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.
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