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.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Madman – Part IV
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?
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?
Monday, April 12, 2010
The Madman - Part III
Luke 8:31-33
Sometimes I wonder why I set such high standards for myself. Like the one I have for this blog – that I won’t avoid any passage in Scripture, no matter how complex, unresolvable or troublesome it may be. With topical preaching or blogging (as with random Scripture reading), you can get away with skipping certain passages. But when you have committed yourself to a verse by “painful” verse approach, well, there is no getting around it.
And so we come to the story where Jesus casts demons out of the man who calls himself “Legion” (for he has many demons) and the demons invade a huge herd of pigs which then run into the sea and drown. Jesus has traveled with his disciples to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, to the foreign and forbidding Gentile shore where they are encountered by a man berserk with destructive forces. Jesus goes beyond a power struggle to engage the man himself. But in setting the man free, Jesus – Matthew, Mark and Luke all write – gives the demons permission to go into a nearby herd of pigs instead.
Various options present themselves:
1. The story reflects a different worldview than what we can accept today and so must be de-mythified. Even if that were the case, it still begs the question “why”? Why would Jesus in any worldview choose this method of freeing the man? What is the point of all this?
2. Pigs are less valuable than humans. A corollary point is that life itself is infinitely more important than livelihood, the herd of pigs being a source of wealth for the local population. Both statements could be made based on a broader look at Scripture. One, that the soul of a human being is more valuable than the well-being of lesser creatures. While pigs and pig herding were low on the totem pole of human values in Jewish culture, Jesus is not inclined to adhere to the same values, nor is he given to being dismissive of anything other than arrogance and intolerance. Two, that human life itself is much more important than the means of earning a living. But are these the points this story is making?
3. The story is describing the demonology of the day, namely that demons in leaving a person had to go into another living being or else into the abyss. [“Abyss” here speaks of depth or underworld, the place of imprisonment for evil powers.] The demons wanted to avoid the sea which would destroy them, but in driving the pigs mad, wound up in the sea anyway. But whatever can be said about the cosmology of the time, neither the story nor Scripture as a whole seems to bear this out.
4. We don’t need to trouble ourselves with these verses because they are not essential to the story. Granted, we should be cautious in giving obscure passages and ideas too much weight in interpreting Scripture, but that does not mean we can easily dismiss them, especially not when three different gospels present the same story.
So what is the story saying here? I widen the lens to see the whole of the story. Jesus has met a man who is deeply troubled by spirits that prohibit him from responding to the good news of Jesus and living a blessed life. Jesus treats the man as a person, not as a medical or ministry exhibit, and then engages the forces behind the man’s troubles, just as he did the forces behind the storm on the lake. Which is to say, he is dismissive of them: they are to leave this man at once.
So they ask to be sent into the pigs rather than be destroyed. Nowhere else do we see in demonic forces this level of concern about their own fate, but here they recognize that Jesus has such authority, perhaps because of what has just happened with the storm on the lake. In any case, they request to go instead into the pigs. But the pigs are even less able to tolerate the evil spirits than is the man and so they go crazy and drown. And what of the fate of the demons? We are not told, but it should be noted they no longer stir up trouble wherever Jesus has declared his authority – in the man, in the neighborhood or in the sea itself.
Next post we will look at the after effects of this story on the man and his neighbors. Meanwhile, don’t lose sight of this truth – Jesus has come to free the oppressed and he challenges that oppression both in recognizing the person over the problem and in convincingly pushing back the darkness itself. The result is violent and disturbing, but no more so than what has been going on for far too long in this man who has come identify himself only by his darkness. In the end, while there are casualties, there is a new peace pervading the whole area. Ultimately, Jesus himself becomes the casualty – no more animal sacrifices so that humans can be set free. Jesus has come to deliver and restore all of creation.
Sometimes I wonder why I set such high standards for myself. Like the one I have for this blog – that I won’t avoid any passage in Scripture, no matter how complex, unresolvable or troublesome it may be. With topical preaching or blogging (as with random Scripture reading), you can get away with skipping certain passages. But when you have committed yourself to a verse by “painful” verse approach, well, there is no getting around it.
And so we come to the story where Jesus casts demons out of the man who calls himself “Legion” (for he has many demons) and the demons invade a huge herd of pigs which then run into the sea and drown. Jesus has traveled with his disciples to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, to the foreign and forbidding Gentile shore where they are encountered by a man berserk with destructive forces. Jesus goes beyond a power struggle to engage the man himself. But in setting the man free, Jesus – Matthew, Mark and Luke all write – gives the demons permission to go into a nearby herd of pigs instead.
Various options present themselves:
1. The story reflects a different worldview than what we can accept today and so must be de-mythified. Even if that were the case, it still begs the question “why”? Why would Jesus in any worldview choose this method of freeing the man? What is the point of all this?
2. Pigs are less valuable than humans. A corollary point is that life itself is infinitely more important than livelihood, the herd of pigs being a source of wealth for the local population. Both statements could be made based on a broader look at Scripture. One, that the soul of a human being is more valuable than the well-being of lesser creatures. While pigs and pig herding were low on the totem pole of human values in Jewish culture, Jesus is not inclined to adhere to the same values, nor is he given to being dismissive of anything other than arrogance and intolerance. Two, that human life itself is much more important than the means of earning a living. But are these the points this story is making?
3. The story is describing the demonology of the day, namely that demons in leaving a person had to go into another living being or else into the abyss. [“Abyss” here speaks of depth or underworld, the place of imprisonment for evil powers.] The demons wanted to avoid the sea which would destroy them, but in driving the pigs mad, wound up in the sea anyway. But whatever can be said about the cosmology of the time, neither the story nor Scripture as a whole seems to bear this out.
4. We don’t need to trouble ourselves with these verses because they are not essential to the story. Granted, we should be cautious in giving obscure passages and ideas too much weight in interpreting Scripture, but that does not mean we can easily dismiss them, especially not when three different gospels present the same story.
So what is the story saying here? I widen the lens to see the whole of the story. Jesus has met a man who is deeply troubled by spirits that prohibit him from responding to the good news of Jesus and living a blessed life. Jesus treats the man as a person, not as a medical or ministry exhibit, and then engages the forces behind the man’s troubles, just as he did the forces behind the storm on the lake. Which is to say, he is dismissive of them: they are to leave this man at once.
So they ask to be sent into the pigs rather than be destroyed. Nowhere else do we see in demonic forces this level of concern about their own fate, but here they recognize that Jesus has such authority, perhaps because of what has just happened with the storm on the lake. In any case, they request to go instead into the pigs. But the pigs are even less able to tolerate the evil spirits than is the man and so they go crazy and drown. And what of the fate of the demons? We are not told, but it should be noted they no longer stir up trouble wherever Jesus has declared his authority – in the man, in the neighborhood or in the sea itself.
Next post we will look at the after effects of this story on the man and his neighbors. Meanwhile, don’t lose sight of this truth – Jesus has come to free the oppressed and he challenges that oppression both in recognizing the person over the problem and in convincingly pushing back the darkness itself. The result is violent and disturbing, but no more so than what has been going on for far too long in this man who has come identify himself only by his darkness. In the end, while there are casualties, there is a new peace pervading the whole area. Ultimately, Jesus himself becomes the casualty – no more animal sacrifices so that humans can be set free. Jesus has come to deliver and restore all of creation.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Madman - Part II
Luke 8:27-30
Every small town seems to have its crazed person. Everyone else relates to the “Crazed One” mostly by staying as far away as possible – and every kid in the neighborhood quickly learns the rules of the game. Avoid at all costs, joke about to calm fears, and if you do encounter, make fun of or throw sticks and stones. Name calling, at least, is harmless, or so we chant when we are young.
Jesus makes it a point to go out of his way to relate to people others only avoid. There was that odd trip to Tyre and Sidon where he healed the Greek woman’s daughter. And those passings through Samaria – the most direct route to Jerusalem, yet out of the way as people of the day measured convenience. And then there was this madman living in the hills on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The Master seems to have had no reason to go all the way over there other than to see this man. Go, he does.
As the Gospels put it, the man meets Jesus and his disciples at the shore as they are getting out of their boat. He probably saw them coming off in the distance and like any naturally curious mad man, he went down to see what these unusual visitors were up to. The locals had long ago learned to avoid the whole area.
Jesus seems to have commanded the evil spirits to leave the man first thing. Only after that does the man speak to Jesus, asking him what he wants with him and pleading with Jesus not to torture him. Whether that is the demons’ request or the man’s request is not clear, but in either case, Jesus does not leave him – or them – alone.
The man’s condition was such that he had been chained up and put under guard to keep him from bothering the locals more than to protect himself. Sometimes he’d break the chains and escape the guards, wandering off into isolated places. Such is the case now, for he is unchained and alone when he meets Jesus.
What the disciples vividly remember from this story is the question that Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?” I’ve heard people use this as a basis for asking demons their names before exorcisms. Partly because I don’t see this being a normal practice of Jesus or his disciples and partly because I see something else in the way Jesus relates to people, I rather think that Jesus had a different purpose in mind in asking this question.
This man, this mad man, who called himself “Legion” because he was tormented by so many evil spirits, was as far outside of human community as one could get. The only people who related to him were the guards who feared him and probably reviled him and treated him like an animal.
But when Jesus meets him for the first time, while he is sharp with the man’s unseen tormentors, he treats the man warmly as a human being, desiring to call him by name. To have a name and to be known by your name are important characteristics of being human. Even Adam is presented as giving the animals names as his first assignment from God.
Names establish relationship. Years ago I watched as a friend of mine, Brady Bobbink, asked a waitress her name and instructed, as Brady is inclined to do, that calling a person by name is important. Name basis changes the interaction equation from object to relational.
Furthermore, in giving his answer as “Legion” the man identifies himself by his condition. He had been somebody before, but since the demons had come to torment him, he had lost all identity other than as “the home of demons.” Such is the dehumanizing objective of evil. Jesus, of course, does not leave the man in that condition, but the change starts with helping the man see his own situation.
Jesus prefers to speak to even the most miserable and forlorn human as a person created in His Father’s image. And so he chooses to speak to this man on name basis. “What is your name?” asked in calm and warmth is one of the most humanizing questions we can pose to a fellow human being. In contradiction to the children’s ditty, name calling does hurt, but naming can also heal.
Every small town seems to have its crazed person. Everyone else relates to the “Crazed One” mostly by staying as far away as possible – and every kid in the neighborhood quickly learns the rules of the game. Avoid at all costs, joke about to calm fears, and if you do encounter, make fun of or throw sticks and stones. Name calling, at least, is harmless, or so we chant when we are young.
Jesus makes it a point to go out of his way to relate to people others only avoid. There was that odd trip to Tyre and Sidon where he healed the Greek woman’s daughter. And those passings through Samaria – the most direct route to Jerusalem, yet out of the way as people of the day measured convenience. And then there was this madman living in the hills on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The Master seems to have had no reason to go all the way over there other than to see this man. Go, he does.
As the Gospels put it, the man meets Jesus and his disciples at the shore as they are getting out of their boat. He probably saw them coming off in the distance and like any naturally curious mad man, he went down to see what these unusual visitors were up to. The locals had long ago learned to avoid the whole area.
Jesus seems to have commanded the evil spirits to leave the man first thing. Only after that does the man speak to Jesus, asking him what he wants with him and pleading with Jesus not to torture him. Whether that is the demons’ request or the man’s request is not clear, but in either case, Jesus does not leave him – or them – alone.
The man’s condition was such that he had been chained up and put under guard to keep him from bothering the locals more than to protect himself. Sometimes he’d break the chains and escape the guards, wandering off into isolated places. Such is the case now, for he is unchained and alone when he meets Jesus.
What the disciples vividly remember from this story is the question that Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?” I’ve heard people use this as a basis for asking demons their names before exorcisms. Partly because I don’t see this being a normal practice of Jesus or his disciples and partly because I see something else in the way Jesus relates to people, I rather think that Jesus had a different purpose in mind in asking this question.
This man, this mad man, who called himself “Legion” because he was tormented by so many evil spirits, was as far outside of human community as one could get. The only people who related to him were the guards who feared him and probably reviled him and treated him like an animal.
But when Jesus meets him for the first time, while he is sharp with the man’s unseen tormentors, he treats the man warmly as a human being, desiring to call him by name. To have a name and to be known by your name are important characteristics of being human. Even Adam is presented as giving the animals names as his first assignment from God.
Names establish relationship. Years ago I watched as a friend of mine, Brady Bobbink, asked a waitress her name and instructed, as Brady is inclined to do, that calling a person by name is important. Name basis changes the interaction equation from object to relational.
Furthermore, in giving his answer as “Legion” the man identifies himself by his condition. He had been somebody before, but since the demons had come to torment him, he had lost all identity other than as “the home of demons.” Such is the dehumanizing objective of evil. Jesus, of course, does not leave the man in that condition, but the change starts with helping the man see his own situation.
Jesus prefers to speak to even the most miserable and forlorn human as a person created in His Father’s image. And so he chooses to speak to this man on name basis. “What is your name?” asked in calm and warmth is one of the most humanizing questions we can pose to a fellow human being. In contradiction to the children’s ditty, name calling does hurt, but naming can also heal.
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