Thank God for Flying Pigs

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


And now for something completely different.


Possession. Casting out of demons. Flying pigs drowning themselves in the Sea of Galilee. Oh, my!!!


For those of you who weren’t in the Bible study on Monday, I’ll give you a bit of background for that last one. – The city of Gerasa was about 50 kilometers southeast of the Lake, which we now call the Sea of Galilee. Pigs, which have no sweat glands, would die long before they reached the sea by running. They must have flown down the hill.

So we have possession, casting out of demons and flying pigs all in one short story. This story seems to be completely out of our world view, and for the most part it probably is.

In Jesus’ time, most mental illnesses and some physical illnesses were thought to be caused by demons or unclean spirits. These demons were eternal somethings (the word literally means minor divinities) looking for somewhere to settle down. When they got into somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, for instance a human being, they caused all kinds of problems. Casting them out would instantly fix these problems, but there were very few people who could do this. Jesus was one of them. This particular man was possessed by many spirits, enough so that they called themselves legion (which would make 6,000 of them). Jesus was probably the only one with enough power to cast out that many.


Today we don’t blame sickness on demons, at least not usually. We do still have the rite of exorcism available to us in this diocese in the Anglican tradition. In order to use it however, I have to explain the situation to Bishop Sue and get her permission beforehand. And from historical accounts, some of which are quite recent, exorcism sometimes works.

But as I said, we don’t often blame sickness on demons anymore. So how do we make sense of this reading in our current world view?


Today’s version of this story would be about faith healing. We have our own legion of demons to choose from: cancers of all varieties, depression, cerebral palsy, dementia, addiction. The list goes on and on: diseases and conditions which are difficult or impossible to cure or even to manage with medicine.

We hear story after story about people traveling around the world for treatments which are not medically proven. Some of these people get better. Many don’t. This is a type of faith healing. This healing is sometimes medicine which just hasn’t been proven yet, but more often than not it is healing that happens because people believe so strongly that it the treatment will help. They have faith in the medicine. The power this kind of belief has over our bodies can be awesome and unexplainable. This is not the kind of faith healing that this story is about.


Placing that kind of absolute belief in God is transformative. It can sometimes accomplish the same type of physical healing, but that is only a side benefit. The healing that comes from faith in God transforms our lives in other ways.

If we look at the man healed in today’s story we see a man who has been cast out of society in just about every way possible. Jesus comes and the man kneels at his feet, acknowledging his power. Jesus transforms this man. Healing him of his afflictions does not make him just another ordinary citizen of Gerasa. No – he returns to a city which is terrified of him because of the extreme change. He goes back to a city where there is no real Jewish presence, where there are no followers of Jesus. He goes back to that city to proclaim a message which will leave him separated from the rest of society in a different way than before: just as isolated but with a real purpose to his life.

Modern examples of faith healing are everywhere. The most common examples are probably twelve step programs for addiction. A key step in these programs is acknowledging that we can’t do it ourselves. We need help from God. People who are successful in these programs are not cured of their addictions, but their lives are transformed in a way that can only come from God.

Faith healing is like this. Our body may or may not be healed – our souls are. By putting that kind of faith in God we are healed. Our demons are cast out. Even the ones we never realized were there. We all have them. We all have the power to give them to God.


Thanks be to God.