for the invitation to be with you this morning and for working with Pastor Joel so that he could take time this summer for sabbatical. 

It is an interesting task to talk about demons in the 21^st century in the United States of America. We do not experience demons as they are described in the Bible. But rest assured that my words this morning will not be stuck in first century Palestine. I believe there is a way to talk about demons in our lives today. But first, we need to imagine ourselves with that group of disciples who are following Jesus in a very different time and place.

Imagine we have left our home country and journeyed across the lake. It was an eventful trip. A windstorm swept us down the lake, and we thought we would drown. Jesus calmed the storm. He apparently has power over the forces of nature. Now we have arrived in a foreign country—the country of the Gerasenes. The Messiah, Jesus, was supposed to come to save our people, so we do not quite know what we are doing here. What room is there in the reign of God for Gerasenes?

The first person Jesus encounters on this alien turf is a man of sorry plight. He is naked, shameful, and obviously cut off from the community. His home is in the tombs. In a very real way, he is living as a dead man. He has been in bondage for many years. He has lost all social and religious status. We soon learn the reason for this. Thousands of demons hold him in captivity. Jesus asks him his name and he replies “Legion.” A Roman military legion contains 5,600 troops. The demons are so strong that mere chains and shackles cannot confine them. 

Is there anything we can compare to such a tragedy, to someone whose identity is so far gone? One of my favorite professors brings the text into our own context. To begin with, all the demons Jesus confronts have three things in common. Listen and hear if any of this sounds familiar.

First, the demons Jesus confronts all cause self-destructive behavior in the victim. The victim feels trapped in that condition. The demons separate the victim from normal living in the family circle. Do not many of us suffer from the same kinds of snares and burdens? Do we not have friends and family members who are?

“Demons” are those forces which have captured us. They have prevented us from becoming what God intends us to be. And so, we are surrounded by—yes, possessed by—as many demons as those whom Jesus encountered. Our demons can be of many kinds: mental illnesses, schizophrenia, paranoia, addictions, obsessions, destructive habits, anxiety, loneliness. I am sure that each of you, through personal experience and through a a relationship with a friend, a family member, a co-worker or client, can add other specific demons to the list.

Note the similarities between this demon-possessed man and the demons that possess us. He was totally cut off from family and society. He did not live with people, but in the tombs, probably in caves that were used as burying places. The Gerasene demoniac was also “driven by the demon into the wilds.” In other words, he was already in a “living death,” separated from normal people and normal living. Picture in your mind’s eye how demons today isolate people both physically and emotionally.

And the demons were harming him. In another version of this story, the man was “bruising himself with stones” (Mark 5:1-20) and “no one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain.” Mental illness, addiction, destructive habits hurt people every day.

Finally, and most sadly, the demoniac was so totally possessed that though the demons recognized Jesus as “Son of the Most High God,” the man could not free himself. Only the power of God can cast out demons. The seventy person sent out by Jesus soon after this healing came back and reported, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” (Luke 10:17).

This is the key to the work of Alcoholics Anonymous, whose twelve steps to healing begin with these three:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him.

These first three steps are basic to the AA program. Likewise, we are not passive, but we cannot cast out demons on our own. We need God to free us from our demons. 

It is said that when Martin Luther felt oppressed by the devil, he would take courage by shouting, “I am baptized!” In this way he grounded his confidence of healing in God’s external, objective act of drawing him into the Christian family throught he water and the word of baptism. We also can declare that God claims us once, again, and always as God’s own beloved children. “Child of God” is your name, the name, that can never be taken away.

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous also realize they do not only need God’s help, but they need the support of people around them. In almost all of Jesus’ stories of healing, there is restoration to families and townspeople—people are returned to their community and the community welcomes them. For the healing of demons today, the fellowship of family, congregation and community is a key to restoration. Becoming free from our demons is seldom a “do-it-yourself” project. We need help from outside ourselves. We need God’s help and we need the other people who are instruments of God’s healing.

At the end of the story, the man “had been healed,” a word from the Greek sozo. Sozo can also be translated saved, or delivered, or made whole. He is not only delivered from the demon and not only cured of the terrible burden. He has been altogether healed and saved. 

You may not feel that you are living with a demon right now, but I will simply name, as I have in my synod newsletter columns, that we are living in unsettled times. There is simply a heaviness right now—worrying about the well-being of all those living on the margins of society, worrying about violence close at home and warfare across the globe, worrying about so many of the guardrails of society I have taken for granted for so long. And no human being was designed to take in and absorb the amount of information we are now reading and watching. It’s just too much. 

I am audacious enough to believe that Jesus can and is still the balm we need—even in these times. In a society overwhelmed by competition and division, Jesus’ message of love and healing and belonging is as relevant and needed as ever. In a time when the world, including myself, has gone digital, Jesus’ gifts of love and forgiveness is received in very simply bread and wine—common and physical elements that we receive with our physical bodies. No matter what you are bringing today to this community of the Body of Christ, the healing and wholeness given by Jesus Christ, are for you as well, today and always. Amen.