I remember my first summer here at First Lutheran I went on the National Youth Gathering to New Orleans with the kids and several of the adult chaperones. I was a recent seminary graduate… had spent most of my life in other fields of work. For 36 years of my life, I had been known simply as “Rebecca.”
So when one of the chaperones was trying to get my attention, she kept saying “Pastor! Pastor!”
I didn’t respond. Didn’t turn to look at her – nothing.
Because I still did not identify myself with that name, that label. It was not, in my mind, a part of my identity yet.
I think she yelled that for a good five minutes before she had to resort to using my name to get my attention.
But that’s what we do – we use a variety of different labels to identify each other. Sometimes we’re identified by our occupations or our abilities…
“Hey, you know Jan?” “Jan?” “The lawyer?” “Oh yeah…”
Other times, we’re instead known and labeled by our inabilities and failures. By things we can’t do – or that we are prevented from doing.
Which is what is going on in our Gospel story for today.
The possessed man. He has no name. No identity except – to be identified by that which possesses him.
“We are legion.” In Jesus’ day, a legion was a military unit by which the army organized itself, usually consisting of about 6,000 soldiers. Not only is this man possessed, but he is literally occupied – completely taken over by an invading force.
A force that separates him from everyone else. A force that so debilitates him – it separates him completely from his family and his community. Caught in a life of self-destructive behavior, trapped in this condition, prevented from becoming what God intended him to be. A demon that separates him from normal living.
Does this affliction really sound so strange to our modern ears?
Anyone who has dealt with addictions, obsessions, eating disorders, cutting disorders, depression, anxiety – you know probably more keenly what this is like. The separation… the isolation. Being driven into the lonely and desolate areas of the world, living life not like “other people” seem to be living theirs. Both shunned by your community as well as trapped in a sense of self-loathing and despair.
This man – so overrun by this legion of demons – stands outside every human norm and societal ordering. From a Jewish perspective – he’s a Gentile to start with, so that makes him off-limits. He lives among the tombs of the dead – anyone who touched the dead was considered “unclean.”
And – of course, he was stark raving mad. He is not only the lowest of the lowest as far as Jews are concerned, but he’s an outcast even among his own Gentile people.
He is the ultimate outsider.
Yet, when Jesus makes his first venture out into the world of the Gentiles – this is the first place he goes. To this ultimate outsider. A non-Jew, a crazed man ostracized even by Gentiles.
But Jesus goes to great lengths to see this outsider. He gets in a boat with his disciples and crosses this lake during the midst of a terrible storm, and rather than going to the prominent members of this Gentile community – he walks into this desolate place, occupied by a man that is kept chained and guarded among the tombs of the dead.
Rather than going to the religious priests or leading citizens – Jesus goes to this man who is known simply as “legion.”
And heals him.
Great. Yay for Jesus! Just healed another sick person! The man should thank Jesus and go running back to his family, where they’re waiting for him with open arms to fold him back into their community… right?
You’d think this would be the response – but it’s not. Instead – the outcast man begs Jesus to take him with him. He knows the challenges he faces at home.
Because the people don’t welcome him with open arms. Instead – they are afraid.
Afraid! Afraid of the fact that this strange Rabbi who calms the storms, heals the dead, is now loose in their region – what’s he going to do next?
Because while dealing with crazy Larry maybe wasn’t the most pleasant thing in the world – it was known.
They dealt with him by keeping him under guard and letting him roam around in the uninhabited areas.
But now – what do you do with him when he’s clothed, cleaned up, talking in his right mind, and just waltzes back into your community?
What do you do with that? What do you do with not just a man who everyone had written off as lost comes back, essentially, from the dead – but with the man responsible for curing him?
What is this guy going to do next? What else is Jesus going to do that’s going to totally turn our known world upside down?
In this case, God’s grace – is messy.
In short – no one can control or predict what Jesus is going to do next. He’s an element of uncertainty in their lives. Lives they’ve tried to neatly order, tried to neatly categorize. Here’s what you do with lepers. Here’s what you do with the demon-possessed. Here’s what you do with the unclean. Here’s what you do with Gentiles. Here’s what you do with Jews.
Jesus is turning it all upside down. He’s crossing barriers, of both nature and social norms. He’s messing things up. Jesus doesn’t just grant grace to the people we think deserve it. He’s giving it to the unlikely. The outcast. The downtrodden. The people who probably aren’t sitting in the pew next to you right now.
Because Jesus breaks down something we cling to more fiercely than anything else as humans:
OUR SELF-MADE IDENTITIES.
This radical love and grace Jesus is bestowing upon this man reminds us that the only thing that counts is to be in Christ – which is both a freeing though and a terrifying thought.
Because I want other things to matter. I want my achievements to be recognized – but in terms of belonging to God it doesn’t matter at all. My identity as far as God is concerned isn’t going to be based on the things that you and I try to base them on. How successful we’ve been as a broker, a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, a pastor, a parent…
But these are not the things that matter to God in the end. It is only our identity in Christ that ultimately matters. As Paul states – there is no longer Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free. Boundaries have been shattered. These are the things that separate us in our world, that we get caught up in – and that we embrace. We love these differences. We live by these differences. We order our lives around these differences.
But these differences mean nothing to God. Not even a legion of demons that can drive a person to the depths of their own living hell can make them immune from or out of reach of God’s grace.
It is freeing – because those who perhaps feel they are on that fringe or stand outside the community, it is exceedingly good news to know they are not seen by God as an outsider in his Kingdom.
And it is terrifying because that means all the things we tend to strive for in order to gain earthly notoriety, respect, and accolades ultimately means nothing in the sight of God. We find ourselves standing under the same grace and the same love as that person we’ve tried to separate ourselves from, that we’ve kicked out of our communities for not being like one of us.
That person who stands just outside what we think is proper or righteous, or who falls into a stereotype that we try and shun – is the person Jesus is seeking out.
God’s grace is messy – and that scares us – but it is also what will ultimately free us. Because at the end of the day – we are seen by God as one thing – his children.
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