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 haven’t covered this passage in a Bible study, 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 the Anglican tradition.
And from historical accounts, some of which are quite recent, exorcism
sometimes works. Though I’m not sure when
it was last used in this diocese. There
is no cannon or policy on its use.
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.
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