Sunday, June 23, 2019

Shattering the Chatter


Earlier this week, I heard a thought-provoking phrase: Chatter is speaking to the choir.
The thought being that people congregate with others who think in similar ways and beliefs to them. For instance, there is a culture in on-line chat rooms where conversation goes back and forth freely, until those who question or ruffle-feathers with new ideas, are pushed out, sometimes blocked. The present trend is not an open chat room, but, rather, to begin on-line presence drawing people to chat based on a specific cause or ideology. The chatter in the room is speaking to the choir – like minded people, reinforcing beliefs and attitudes, and polarizing the group from a diversity of opinion and open public debate and conversation.
Within the church, it has been said that: the preacher is preaching to the choir.
The phrase means that on a given Sunday morning the congregation comes to this place, like minded people, similar in ways and beliefs, to hear the Word and participate in a worshipping community, without too many surprises. The community has parameters within which it is comfortable, within which the Good News is proclaimed, and an unspoken rule about what is acceptable and what is not. If a person no longer agrees with the chatter --- they stop coming or find a community that is inline with their thinking.
When we read scripture together, like the Gospel from Luke, it is interpreted based on our regular chatter.
The preacher preaches the Good News, that Jesus goes about healing, that Jesus has the authority and power to cast out demons.  The chatter emphasizes the grace of God for the one, the possibility of grace for us all, and that Jesus was about bringing God’s kingdom to the present.  From the inside perspective, the choir hears and accepts the Gospel as truth – comforting, and full of promise and hope- of course within this chat room, hearing includes room for thoughts, questions, tangents. We hear the Gospel of the healed once-demon possessed man and hear it as Jesus speaking to the choir; interpreted to fit into our chatter.
What if I told you that this story sets Jesus up -not to be chatter- but, rather, as the dissonant voice?

Jesus comes and stands in the middle of this space, to shatter the chatter.  Jesus has come inciting revolution!

Perhaps it is the medium, or the years that have passed since Luke wrote, that causes us to miss the notes of insurrection.  Today Jesus’ revolution would have been front and centre, on-line, in a revolutionary web-site, with interactive chat, flashing participate buttons, streamed video of the work of God’s kingdom, clips debunking fake news, passionate testimonials of how life with Jesus changes everything. And there would be the nay-sayers, polarized ideologies, trying to take down the movement.
But, lets worm our way out of the on-line world of conspiracy theories, radical groups, and calls to revolution; and take a closer look at Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.

Let us begin our interpretation in the statement:
Jesus comes and stands in the middle of this space, to shatter the chatter.  Jesus has come inciting revolution!

The story took place in the Trans-Jordan, the Eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, an area influenced and controlled by the Greco-Roman cities of the Decapolis. The population of the Decapolis was primarily Gentile. In the region, the raising of pigs or swine, indicated a Roman presence.  Pigs were not raised in areas unless there was a Roman presence – Romans ate pork- Jews did not. Rome was the occupying power.
The stage is set: this story is political!
The text tells us that the man was seized by demons. Luke uses the same word for seized, as he does in Acts when Christians were arrested and imprisoned for sharing the Gospel. An outside force, the authorities, took away freedom and imposed their power. The man’s demons were brought on by the authorities who imprisoned him with the demons. The demon possessed man was found in the wilderness; no longer housed or clothed or cared for by his home city.  The Decapolis’ system that addressed mental health, homelessness, incarceration; those who fell into servitude or poverty; was broken, or never existed. 
The stage is set: this story is social! Specifically, social justice in the hands of those in power!
The heart of story that points to revolution is the response Jesus received when he asked the name of the demon that possessed the man.  Legion.  A Legion is a Roman term and is defined as the basic Roman military unit consisting of 5000 men. All Legions worked under the authority of the Empire and marched with the symbol of a golden eagle.  Each Legion could also use their own emblem, the famous 10th Legion used the emblem of a pig which they used to mark bricks and coins. Legion, the demons that oppressed the man, were connected to the Empire.
Legion knew who Jesus was, and asked not to be tormented by the Son of the Most High God.  The Empire watched those who rose up to stand against their power.  Legion asked to not be thrown to the abyss – to drive the point of the story home, Legion was directed into the pigs – the very symbol of the occupying power. In a dark turn of the story, this did not save Legion; Legion did not have a new host.  Jesus’ action was not a gracious or comforting alternative to being cast aside --- it meant death because the pigs ran down the hill and drown.  A complete wiping out of an occupying force that was a burden to the people for whom they were responsible.
Jesus’ point, Jesus’ action– was insurrection- an overthrowing and complete annihilation of political power that had no concern for social justice! No vision, no heart, for the kingdom of God.

The swine herders ran back to the city to tell the authorities what had happened. For them the situation was devastating.  They lost the pigs that were under their responsibility.  They lost their livelihood. In another story told in the Gospel, the prodigal son, after he had spent all his money found a job looking after pigs – eating the leftovers from the pigs’ meal, he was that hungry.  For him, pig tending was hitting rock-bottom.
We are not told what happened to the pig-herders, although their announcement in the city, caused a frenzy where the locals wanted to move this Jesus along.  As people came out of the city, they found the once demon possessed man sitting at Jesus’ feet.  There was fear. They were afraid of the man; afraid of Jesus’ power.  The word used for fear is one meaning “held captive,” Luke uses the same word when referring to the men guarding Jesus when he was on trial.  They held Jesus captive – in prison.  Fear held the people of Gerasene captive.
In the story, casting out Legion was casting out the demons that held the man captive.  The healing was freeing the man from occupying powers. In broader terms, the people were being invited to freedom from fear, freedom from occupying powers.
Jesus was there inciting revolution! Political and social!

The people choose to continue in fear; they asked Jesus to leave. They did this because freedom is dangerous and costly…we find that out later when Jesus was killed in order to stop the movement, an insurrection where the poor, the forgotten, the sick, the demon possessed, were graced with hope, with life.
Legion was tormented by Jesus insurrection! Freedom from occupying power was Legions political and social death!

Shortly after Jesus’ time on earth, the region where he had walked, was in a full-scale insurrection, known as the Jewish Revolt. According to the historian Josephus, Roman general Vespasian went to Gerasene – the place of the pig story, the people that chose to live in fear, possessed by social demons, occupied by Legion.  Vespasian and his Legion killed 1000 young men, imprisoned their families, burned the city, and attacked villages throughout the region. The Jewish Revolt led to the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.

There is nothing warm or fuzzy or comforting from the Gospel reading this morning. The once-demon possessed man wished to stay with Jesus; to follow Jesus.  Rather, Jesus sent the man home to declare how much God had done for him. In other places, Jesus told people not to tell others that they were healed, changed, or empowered.  Jesus’ wasn’t working from the inside here – he wasn’t working to send a message to the chief priests or the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem; he wasn’t preaching the words of the prophet or re-iterating the Mosaic Law to God’s people.  Jesus was confronting the occupying power. Jesus was inciting revolution against the Legion -the demons- of Empire.
Legion – the demons- of Empire are alive and well throughout the world today.  Legion is the systems that don’t work to bring the kingdom; that possess people so that they live and remain in poverty, in mental illness, dispossessed.  Legion is the cause of the demons humanity wrestles with: demons of addiction, self-loathing, homelessness; the chattering of conspiracy theories, spreading fake news, building chat rooms of hate and exclusion. Legion’s power is exemplified in abuses of power, in propagating fear, and polarizing issues; presenting demi-gods of money, progress, raping the environment for gain; possession that causes apathy, closing eyes to Treaty Rights, ignoring the LGBTQ2+ community… I can go on. We are a society – a people- possessed and oppressed by demons, occupied by Legion.
This insinuation should stop the chatter; stop our chatter.
We are a society – a people – possessed by demons, occupied and oppressed by Legion.

Except…
… that Jesus stands in our midst, through the proclamation of the Gospel reading –
with a declaration that we have a choice; we can be freed from occupying powers-
no longer tormented by Legion (or Empire) because Jesus destroyed Legion-
Jesus healed the man by offering freedom-

Jesus incites us to insurrection. 
Insurrection is leaving our own chatter and confronting the chatter that is not bringing the kingdom of God; it is agitating Empire by freeing the possessed; defeating demons one demon possessed human at a time.
How? It is really simple…and it is the test of whether we have truly chosen to be healed and set free; or to live in fear and oppressed by Legion;
Like the once-demon possessed man, we are told to return home…outside these walls…and declare all that God has done.

Stop chattering. Go and declare all that God has done.

God Is Known- Eye to Eye, Heart to Heart

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