Gloria Dei

Can you imagine the horror of being called, “Legion”?  This poor man was known to his neighbors by the number of demons which possessed him.  We don’t know his real name. Preachers and biblical scholars call him the “Gerasene Demoniac,” but that’s not a much better name than “Legion” would be.

We know this much.  The man was naked;  apparently he tore off any clothing he tried to wear.  He was homeless;  perhaps he could no longer tolerate having walls or objects around him which could be used as weapons.  He was seemingly scarred by the many times he had pulled himself out of the chains that were used to try to hold him from hurting himself or others.  He lived among tombs;  maybe that was the only place that could tolerate his raging.   

But his name is unknown.  The best he could tell Jesus was, “Legion.”  Many.  Countless.  Myriad demons that lived within him.  He himself no longer had any other name by which he was known.

We all know the hurt of being called names, or being known for some trait or characteristic about ourselves.  We can barely escape childhood without someone calling us something painful –  Sissy, Bully, Cry-Baby, Nerd, Klutz, Weirdo, Freak, Idiot, Stuck-Up, Loser, Failure.  I suspect a lot of us can remember being called names that would be even less appropriate for me to say here.

Of course the names we might be called as adults probably hurt just as much.  This week in the normally quiet town of Fremont, Nebraska, neighbors have come out to rally against neighbors, as they debate whether to enact anti-immigration laws in their town to keep out undocumented workers.  Once contented townspeople now have new names for each other:  Bigot, Illegal, Racist, Terrorist.

Names like this vilify another, as we try to show our power over them.  We can add to the list other ugly names we might hear tossed around Elitist, Victim, Control-freak, Radical, Close-minded, Homophobic, Battered, Neocon, Kneejerk, Abuser, Addict, Handicapped.

Some names degrade or dehumanize us;  some names humiliate or embarrass us. The worst are the labels that point out our brokenness, drawing attention to those things of which we are most embarrassed or disappointed with in ourselves.

But can you imagine the pain of being known for the degree of our mental anguish – of being called by a name pointing to the multitude of our illnesses:  Legion?

Now Jesus never calls man by this name. Rather, he addresses the man personally, that is, as a person, as a human.  Not as a disease, not as a problem, not as an illness or a set of symptoms, not as something to be afraid of, but as a real, fully human person.

Jesus heals the man by ridding him of those horrors for which he was called, and claiming him again for life.  The man is found in his right mind sitting at the foot of Jesus. This is the sign of wholeness and life as it was meant to be lived:  like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus while her sister kept busy;  like the woman of the city who anointed Jesus’ feet while his host acted superior;  like those in need of healing throughout the gospel who kneel down in front of Jesus and beg for mercy, the man in today’s story showed he was in his right mind by putting on clothes, and sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Remarkably, even then, the town has no name for him.  The text refers to him as the one “who had been possessed by demons…”   Rather than rejoicing in his wellbeing, or welcoming him back into their community, his neighbors continue to refer to him in terms of his past illness, and approach him with fear.  We certainly can understand that they would have been afraid of the man when he was in such torment, but even in his health they are afraid.  They are especially afraid of what his healing implies about the one who healed him.

Did you get that?  It is Jesus who makes them most anxious.   We could understand it if the owners of the swine were angry over the loss of their herd.  For some, the value of a flock of pigs is greater than that of a man made whole after a lifetime of agony. But the text doesn’t express their anger over their lost revenue so much as it describes their fear.  Jesus’ power over the storms that raged within this poor man was like nothing they had ever experienced.  If Jesus has power to subdue the storms that threatened fishermen on their boats, if he can restore life to those who have died, and bring sanity to a man they only know as a number, then they have no way of controlling or containing him.

Jesus was more powerful than the forces that made life out of control for them.  Jesus was able to call people back into health. He was able to restore them to the life for which they were first created.  But most of those who witnessed it didn’t know what to do with that kind of power.

In fact, it appears that they preferred to leave things out of control, after all, they have names for that.  And leaving things out of control might just be easier than to encounter a Jesus who could restore them to the life they were meant to live.

Does the God we worship still have that extraordinary power to bring us to our right minds?  Do we claim a God who refuses to call us by legions of labels describing our brokenness but who instead is willing to bring us to sanity? Do we in fact know a God who calls us by our actual names, and loves us for who we were created to be?

In our baptisms, we were called by name. Not just any name, but by the names chosen for us by those who hoped to love us, perhaps by our mothers and those very fathers we honor today.  God knows us by our given names, and the only label God has ever added to them is the only one that matters, Child of God.

Paul tells us and the Galatian church again today, because apparently we tend to forget, that because we are children of God, the other labels in our lives are no longer meaningful.  No longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female;  no longer broken or damaged, no longer bigot or terrorist, no longer winner or loser, nerd or hero, popular or outsider, no longer Legion, but children of God in Christ Jesus.

Here we are named in grace.     Here we are offered life.  Here we are found to be clothed in baptismal garments of righteousness, and in our right minds, sitting at the feet of Jesus.

The gospel text ends in a surprising twist.  Unlike others whom Jesus calls out of places of security to follow him, this man is charged to return to his home to declare how much God had done for him.  We too are sent to declare God’s power in our lives.  Some might be called away to new places, and some might be called to return to the places closest to home.  But wherever we go, we are in a place that needs to know God’s power to calm the forces that lead us to destruction, and restore us to the life we were meant to live.

I wonder how welcome that message will be.  Sometimes it appears as if people still prefer to leave things out of control than to receive a God who can bring new life.  Fear and hatred seem to be as popular in our culture today as they were among the Gerasenes. 

Just ask those people in Fremont, Nebraska.  Rather than embrace healing and reconciliation, rather than working to understand each other and form real community, most of us continue to live with whatever storms we’ve grown accustomed to in our lives. Addiction, abuse, anger, old bitterness, old stereotypes, old divisions even from those we love, are easier than true acceptance and healing.

We still like to label each other and presume whatever brokenness we experienced yesterday will still be the brokenness we will be greeted with today.

But the gospel invites us to a new sanity.  It invites us to see each other not as the broken people we were yesterday, but as the new people Christ has claimed us for today.  In this place, we get to put on new clothes, baptismal garments of healing and grace, given by the One who restores us to our right minds and calls us by name.  In this place, rather than know each other as labels, or symptoms, or problems, rather than those who need to be controlled or ignored, we get to use each others’ real names.

Now I know that like those people in the gospel text, we still respond to this kind of sanity with fear, but I’m going to ask you to take a risk toward that sanity right now.  Please move and find someone whose name you don’t know.  Perhaps it’s someone whose name you once knew, but can’t remember anymore.  Please go and introduce yourself. Go ahead.  Turn and get to know someone’s name right now.

This person you just met has been restored to sanity.  This person is here, sitting at the feet of Jesus, and in his or her right mind. This person no longer needs to be called Legion, but can be known and loved by their own name, as a Child of God.

Right now, the gift has been given to each of us. God has stilled whatever storms have raged within us, and has driven that which has destroyed our lives off the cliffs around us.  We are now freed to live the life God intends for us.

Children of God, beloved and named for life, go and proclaim how much God has done for you.  Thanks be to God.  Amen

Texts:  Isaiah 65:1-9;  Psalm 22;  Galatians 3:23-29;  Luke 8:26-29