The Madman – Part V

Luke 8:38-39

By this point in the story, the title “Madman” seems inappropriate. He is no longer “mad,” now dressed and in his right mind. In fact, he is totally well. Except that he has no place. By place, I mean more than just housing. He has no community, no job, no relationships, no connectedness. He is suspended in relational air. The process of his reintegration is as much a challenge for his “people” as it is for him. But they are still his people and Jesus chooses to leave him among them rather than take him away with the other disciples, humane as that may seem from our distance.

There are times when leaving a person in the original setting is definitely inhumane, as when further abuse and victimization is immanent or inevitable. Here we have to trust that the Master knows what he is doing and that whatever abuse the man receives (and he will receive abuse) he will be able to handle it. I say his abuse is inevitable because one thing harder than dealing with a perpetrator is dealing with a truly repentant perpetrator. Witness the reception the Apostle Paul received from fellow Christians for some time after his conversion – it was necessary for him to return to his distant home town of Tarsus for a long period of time before he could engage Believers in Jerusalem.

In the case of the ex-madman, Jesus turns down the man’s request (begging, actually) to go with him. There are any number of reasons why the man was insistent on departing with Jesus – fear of how the locals would treat him, fear of the return of the hauntings of the immediate past, a desire to spend more time with Jesus, the thrill of being in a company as wonderful as Jesus and his disciples. Most likely, all these feelings – and more – were at work inside the man.

As I mentioned last time, this story begs a lot of “whys” and one of those is why Jesus decides to leave and abandon this man he’s just rescued. Jesus has had lots of people following him – hundreds perhaps – and it is difficult to find very many instances where he refuses a person who desires to follow him in person. On this particular trip, it is likely that only the Twelve have accompanied Jesus. Just one boat is mentioned. But there were many others who have left all to follow Jesus and are waiting for him on the other side.

In this case, Jesus sensed it was important that the man stay put. I do think his reasoning involved the need for the people in the area to hear the Good News of the man’s deliverance and to see this man live out that deliverance. The whole community had been disrupted both by the man’s madness and by the exorcism, and the man’s presence was needed for healing to go beyond just the former Demoniac himself.

One of my readers comments that in Mark 6:53-56, Jesus may have returned to this precise location. This time, the welcome is very different and the people are more responsive, the reader’s interpretation being that this was the fruit of the former Demoniac’s faithfulness in the interim. And if this is indeed the case, the response was very strong. More likely this is not the same location, Mark 6:53 referring to a place on the opposite side of the lake. We really do not know whether Jesus ever returned to the home of the Demoniac. Like so many others Jesus blessed, this was probably a one-off encounter.

Unlike so many other one-off encounters, what is striking about this one is that Jesus encourages the man to broadcast his healing. “Return home,” Jesus tells the man, “and tell how much God has done for you.” And this is precisely what the man does. We don’t know the response he gets. But surely there are some who receive his good news. Perhaps because Jesus doesn’t intend to return, he is not concerned about the Messianization of his mission here as he is elsewhere.

To rephrase one of my favorite lines from the movie, Field of Dreams, this is not just about everyone else. Jesus has in mind the man’s own well-being when he sends him home. Complete healing comes when the healing he has received is demonstrated in the very setting where he was tormented. His healing, moreover, is not just about demons being exorcised; it is about being restored to community, to place. And that restoration comes full circle – and to completion – as the man carries forth the Good News to others as he himself has received. I suspect that the reason this activity is recorded in Luke 8:39 is because even before Jesus and his companions have cast off, the man is already busy doing just that.