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After
listing the title for this sermon in Steeple Notes, I
discovered I had preached the same text under the same title
in the late nineties. On that occasion, I took an entirely
different bent, slanting the sermon toward a discussion of
exorcism. Truth be told, there are but a handful of lines from
that prior effort recycled in this text.
Given
our preparations for the Pig Roast and the mouth-watering
promise of succulent pork, let’s back our way into this
morning’s story with a bizarre picture of half-crazed pigs
rushing down a steep bank to their death by drowning.
As
one who has never farmed and, therefore, has never had more
than a passing acquaintance with livestock, all I know about
pigs is pork….and bacon….and ham….and ribs. Although
when I wore the clothes of a six year old and fancied myself
to be Christopher Robin, I knew that Piglet was Pooh’s
little friend. And by that time I had learned that three
little pigs could, assuming that one of them was knowledgeable
in the building trades, outwit one very big and very bad wolf.
Subsequently I discovered comic books that featured Porky Pig
and Petunia Pig. And the one wedding (among my 1600) that I
would have loved to have performed….but wasn’t asked to
perform….was that incredible ceremony that united Kermit T.
Frog and Miss Piggy. I’ll never forget the preacher’s
pronouncement of marriage:
And
because you share a love so big,
I now pronounce you frog and pig.
The
other day, at a multi-generational picnic, I was given a
barefoot baby to hold. So what did I do with the baby’s
toes? You guessed it.
This
little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none,
And this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee, wee all the way
home.
People
who know more about pigs than I do tell me that, insofar as
such things can be measured, pigs are very intelligent. Not
that one would guess it by appearances. But a look at most
college dorm rooms would suggest that intellect and squalor
are not as antithetical as one might think.
Sticking
with pigs just a little longer, it is important to note that
(at the time of their demise) the pigs in this morning’s
text are not in their right minds. They are being driven by
demons who have been sent their way by Jesus. I suppose if
these suddenly-crazed pigs were your pigs, you’d have a
whole different slant on the story. I mean, there goes your
livelihood tumbling over the seawall….everything you
have….everything you expected to leave to your children.
Which may explain why the esteemed George Buttrick once
featured the pigs’ owner in a memorable sermon entitled,
“My God, My Pigs.”
But
few in the first century would have shared that worry. In
part, because the story was circulated among the Jews. And,
for the Jews, the pig is an unclean animal. Jews don’t raise
pigs, butcher pigs or eat pigs. Although once, while walking
past the meat counter of a supermarket in downtown Jerusalem,
I saw something strangely familiar shrink-wrapped in
cellophane. Turning to Kris, I said: “Is that what I think
it is?” To which she answered: “It looks like a pork chop
to me.” So we looked more closely at the label where, just
above the price and the poundage, we read: “White steak.”
To
Jews, pigs are unclean. So when the prodigal son runs through
daddy’s money in a far country and takes the only job he can
find….slopping pigs….nothing could have been more
degrading or insulting, given that he has now abused his
father’s faith as well as his father’s finances.
So
a Jew, hearing this story, wouldn’t have shed a single tear
for a single pig….and might actually have cheered the death
of two thousand pigs. What’s more, the mere existence of a
herd of pigs nearby tells us that we are not in Jewish
territory, but pagan territory. We are in Transjordania….the
land across the Jordan River….across the Sea of
Galilee….across from everything that was familiar, similar
and secure….and across from where any self-respecting Jew
wanted to be, or thought that a self-respecting Savior ought
to be. Which is why nobody cared about a massive case of
swine-icide. Because even if they liked pigs, which they
didn’t, these pigs weren’t their pigs.
But
just as most Gospel stories have nuances and subtleties that
take years to unravel, so (too) does this one. You will recall
that the demons, which Jesus drives out of the man and into
the pigs, are multiple. That’s what their name implies. And
what is their name? You heard it, but may not have caught it.
So I’ll repeat it. “Legion” is their name. Which is a
military term, drawn from the Latin word meaning a division of
Roman soldiers. How many soldiers? Six thousand soldiers.
And
the word translated “herd”….as in “a herd of
pigs”….is not a word ever associated with pigs at all.
Rather, it is a word associated with military recruits. And
the phrase “he (Jesus) dismissed them”….or “he gave
them leave”….is a military command that tells the troops
they are now free to go.
The
Jews were a subjugated people, living in an occupied country.
Subjugated by whom? Occupied by whom? You know “whom” as
well as I do. By Romans, that’s who. So at a hidden
level….which may have been a primary level once upon a
time….we have a legion of demons occupying a man (rather
than a country), driven out by Jesus, and dismissed to die in
the sea.
Good
riddance, demons.
Good riddance, Romans.
Which
recalls the last time the Jews received deliverance from
domination.
When?
At
the start of the Exodus.
Where?
In
Egypt.
How?
When
Pharaoh’s army was drowned in the sea.
Thanks
to whom?
Moses.
And
what did the demons (named “Legion”) say to Jesus when he
confronted them and told them to vacate? I’ll tell you what
they said. They said: “Do not send us out of the country.”
But that’s exactly what Jesus did. He sent them packing to
the point of drowning. Sort of like Moses. Which, as
interpretations go, may be a stretch for you. But I’ll lay
odds that, at least on some level, that’s how a
first-century Jew would have heard the story.
But
that’s not how we hear the story. Because our country is not
occupied, don’t you see. Which means that the word
“deliverance” is understood more personally than
nationally. Demons are insiders, wreaking their havoc mentally
and emotionally. When I said (earlier) that the pigs plunging
over the seawall were not in their right minds, the fact of
the matter is that neither are we….in our right minds, I
mean. So let’s go back and retell the story from that
perspective….the perspective of mental or emotional illness.
We
start with a man who is said to be demon-possessed. He is a
man who can’t be chained, fettered or subdued. He is a man
who is a threat to himself as much as he is a threat to
others. He lives (naked) among the tombs….tombs which, for a
ritualistic Jew, were as unclean a place to hang out as pigs
were an unclean food to eat. Everything about this man screams
“separated.”
Which
is not entirely strange to us. For until recently….when the
pendulum shifted from separating the mentally ill to
mainstreaming the mentally ill (about which there still swirls
a great debate)….we warehoused the mentally ill in
greater-than-desirable numbers in less-than-desirable places.
And prior to a consideration of humane treatment for them, it
was not uncommon to make cruel sport of them.
I
wonder how many of you know the origin of the word
“bedlam”….“bedlam” as in “all hell breaking
loose.”
That
classroom was sheer bedlam.
The big sale at Macy’s was nothing short of bedlam.
It
seems that the very first hospital in Great Britain for the
mentally ill was on the outskirts of London. Its name was The
Star of Bethlehem. And given that many of the patients were
chained to the beds and walls, their loud and wild screams
could be heard throughout the surrounding countryside. It
seems that wealthy Londoners actually went out to hear those
patients as a form of entertainment….describing that they
were going to the Star of Bethlehem to see “bedlam.”
Eventually,
the sport went out of it. But separation remained part of it.
Years ago, I actually heard people say: “We couldn’t
control her, so we had to send her away.” And in Wayne
County, where I spent the first fifteen years of my ministry,
“away” was commonly known as Elouise (out where Merriman
Road meets Michigan Avenue). There were years after visiting
people there that I remember thinking that prison might have
been preferable. So however this healing in Mark 5 happened,
it began when Jesus was willing to meet a man with an unclean
spirit in an unclean place. And if you want to stop there and
preach yourself a sermon about what constitutes acceptable and
respectable locations for ministry, be my guest. But I have to
move on.
Do
I believe that demons still possess people? I frankly don’t
know. What I do know is that it occasionally looks and feels
that way. In an effort to explain actions that come across as
abnormal or irrational, I have heard some of you say: “I
don’t know what got into me”….or “I don’t know where
that came from.” But what do you mean? Do you really believe
that something “got into you”….that you were overwhelmed
from the outside? Or do you believe that you were blindsided
from the inside?
All
the time I hear people say: “What you just saw wasn’t
me.” So who was it? Was it someone else? Or something else?
Or was it a part of your personality you didn’t know was
there, or couldn’t bring yourself to admit was there?
I
don’t know. For purposes of our story, this man thinks he is
possessed. The people steering clear of his craziness believe
him to be possessed. And Jesus treats him as if he were
possessed. But concerning his diagnosis, I like the way
William Barclay puts it.
The man
needed deliverance. Whether that deliverance was from a
literal demonic possession or from an all-powerful delusion
does not matter. It is good to know that the Lord can deliver
us from imaginary dangers as well as from real ones. For the
imaginary ones are often harder to face.
But
I love the moniker attached to the malady. “What ails me has
a name,” says the voice coming out of the man. “That name
is Legion.” When self applied, it is a name that suggests
that I am many….multiple….more than one. It is also a name
that suggests that I am split…. divided….torn….perhaps
even schizoid. Some people feel that way, you know. Some
people hear conflicting voices. Some people experience
multiple personalities. Some people feel as if a civil war is
being fought within their skin.
-
A
quiet business man, reacting to a career’s worth of
slights and injustices, suddenly unleashes a verbal rage
upon a colleague that catches everyone by surprise,
including himself. His name is Legion.
-
A
fed-up mother says to her teenage daughter: “How hostile
and mean you are. Every word that comes out of your mouth
is spiteful. How do they stand you at school?” To which
her daughter replies: “It would probably surprise you to
learn that I am quite a different person at school.” Her
name is Legion.
-
A
crusading preacher mobilizes an entire community to enact
an anti-pornography ordinance. Which is why everyone is
surprised when he is arrested on charges of photographing
young boys in compromising positions. His name? Rev.
Legion.
-
A
psychologist is talking with his counselee. “Does
everyone in your house get along?” he asks. To which his
client answers: “I live alone….and no, we don’t.”
His name is Legion.
How
else do you describe addiction, if not with the language of
possession? In the beginning, you retain control over the
substance. But eventually things flip flop and the substance
gains control over you. Which is why most of the people who
tell you they can quit whenever they want to, can’t. I never
saw any demons hovering over my father or my sister. But each
of them, in their own way, was possessed. There are so many
ways that people are troubled.
But,
praise God, there are so many ways that troubled people are
healed. I can neither count nor explain them. But I believe
that Jesus can work through any and all of them. When it comes
to healing, prayer is no more in competition with Prozac than
salvation is in competition with psychotherapy. There isn’t
a person in this congregation who would tell somebody: “If
you just had a little more faith in Jesus, you could stop
taking your insulin.” But there may be people in this
congregation who would tell a loved one: “If you just had a
little more faith in Jesus, you could stop taking your
Lithium.” That’s because there is still a tendency….even
among religious people….to view sugar diabetes one way and
manic depression another way.
Even
today, were I to go down to our local hospital….our
highly-esteemed and widely-respected local hospital….with a
list of four parishioners I believe to be in residence there,
I will be readily supplied with room numbers for three of
those parishioners. But if the fourth is on Nine South (the
mental health unit), there will be no acknowledgement that any
such individual exists. Even in our finest healing
institutions, we look at some diseases one way and others
diseases another way. Which is why it cannot be said strongly
enough in places like the church that chronic depression is no
more a sign of spiritual weakness than is colon cancer.
Our
text concerns a healing story that features an exorcism. But
few of us would tie Jesus’ hands to this (or any other)
methodology. Wondrous are the ways in which Jesus heals today.
People
come to me and say: “Can you recommend a Christian
psychologist?” Which always leads me to inquire as to their
desire.
Do
they want someone who is a member of the church?
Sometimes.
Do
they want someone who will pray with them at the close of a
session?
Sometimes.
Do
they want someone who believes that cure and conversion are
two sides of the same coin?
Sometimes.
Do
they want someone who will take sides with the believing
spouse, teaming up with them against the non-believing spouse?
Sometimes.
But
most of the time they are saying: “Bill, can you direct me
to someone who understands the language of faith….someone
who is not uncomfortable with (or critical of) the language of
faith….someone who understands that faith is more likely to
be a part of someone’s solution than a part of someone’s
problem?” And I know some wonderful professionals who
believe exactly that. I have long admired them….often
referred to them….and, in one or two valleys of my life,
readily employed them. When it comes to the healing
professions, Jesus has never lacked for friends.
Had
I had more time, I would have read you the story that led into
this one. It’s about a boat full of disciples who find
themselves storm-tossed at sea. And Jesus, who slept through
the worst of it, was (when awakened) able to calm things down.
I
wonder why I didn’t preach that story instead of this one?
Unless it’s because I, like many of you, have never had
reason to be frightened by the storms outside.
Note:
In addition to the customary commentaries on the Gospel of
Mark (including the helpful work of William Barclay), I am
indebted to a heretofore unread commentary on Mark’s Gospel
entitled Binding the Strong Man by Ched Myers. My
pastoral colleague, Jeff Nelson, steered me in the direction
of this book. Concerning Myers’ exegesis, Walter Wink
writes: “This is, quite simply, the most important
commentary on a book of scripture since Barth’s Romans.”
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