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A follow up to last week's sermon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/commonschurch to track with all of our bonus content.
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
What do we do with stories of demon possession in the New Testament? This week we were looking at a story in Mark four, which has a parallel in Matthew eight and by the way that story also shows up in Luke eight if you're looking to read that you can compare all three. We're looking at the story where Jesus calms a storm and calls out the fears of his disciples. We'll talk a little bit about that and then we'll jump into where Mark goes in the next chapter in a second but first of all, you may have noticed I'm not doing sort of weekly recap messages of each sermon each week. What we've heard from people is that you like it when we're able to take a little more time and dive into something in a little more depth.
Speaker 1:So instead of doing a two or three minute video every week, I'm what going to try to do is gather up some ideas and dive into something a little more depth, maybe once a month or so. But if you want to get your comments fixed and you want to continue that conversation on a regular basis, the after party is back on Tuesday nights at eight p. M. Live on our YouTube channel. A couple of us from the staff every week talking about the sermon on Sunday and what we've learned this week.
Speaker 1:You can join us for that. We'd love to have you jump into it because it's live every Tuesday. Say hi in the comments and we'll do our best to interact with that. But back to Sunday, we were looking at this passage in Mark four and Matthew eight and the contrast between them. Really interesting story.
Speaker 1:I'll leave a link to the sermon below. But Matthew seems to take this as a pretty simple story about our fear of the things that can hurt us. They come to Jesus, the disciples come to Jesus, and they say, Look, there's a storm. What should we do? And Jesus says to them, Why are you so afraid?
Speaker 1:And then he proceeds to calm the storm for them. Mark has a different take on the same story. In Mark, the disciples come and they say, Don't you care if we drown? Jesus immediately calms the storm and then he turns back to the disciples and he responds to the fear still in their eyes or maybe even now in their eyes after seeing Jesus calm a storm and tell a storm to cut it out, and he says, are you still so afraid? Do you still have no faith?
Speaker 1:So Mark seems to be addressing this fear of salvation or this fear of everything that they hope for in Jesus now in front of them, alive and real and maybe a little too real for them, which is a really interesting story and a really interesting take on this tale, which again is really important because it reminds us that as a church we are an interpretive community. We have these stories of Jesus, but even the gospel writers are interpreting and drawing different meanings out of these stories. This is an ongoing process and one that we're part of today, which I think is what makes the Bible come alive when we give ourselves the freedom to ask question and wonder about what's going on in there. But that story is really the setup for what comes next. In Mark, in Matthew, in Luke, all of these stories lead this calming of the storm into a next story that happens when Jesus gets to the other side of the lake.
Speaker 1:That's where they're going when the storm comes up. And so I wanna talk about that and what it can tell us about stories like demon possession that might make us a little uncomfortable and we might not be sure of how to engage with in a modern world today. I think this one's a really interesting one. So let's take a look at it. Understand that up until this point, Jesus has primarily been teaching in Jewish areas of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1:But at this point in the story, he decides to cross to the other side. Now the other side here is the other side of the Lake Of Kineret across from Galilee. Jewish peoples tended to stay on the West in Galilee. Romans tended to live on the East side of this lake. Now Rome controlled the whole area at the time, but they allowed the Jewish people to maintain a semblance of sovereignty over some of these lands.
Speaker 1:And so on the West side was Galilee, on the other side was a Gentile area where Gentiles were living under Roman control, and there were a lot of hard feelings about that. All of this area had to belong to the Israelites at one point. In fact, if you read the story in any of the Gospels, they're gonna refer to the area on the other side of the lake as the Garracines. Now some manuscripts are gonna say Gadarenes, some are going to say Garrgasines, and the confusion here seems to come from a trio of small little cities that were on the water in that area Geresse, Gadara, and Gergesenes. We don't know exactly which one this is referring to, but we can narrow down the area pretty well.
Speaker 1:However, this word Gerasenes seems to be a Jewish creation that came to mean the cast out ones. Now that could possibly have been a reference to the Gentile communities there, although some think it was a reference to the sizable Jewish population that had left the more economically depressed Jewish regions in the Galilee for greener pastures. Either way, a lot of the Jewish people who stayed were not impressed because all of this region used to be under the control of Israel. That had been a very long time ago, but Jews, particularly religious Jewish people, believed in a day when God would return all of this land to them. So however you slice it here, when Jesus crosses over to the other side, he's stepping into a world that is distinct from where he has come from and spent most of his time in Galilee.
Speaker 1:A lot of bad blood and a lot of political meaning to this area. So keep that in mind and let's read this story now in Mark chapter five. This is what we see. So they arrived at the other side of the lake in the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out of the tombs to meet him.
Speaker 1:Now, a lot of translations will say evil. Totally fair translation. Literally, the word here, though, is unclean, which is important. But moving on, says this man lived in the burial caves and could no longer be restrained even with a chain. Whenever he was put into chains and shackles, as he often was, he snapped the chains from his wrist and smashed the shackles.
Speaker 1:No one was strong enough to subdue him. Day and night, he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones. Okay. Pause here because if you read the same story in Luke chapter eight, he's also going to add this neat little detail that this guy also hasn't worn any clothes in a very long time. So he's naked, he's bleeding, he is living in a cemetery.
Speaker 1:And this is the guy who meets Jesus when he steps off the boat on the other side in the Garrison. No wonder the Jewish people didn't cross the lake all that often. This was the welcome wagon and was a little lacking. Anyway, when he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and he fell down before him with a shrieky scream to why are you interfering with me Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg you don't torture me.
Speaker 1:For Jesus had already said to the spirit, come out of the man you evil spirit. Then Jesus asked him, what is your name? Now this is really interesting for me because think about this picture so far. Jesus has crossed over to the other side, the region of the cast at ones, and there he's met as soon as he steps off the boat by a nude man. Now remember, in Jewish custom, nakedness is a really big deal.
Speaker 1:If you remember back to the story of Noah's nakedness and all the shame built up in that, you understand that. So the fact this guy is naked right off the bat is a big deal for Jewish people. But then again, so was blood. The Jewish people had a number of rules around blood as well. It was considered ceremonial unclean.
Speaker 1:So the fact that he is cut and bleeding is also a big deal. And then finally, we know that this guy is living in a cemetery. Numbers 19 says that anyone who touches a human bone or a grave will be unclean. So here's this guy. He's naked and bloody and living in tombs in the region of the cast out ones.
Speaker 1:Is there any doubt why Matthew, Mark and Luke all feel the need to point out this guy that has what they call an unclean spirit? Think about this in political terms. This guy is unclean not just a Gentile he's living in the Garrison's. In religious terms he is unclean he is bloody and living in a cemetery. In social terms this guy is unclean he's naked and that tends to make conversation awkward at the best of times.
Speaker 1:Even the Gentiles and the Romans, they don't want him around. Apparently, they have gone to great lengths to keep him away. They've chained him up in a cemetery after all. As the gospel writers are going to great lengths here to make the point that this guy is the ultimate outcast. No matter what community he has ever been a part of, he has been set aside.
Speaker 1:He is the other. But they're not done making their point yet. Because what's the first thing that Jesus asks him? He asks, what's your name? Now, interesting question here.
Speaker 1:Is he talking to this unclean spirit? Is he talking to this man? We don't know for sure, but the response comes, we are legion. And I know immediately we're all thinking of the exorcism of Emily Rose, at least I am right now. Very creepy movie, also a pretty good one.
Speaker 1:But a girl who may or may not have been possessed by a demon claiming to be Legion. This is the reference that that story is built upon, legion from this story. This naked bloody dude living in a cemetery, outcast of all outcasts says to Jesus, we are called legion for we are many. And he begs Jesus not to send him out of the area. So how does the story play out?
Speaker 1:Well, the demons ask not to be sent into the abyss, they ask instead to be sent into a herd of pigs. Jesus agrees. They go into the pigs and they immediately run off a cliff into the sea and they drown. Now, don't know about you, but I think often my first response when I read these type of stories, these demon possession stories in the New Testament is to jump to a number of different ideas that this is obviously some kind of mental health issue and it's the lack of psychological language and understanding that results in these kinds of stories being told. They're just not as sophisticated as us and so they take these mental health and they map them onto spiritual realities about demons and possession.
Speaker 1:And I think that's fair. I think that's one way you can read these stories. But I do think when you understand the context of this story, you begin to understand that there's a lot more going on here than just a naive ancient reading. It's actually a very sophisticated story that's being woven throughout this tale that has to do with more than just the surface reading of a demonic possession, some kind of spirit that inhabits a human person. This is a political allegory that's speaking to something bigger, something more important.
Speaker 1:Remember this political situation between the East and the West Banks of the Sea Of Galilee, how the Jews remembered the story of how all of this land was once their land and they hoped for a day that it would be returned to them. Well, keep all that in mind and look at the language that's being used here. We are legion for we are many, says our naked friend. Legion was a very specific Roman term and this is not just a term that speaks to a multiplicity of voices or spirits as in this story. This is in fact a Roman military term.
Speaker 1:Legion was a group of soldiers who would occupy a territory for the empire. In fact, a legion was actually a very specific group of soldiers. At the time of Augustus, a legion meant 6,826 soldiers, that is 6,100 foot soldiers and 726 horsemen. That is a legion. Thinking about what's going on here, this political allegory, whether it represents an actual historical representation of an event that happened in time or whether this is created to express the teachings and the significance of Jesus, there's clearly something going on beneath the surface of the story that is more than just about spirits and demons.
Speaker 1:Jesus crosses to the other side of the river, engages with a man who is ritually, socially, politically unclean, then he orders an entire legion of oppressive forces into a herd of animals that are also considered unclean by Jewish ceremonial standards. And then that legion immediately runs off a cliff and leaves the very land that the Jews had been hoping the Messiah would one day show up and return to them. And a lot going on here. In fact, scholars like Dominic Crosson have pointed out that the pig, well, yet another symbol of what's unclean for the Jewish people, is also the very symbol of the tenth Roman legion for Tensis. And it's that very legion that would eventually conquer Jerusalem only a couple decades after Jesus' death around the time that Gospels like Mark are being written.
Speaker 1:This is a story that is meant to show Jesus as the salvation that his followers have been waiting for, but in a very different way than they expect, even in a way that might scare them. In a lot of ways, this is the continuation of the story that we read in Mark four. These disciples are scared of a Jesus who comes to them, who represents salvation for them, but who does that in a way that catches them off guard, that gives them something they're not expecting, that challenges everything they have come to hope for in a Messiah. Imagine what Jesus' disciples are thinking about in this story. It starts in they can't believe Jesus even is willing to talk to this man.
Speaker 1:If this man even touches Jesus, he will be made ritually unclean. And then there's the question of why this man is even worth Jesus time to begin with. The Romans don't even want him around. But then this allegory starts to unfold in front of them as Jesus instead of walking by and brushing him off actually stops and asks him his name, engages with him, finds out what it is that oppresses him. And all of a sudden, this outcast, unimportant, less than human being steps in to represent both someone who is oppressed and everything that stands between the Jewish people and their destiny, everything that oppresses them.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they are one in the same. And Jesus, rather than choosing to further dehumanize this man as a representation of only what is wrong with the empire, he does exactly the opposite. Rather than creating yet another casualty of this war by ignoring him and dismissing him, he demonstrates to his followers that Jesus can dismantle an empire without firing a single shot or drawing a solitary blade. This commonwealth of Jesus won't be won through battles or force or coercion, it will instead come through the counter intuitive practice of inviting even those on the outside of our story into our experience of the divine. And think about it, we are all of us often waiting for a Messiah that will cast out the legions of our enemies that oppress us and restore our political will.
Speaker 1:A Messiah who would cast down the empires that we think oppose us and create in their stead a new, more powerful version of the exact same kind of perversion. Jesus uses this occasion to teach us that salvation over empire is not going to be won through any type of military industrial complex. It's one when we help people find a new identity outside the stories that have defined and limited and oppressed them. When we recognize that freedom from our oppression means freedom from oppression for all that we encounter. And that can be both a liberating and scary.
Speaker 1:Because it means that salvation is not just the application of force in our favor, it is fundamentally a reordering of our world. A way that helps us see the other as very different than we once chose to. As I said on Sunday, when I hear Jesus ask this question, why are you so afraid? What I hear ringing back in my ears is this, why are you so afraid of the idea that I love you completely as you are? Why are you so afraid of the idea that I love your enemy in the exact same way?
Speaker 1:Why are you so afraid of the idea of what your world could be completely free from the fear of the other. And then we see Jesus cross the lake, get out of the boat, and show us that sometimes to really imagine ourselves unafraid of our neighbor. Unafraid of those we have been told that we are supposed to hate. Unafraid of those we have been conditioned to be afraid of. This is sometimes both the scariest thing we can think of and the source of our salvation.
Speaker 1:Our salvation starts with realizing that we don't need an enemy to know ourselves as loved. We don't need to dehumanize anyone to believe in justice and peace. All we need is an awareness of our essential belovedness. A conviction that everyone we meet bears the same value, and the courage to work toward upholding all of that in the world around us through all of our choices, all of our actions, all of our conversations, and all the ways we refuse to dehumanize those who we have been told are against us. Look, sometimes a life without fear is scary because we don't know who we are without an enemy.
Speaker 1:But it's also where salvation starts. When we stop seeing the people around us as the other, as our enemy, as people to be afraid of. And we start understanding that our freedom is intrinsically tied to freeing everyone we encounter from the oppression that sets itself upon them. Now, maybe that gives you a different way to think about some of these stories of demonic possession in the New Testament. Are they just ancient naive ways of speaking about mental health?
Speaker 1:Maybe, I mean I think that's part of it as well. But I think sometimes to dismiss these stories as simply a lack of sophisticated language is to miss the profound sophistication of how these stories have been put together, to bring to light all kinds of new ways of thinking, new ways of engaging the world around us. The truth is these are very sophisticated stories layering together political, religious, and social constructs that keep us separated from each other. And when we can set aside sometimes the arrogance that we have when we come to ancient texts and begin to see all of the cultural significance that's embedded in these stories, we understand that the scriptures are speaking to a very human experience of feeling separated and feeling like some people are beneath us, unclean and distanced from us. So hopefully in some ways that makes the Bible more accessible to you, but more than anything I hope it really just makes it more engaging for you to understand all of the ways that truth and meaning have been embedded in all kinds of stories throughout our history.