Healing Legion in the Name of Jesus

Healing Legion in the Name of Jesus

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, O.A., Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

June 19, 2016;  Proper 7, Year C, Track 2

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 8:26-39)  Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "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 demons begged Jesus 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 rushed 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 were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country 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 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.

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As Jesus crosses a boundary, leaving his homeland of Israel and entering the Gentile territory of the Gerasenes, he is confronted with a wild man—naked and homeless, unclean, living among the dead, violent and uncontrollable. The man reacts, afraid and defensive at Jesus' approach. Yet Jesus is the approach of loving compassion.

Jesus seeks to understand him. "What is your name?" That is a profound question in antiquity. In ancient days a "Name" is a deep word. It carries both a sense of one's identity and of one's vulnerability. To share your name with another is to reveal something of your inner essence, and to allow the other some degree of power over you. A name is not to be revealed lightly. To know the other's name is to have power over them. The name of the Hebrew God was never spoken aloud except by one person on one day in the year. The High Priest, alone on the Day of Atonement, would enter the inner sanctuary of the Temple and speak the holy name of God, trembling. Name carries power and identity.

"What is your name?" Jesus asks. The answer: "Legion." The wild man is complicated, his troubles complex, his afflictions myriad, entangled, multiple, knotty and tortuous. But Jesus willingly seeks to understand him, to know him, to be in relationship with him, to know his name, and to bring the power of the name of Jesus—loving-compassion and wise coherence—to let the power of the name of Jesus bring healing to Legion's complex troubles.

One week ago another mad man with deadly capacity acted with shocking and tragic violence. Since then we have been trying to understand who he is and why he did it. His name is Legion. He said he pledges allegiance to ISIL, but in the past identified with al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, who all fight each other demonically in Syria. He showed little religious practice but said co-workers teased and taunted him because he was Muslim. He was abusive and controlling toward his spouse. He struggled with his sexual orientation. The message he heard from his culture and his religion condemned in extreme terms what his soul and body told him was core to his true identity. Like so many others in his situation, he turned to suicide. He killed his own image in a murderous-suicidal rage and did so in a way that he might hope to be regarded as a hero and martyr with eternal rewards and earthly renown among those of his allegiance who otherwise would have thrown him off a building. His name is Legion.

In Luke's story, after the frightening appearance of the wild man and after all of the demonic violence of the swineherd, the man now free is found sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

But change is hard. The people were seized with fear, and they begged Jesus to leave. The healed man wanted to go with him. But Jesus told him No. "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." Returning home, his active, creative intelligent presence in his community could now become a catalyst to overcome fear. "So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him." "Perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4:18b)

Our parishioner David Lewis' grandson Jesse was killed three-and-a-half years ago at his elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. David's daughter Scarlett started the "Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation" to let her son's death become a catalyst for healing. Last December President Obama signed federal legislation sponsored by Scarlett's friend Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal to support social and emotional learning for children from pre-K through grade 12. Scarlett's team tested a curriculum this year at an at-risk school in Waterbury, CT, and David calls the results "a miraculous thing." He says, "Kids have a basic need for love, and they accept love when we bring it to them." The Foundation is creating a free curriculum that will teach children the skills to choose love by building their capacity for courage, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion: social and emotional learning. Love, casting out fear.

Around the country many people are responding to the Orlando shootings with the kind of love that casts out fear. It will take great courage, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion to bring healing love to the legion of complex issues and human circumstances that this shooting raises into our corporate consciousness.

I pray for more understanding and more love for our LGBTQI neighbors. Last Monday night this room was the fullest I have ever seen as people packed every space here and overflowed into the Guild Hall and out on to East Avenue, expressing their grief and their solidarity. There was much love in this room.

I pray for more understanding and more love for our Latino neighbors and the whole immigrant community, as we respond in compassion for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting on Latino night. Can't we face the legion of issues and passions and complexities that underlie our broken immigration system with the wisdom and love that Jesus gives to us?

I pray for more understanding and more love for our Muslim neighbors who are again grieved and slandered by the evil actions of one who claims their name but acts contrary to the spirit of the Quran and the true religion of Islam. Muslims are suffering too.

I am encouraged by the work of a New York priest who is a colleague of mine in the Order of the Ascension. For the past three years a group he co-founded has been studying guns by interviewing soldiers, the police, and gun owners. They've reached out to gun manufacturers and visited a gun show in Europe to learn some continental techniques. Last April, working with police and gun owners, they organized the first smart-gun technology show in the country. Last week they met with congressional aids in Washington to share their free market proposals that are also friendly to gun owners and can make safer guns a real option. His group is bringing some wisdom and coherence to an issue whose complexities are Legion.

Our problems are legion, but we can face them courageously with loving compassion and wisdom.

At your baptism you were given a new identity, a new name. You were made children of God, grafted into the Body of Christ. Your name is Jesus. In our day, Jesus will bring loving compassion and wise coherence to Legion only through us. It is our calling and our identity to invoke the name and power and presence of Jesus. It is our job to ask of the madness, "What is your name?" and then to listen and understand. We are to be courageous in relationship to whatever confusion faces us. We are to bring to our day the loving compassion and wise coherence that is the power of the name of Jesus. I pray that the name of Jesus will again bring healing to Legion's complex troubles, though us. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

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