dangerous places?

SERMON PREACHED AT St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN

St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN

And the GLENORCHY MISSION HALL

ORDINARY SUNDAY 12 (June 22^nd) 2025

 

Luke 8: 26-39

 

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.  As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.  When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,”  for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)  Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him.  They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demonsbegged Jesus^[e] to let them enter these. So he gave them permission.  Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.  Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened.  Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.  Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.  The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying,  “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

 

 

I have a long and slightly tumultuous week ahead of me. Brian, who will be with you soon, has put me on the spot by emphasising that he only gives seven minute sermons.

I can therefore let you off the hook over these last two Sundays that we have together. Almost!

Still ... You  may have heard me say from time to time that the gospel takes us into what I used to call in my early days of preaching the “dangerous places.” I cringe a little as I look back on the naivete of my early sermons, which I am laboriously working through at the moment. I doubt if I’ve been anywhere more dangerous than an armchair in my entire life. 

Maybe on my motorbikes? Definitely. But hardly a gospel-imperative.

I would now be a little bit more conscious of ensuring that forays into places of “danger”– places open to risk of misinterpretation, is what I suspect I meant – were undertaken more cautiously, with risk assessment and due diligence. I learned something useful in my brief career as a firefighter.

Yet I hold by the kernel of what I saw back then. The gospel is a place of comfort, but not cosiness. Perhaps I’ve spent my life too cosily? 

Jesus in his teachings and in his action makes it clear that the way of the cross – the very name he gives it is stupendously threatening – is not a place of complacency. Neither is it necessarily, or even often, a place of popularity. Most of us like at least some popularity. He cared not a fig. 

In this little scene from Luke’s account of the gospel Jesus succeeds in offending almost everyone. There could be, to a first century Jew, few if any concepts more offensive than that of a manic, naked human-being living amongst the tombs, with pigs. 

It is as if Jesus was entering the very heart of reprehensibility, although of course we know the story. We know that his own confrontation with authorities takes him to the even more reprehensible place of crucifixion.

Nevertheless: naked, insane – whatever demonic possession might indicate it is certainly not sanity – living with the pigs and the dead. At this point surely the disciples were deeply worried that this was not what they had signed up for.

I have no idea what is meant in the New Testament references to demon possession. My hunch is that much that we would now call mental health was classified under that sort of label. We only have to look at the ways in which our society struggles to cope with mental health, with housing for, and medical care of the physical manifestations of mental health, to know that any claim that we are better is window dressing. I don’t pretend to know how to do better. It’s not helpful to romanticise the plight of those fragile edges of society. I admire those who work on the fringes, whether their work is faith-based or otherwise.

Ultimately we cannot but be challenged why this encounter with Jesus. I don’t think in our own society we are called to ride in and interfere in realms best tended to by mental health professionals. I do  think that we are called again and again to challenge those in authority to increase budgetary expenditure, to increase what we might call institutional compassion for those whose world is bewildering, frightening and vulnerable.

Let’s not be naive. For many there is no road to recovery from the grip of mental health dysfunctionality. We need to know our limitations. Mucking around in specialists’ fields is beyond our pay-scale as Christ bearers. Nevertheless as we watch Jesus encounter this man, this demoniac, this non-being beyond the fringes of society, we must surely ask ourselves if we might not risk a little unpopularity. Minuscule compared to that which Jesus encountered in polite society, after he strode into this deeply discomforting and risky scenario.

Jesus encountered this man with compassion. There may be many situations in which we need not to interfere but find responsible compassion for those who dwell on the most unpleasant fringes of the world. 

May we allow God to enable us to discern the demonic and unjust in our midst and to speak out in a society that would rather look the other way.