Second Sunday after Pentecost            

Luke 8:26-39

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As Jesus 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.

Legion    

When I first started read this lectionary text for today, I immediately recognized it. It was the text that I had used the first time I preached after my brother’s suicide. I’ve only really talked about this with a select group of people here, though I have mentioned it from the pulpit a couple of times. When I saw this text for today, I thought, has it really been three years, because this text showing up again would mean that we had made it through the 3-year lectionary cycle. Next Sunday, June 26, will be three years from the day that he died, and this text, the story of Jesus exorcising the demon Legion from this man who had been living among the tombs, will forever be colored by this event in my life.

I didn’t realize when I moved to Montana that suicide would be such a big concern here. I have since learned that Montana has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, behind only Alaska and Wyoming, as of March of this year. Most people agree that suicide is often the result of some kind of mental illness, with the exception of some end-of-life cases. Many of us in this room have been touched by mental illness, one way or another, and when I saw what the text was for today, I thought maybe we should talk about it.

As we examine this story, it’s important that we pay attention to how Legion identifies itself, the definition of the word Legion, and what that word would have meant to someone hearing it in the place and time that this text was written.

This is a story of injustice. A story of an occupied people, and their hope for a future in which they are free. The actual definition of the word legion is a unit of approximately six thousand Roman soldiers. The events of this story take place at a time when the Romans were occupying the area. Ancient texts tell of a battle that happened here in the first century, when the Romans killed a thousand men, imprisoning their families, and burning the city to the ground. So, removing a demon called Legion from a local man suddenly takes on much a deeper meaning. And, while we might not be an occupied people, though our indigenous population might feel differently, there is plenty of injustice to go around. Monday is Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States in 1865. When we think about our history as a nation, the stories often feel like they happened in some kind of ancient past, but that was only 157 years ago, and we are still feeling the repercussions of those injustices to this day. It’s another form of mental illness, to look at another human being and truly believe that they are inferior, because their skin is a different color.

Legion was a spirit of violence. The text tells us that this man had been bound and shackled and kept under guard, but he kept breaking free and escaping into the wild. To our modern ears, the word legion means “many.” Instead of a single demon possessing this man, there were many, many spirits inside of him, all operating as a single entity calling itself “Legion.” And, this multitude of spirits kept this poor man in a state of torment.

But, this is a story about an exorcism, about healing a man from mental illness. We don’t talk much about demons these days, but Biblical scholars suggest that these episodes of demonic possession in the Bible were simply an ancient people’s understanding of what mental illness was at the time. It would appear that we are still dealing with these demons today. There is a constant hum of anxiety running through our culture, an uncertainty about our health in the face of a continuously mutating virus, uncertainty about the economy, about our politics, it’s no wonder that cases of mental illness are on the rise.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. In 2020, we lost almost 46,000 people to suicide. It’s sobering to think that for so many, they felt like this was the only choice for them…that it wasn’t a choice at all…that this was the only way they had of escaping whatever torment they were living through.

For much of my life, this was a confusing text for me. For some reason, I had always understood it to say that Jesus had condemned the herd of pigs to die by drowning themselves in the lake, and unless I’m mistaken, this is the popular or common understanding of this text, so it was probably taught to me that way at some point. And, even though pigs are considered unclean by the Jewish people, this had always seemed like an unfair fate for them. They were simply living their lives, doing what pigs do, looking for food on the hills by the lake, and it never seem particularly Jesus-like to send them to their deaths for no reason. But, Jesus doesn’t actually send the pigs to their deaths. The text says that he simply gives permission for Legion to enter the pigs. And we see shortly after, that in addition to everything that Legion is and everything that Legion represents, Legion was a spirit of suicide.

I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Jesus saved this man’s life. I don’t mean that in a figurative sense, that he was a raving lunatic, and Jesus gave his life back to him, so that he could live as a normal human being again, although that is true. I mean it literally. We see that Legion made the pigs kill themselves, so I think it’s safe to assume that Legion was working to make the man do the same.

But, this man did not end up killing himself, because there was someone there who cared about him, who was able to stop him. Someone who saw the warning signs and was able to save him. And, before I go any further, I feel like I need to make it clear that it is not always possible to save everyone. We can’t blame ourselves when a person takes their own life. But, that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the warning signs when someone is crying out for help…that we shouldn’t be compassionate and loving, the way that God wants us to. Anyone contemplating suicide is in extreme emotional distress, experiencing a kind of pain that I don’t think I can even imagine. If we encounter someone like that, we have to help them. It is our responsibility to help them, with the understanding that we can’t save everyone. But, we have to try.

As a Christian, I believe in the concept of eternity. I believe that is what people step into when they die. And yet, when loved ones pass on, we can’t help but grieve their loss. I’ve struggled for a long time trying to figure out how we can carry so much grief and hope at the same time. All that I’ve been able to come up with so far is that life is precious, because that is all that we know, and when someone leaves us like that, it means we have to live the rest of our lives without them. In the case of suicide, it means that things must have been so terrible, so hard to live with, that they had to give up that precious gift. That is the ultimate tragedy: That we live in a world where people have to experience that kind of sadness…that kind of loneliness…that kind of despair.

We have to remember, that God does not want that kind of life for us. We have to remember that God is a God of love, and kindness, and generosity. We have to work with God to change this world into one in which people are treated fairly, where there is opportunity for joy, and where love abounds. That is the world that God wants for us. That is the world that is possible. And, that is the world that we saw when Jesus removed Legion from that man. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei