Luke 8:34-37
If healing the madman wasn’t challenge enough, the encounter was actually only beginning to heat up. The demoniac who called himself “Legion” had met Jesus at the boat. Jesus had cast multitudes of demons out of this man gone wild, and the demons had in turn invaded a herd of pigs which went rushing down the hillside and drowned in the lake.
Now the pig herders were getting upset and starting to broadcast everywhere the news of the exorcism and herd demise, which brought out a lot of local people to see what was going on. What they saw was their local madman sitting at the feet of Jesus, “dressed and in his right mind” and presumably talking with Jesus. The man sitting there like that was a shocking sight in and of itself, for everyone knew the craziness of this maniac self-named “Legion.” He was a legend in those parts and even in his newfound state of composure, people had no trouble identifying him. Most of the locals had arrived without hearing the full story, so eyewitnesses, presumably the pig herders, explained in their own words and feelings what had taken place. The reaction was both immediate and predictable – everyone was filled with fear and asked Jesus to leave.
I say predictable because the natural human response to such events is to become unsettled, expressed in anxiety and fear. We humans don’t like change, even change for the better. We’d rather stay with our known problems than unproven positive solutions. Perhaps those people would rather that Legion had died – a man of such evil is better dead than transformed. Can “that kind” really change? What if it is some kind of a trick or magic – you can never be sure of what will happen in the end. And on top of it all, the pigs – a local economic resource – were gone. It was enough to freak everyone out and people don’t like to be freaked out, even for a good cause.
Since the locals were raising pigs, it is very possible, likely even, that the herders, at least, were not Jews. Greeks and other Gentiles had settled in the area long ago. Whatever the people were, they were not compassionate about one of their own. They cared for the pigs that they were in any event going to kill and use for a profit, but they wanted nothing to do with this man who, sane or not, had caused all sorts of grief.
These locals weren’t abnormal people – in fact they were fairly normal. When it comes to society’s problem people, we often say we don’t hate them. In reality we don’t want to have anything to do with them. Hate is an emotion we sometimes prefer not to waste on others. We don’t want to be bothered. Thus like these locals, we commit a sin worse even than intolerance.
This “don’t want to be bothered” attitude is one Jesus addresses again and again, particularly in the story he shares a couple chapters later, the one we call “The Good Samaritan.” But I get ahead of myself. In this case, Jesus doesn’t confront the attitude of these locals. He simply gets in the boat and leaves.
This story begs a lot of “whys.” As in why Jesus just decides to leave and abandon this man he’s rescued. We’ll get to that next week, too. As in why the people are filled with fear instead of joy. Isn’t joy the way people respond to such miracles? The answer is no. The people don’t want this man well, they want him gone. We all want grace and forgiveness for ourselves, even as we struggle to transfer that same graciousness to others.
We see the narrow-mindedness in these locals, how they treat this man who has been out of his mind, how they treat the man who has come to heal him – and could have healed so many others as well, if they had only given Jesus a chance. We see how their concern for their own livelihood (money was behind any “concern” they had for the pigs) eclipses any delight they could have mustered for this man now freed of his misery.
We see what they themselves could not see. What do we ourselves not see?
4 comments:
Because "Galilee of the Gentiles" had a mixed population of Greeks and Jews, it may be that the pig herders were, in fact, Jewish, but were raising the pigs for sale to Greeks. If so, this would be a good example of how the people of God find themselves compromised in a secular society. We often participate in or at least tacitly accept non-Christian values/actions in our workplace in order to "make a living", while unaware of how it affects our attitudes toward spiritual things, like compassion toward the needy. If we participate in the rat race, its hard not to live like a rat!
Excellent thought, David. We really don't know who these people were, but obviously they were obsessed with their own economic well-being to the detriment and neglect of a fellow human being. A spiritual failure not countenanced in Mosaic law, I might add.
Because the cities on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee had Greek names and because there was a herd of pigs there, I believe it is reasonable to say the people there were not Jewish but animists or at best, Jews that were syncretistic animists. Because animists typically see spiritual power as not good or evil, but as either "for me" or "against me," they were very frightened at the display of such great spiritual power. (Even the disciples were terrified at Jesus manifesting power during the crossing Mark 4:41)
It is good to note that when Jesus returned to the area (Mark 6:53-56), Jesus was recognized by the people and they responded positively by bringing their sick.
Anonymous is correct that there were Greek cities in the region (often called the "Decapolis" or ten cities, but the fact is that the entire Galilee region had a mixture of Jewish and Gentile settlements. Jewish Bethsaida was just to north of Gennesaret on the eastern side, and on the western side Jewish Capernaum was north of the notorious Gentile city of Tiberius. Even near Nazareth, further west, was the Greek city of Sepphoris. More important than names and geography was the nature of Jesus' ministry. In the gospels we have only a few accounts of Jesus healing a Gentile, and then only reluctantly. He explained that his focused ministry was to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The extent of Jesus" voluntary and repeated interaction with the Gennesarat community strongly indicates that these were Jews.
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