June 20 Proper 8
Like many dads, my own father is hard to shop for. Father’s Day has always been a challenge. He was never too keen on a new tie or money clip or some golf-themed trinket. The search for something that he would really enjoy has always been difficult. There was one year, though, in the late nineties, when my sister and I found the perfect gift. It was a small yellow book entitled, “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.” It was full of advice about how to survive various and sundry awful events. There was information about how to wrestle an alligator, escape quicksand, or land a plane in an emergency. There is a chapter on avalanches. The book explains that if you’re buried in an avalanche, just spit on the snow and it will tell you which direction is really up. Then dig as fast as you can. Each survival skill is explained in simple steps with helpful illustrations.
We bought the book for my dad to tease him a bit. You see, he is a worst-case scenario kind of guy. A planner in the extreme. Growing up, we heard many lectures about checking the car’s tire pressure and fluids, staying up to date on the maintenance, and getting the oil changed to avoid unnecessary breakdowns. And that we needed all kinds of contingency plans in case of malfunction or accident. He was also really big on insurance. Life, home, car, and now in his older years, long-term care insurance. He spent hours with us talking over what kind of coverage to have and how much. He carefully went through what-if scenarios to explain his points. I’m grateful now for these lessons. And while I’m sure I rolled my eyes as a teenager, I now have more compassion for the fact that he has lived with such worry about the worst that could happen.
It seems to me that this is how many people approach religion, too. There are all too many preachers who prey on a kind of fear of worst-case scenarios. Namely, that Judgment Day will go badly for you in you don’t pray a certain way, or accept salvation in a certain way, or give a certain amount of money. This kind of religion offers a false kind of insurance policy against the eternal judgment of God if you just do as you are told. And some will even go so far as to promise not only escaping the worst case scenario of eternal punishment, but escaping bad things in this life as well if you just follow a particular version of Christianity.
But today’s Gospel suggests that religion is not actually about avoiding worst-case scenarios. Rather, it suggests that when we find ourselves in one, something amazing can happen.
Enter the Gerasene Demoniac. It’s a fitting title for the man who is truly in a worst-case scenario. Luke could not have illustrated this point more clearly. Under guard and bound tightly in chains and shackles, this man is tormented by demons. He is not in his right mind. He wears no clothes and lives in the tombs, as if to say he is barely alive … if at all. He is barely even human anymore; completely unable to plan his way out of this dark hole he is in. Simply put, this Gerasene Demoniac is in his worst-case scenario and can do nothing on his own about it.
Enter Jesus … fresh off the boat from Galilee. He has just calmed the raging storm while at sea. The gospel tells us that the destination of Gerasene is a foreign land. It is “opposite” Galilee and is Gentile territory, a place most Jews would think Jesus has no business visiting in the first place. Just as Jesus steps into this alien land, where no one has witnessed or even heard of his miraculous exploits across the sea, the Demoniac greets him, and a most dramatic tale of transformation is told. Jesus removes the protesting legion of demons from this man and casts them into a nearby heard of pigs, who plummet to their death in the lake. The man is restored to a health and wholeness that was unimaginable before Jesus entered the scene.
And the people around him were shocked to the point of running Jesus out of town. Not surprising, really. In this dramatic act, Jesus, the Jew from across the sea, shocked the Gerasene worldview to the core. Who is this man that dares take it upon himself to upset the natural order of things? It was simple before he came. If you were afflicted by demons and not strong enough to overcome them yourself, you were lost. Dead is dead. Right? Who is this man from Galilee that can look death in the eye and have it recoil in response?
As modern folk, we can get hung up on the issue of demons. We might be more inclined to want to analyze the man’s mental illnesses before we use the language of the demonic. But however we categorize this man’s worst-case scenario, the story is the same. There are destructive powers in this world that we all encounter. Whether we live in a world full of demons or illness, we live in a dangerous world, a world that can seem to be against us. Demons are those powers that seem stronger than us – addiction, failure, isolation, death. And the message told by today’s Gospel is that it doesn’t matter what the world throws at us. Even in our worst-case scenarios, the love that Jesus is, and the love that Jesus brings, is stronger than any demon. Dead is dead. Right? Wrong. With Jesus, even those living naked among the tombs have life left in them.
As nature or nurture would have it, I inherited my dad’s tendency to want to have a plan for everything. To this day I have in my glove compartment the tire pressure gauge he gave me once for Christmas. And I use it too. I keep all of my family’s insurance policies up to date, just in case, and whenever my car hits another 5000 miles I’m at the garage for an oil change and a tire rotation. These are good practices. My car will probably last longer, I won’t be in financial ruin if and when something goes wrong.
But despite the many church billboards out there that ask me if my soul is “prepared” to meet God, I’m convinced that following Christ is different than taking out some insurance policy for fear of the worst-case scenario. Following Christ does not keep demons out of our lives. Following Christ does not protect us from death. Rather, as the Gerasene Demoniac teaches us, even when we are hopeless and living among the tombs, God can and will do something about it. The love of Christ is stronger than even a legion of demons. Amen.