NOW - we bind and release
Mark 5:1-20
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If you looked at today’s Gospel reading on Friday
when the bulletin and email went out,
I wouldn’t fault you if you considered staying home,
because you weren’t very excited to
listen to a story and sermon on the
exorcism of a howling demoniac that lived in a cemetery.
What a strange and awful story to plan a whole service around!
I wouldn’t fault you if, in the end,
you came only to hear the SVCC kids sing.
But now that you’re stuck here with me for a few minutes
with this horror story—
and you’re not going anywhere because the SVCC
still has one more song—
my aim is to make you glad you stuck it out,
because this story is a Gospel Story,
it is good news for everyone,
and, believe it or not, it relates to everyone.
Despite how strange and otherworldly it might seem,
there are many paths, many roads into this story.
Which path you take, of course,
depends on where you start from.
But regardless, all roads lead to freedom!
_____________________
Let’s revisit the context of this story.
I mentioned a few weeks ago when we started into Mark’s Gospel,
that Mark likely emerged as a summary of Peter’s preaching,
possibly compiled by John Mark,
while both he and Peter were in Rome,
while Rome was at war against their own Jewish people
back in Jerusalem.
So this Gospel is aimed at convincing Gentiles, primarily,
Gentile citizens of the Roman Empire,
that the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah,
the promised Savior,
and the only true Son of God,
despite the fact that the Roman Emperor,
who people worshiped as a God,
claimed for himself the title, “Son of God.”
So imagine Peter, and his secretary John Mark,
making this bold claim, in Rome, and broadcasting it
in outright opposition to the Empire,
and all the power of the Empire.
Pretty gutsy of them.
But they saw it as an urgent matter.
A matter of life and death.
That’s Mark: the Urgent! Gospel
This is the good news, the Gospel.
The power of God is power for life.
Jesus came on God’s behalf
to bring full, meaningful, and abundant life to everyone.
The death-dealing and violent power of Empire
is both false and corrupt.
It wields a lot of power. Oppressive power.
But it can’t deliver on its promise of life.
So stick that in the back of your mind, as I retell this story,
from the urgent Gospel of Mark.
_____________________
Jesus and his disciples leave the glory of Galilee,
where they were hugely popular,
throngs following every movement,
and they got into a boat and crossed over the sea
into Gentile territory.
And not just any Gentile territory.
They went to the Decapolis,
a region on the eastern edge of the Empire,
settled mostly by veterans of the Roman imperial army,
who were given these conquered lands
as payment for their service to Rome.
Symbolically, this region reeked of Roman military might and power.
And who was the very first human
that Jesus and the disciples encountered?
Well, when they got out of the boat, immediately—
there’s that word of urgency once again, εὐθέως—
immediately, as their feet touched the ground
in this land of imperial power,
they met a man too strong for anyone there to tame.
He was possessed of demons, we are told.
Demons by the name of Legion, because they were many.
That is military terminology.
Every original reader of Mark would have known
that Legion is the Roman word for a unit of 3,000–6,000
men in the imperial Roman army.
Coincidence, in the Decapolis? I don’t think so.
The townspeople, military veterans,
were unable to bind this man.
They tried.
They bound him with shackles.
They bound him with chains.
But he busted loose, no matter what.
He had no place of welcome or refuge.
He lived as an outcast,
in the only place he wasn’t resisted—
among the tombs, death surrounding him.
This is utterly dreadful.
Powers of evil at work that no one could overcome,
even those trained in Caesar’s army—
Caesar, who was called Son of God.
Did you hear the first words out of the mouth of this man,
when he saw Jesus?
“What have you to do with me,
Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
His demons, named “Legion,”
recognized Jesus as the only one
who rightly held the title, Son of God.
Legion—the demon named after 3,000 men in Caesar’s army—
called Jesus by that name, not Caesar.
And the story unfolds in dramatic fashion.
Legion begged Jesus not to torment them,
but if they were going to be cast out, to please, please,
let them be cast into a herd of swine.
Which Jesus did.
And the herd of pigs became the host for the unclean spirits.
And the whole herd—2,000 pigs—almost enough to be a legion,
ran down the hill into the sea and drowned.
Those herding the pigs ran to tell the townspeople,
who came out to see Jesus,
and saw the formerly possessed man,
now clothed, calm, and in his right mind,
and begged Jesus to leave their region, now.
They were more afraid of the power that freed this man
than they were of the power that bound him to begin with.
And in the bittersweet ending, as Jesus got back in the boat,
the freed man begged to go with him.
Jesus said, no, you stay here and spread the good word.
“Go home, and tell everyone how much the Lord has done for you
and what mercy he has shown you.”
And the man went and proclaimed through all the Decapolis
how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone was amazed.
_____________________
Now, remember I said this story was good news for everyone.
And that there are many paths, many roads into this story.
And in this story, all roads lead to freedom.
What I love about the Bible is that often,
there is more than one meaning in a text.
There are often more ways than one to find truth in scripture.
And what it means to you has to do with where you start,
with your particular angle,
with your location,
with your world view.
This story is a prime example.
So what are some of these paths?
As I’ve already hinted, there’s a potential political reading.
In a context where the Roman Empire
was an occupying force, at war against the Jews,
it is not hard to find hidden symbolism throughout this story.
It took place in a region filled with veterans of Caesar’s army.
The demons, named after a legion of the Roman army,
occupied this man,
much like they occupied Judea, the land of Abraham.
Was this story an attempt, in code,
to predict the outcome of the struggle
between the Roman Legions,
and the children of Abraham?
Some scholars think there’s a not-so-subtle message in this story
that the power of the Gospel,
the power of the risen Jesus,
is stronger than, and more life-giving than,
the power of Empire, and political oppression,
and the power of violence.
And in the end, all those powers will bow to,
and need to give account to, the Lamb of God.
And all those they oppressed and bound will be freed.
Good news, right?
There are also sociological paths into this story.
Was this demoniac a scapegoat for the townspeople?
Were they projecting onto him
the sins and emotional wounds of the community?
Was it easier to overlook their own sins and shortcomings,
knowing someone worse off than they, the scapegoat,
the “black sheep” of the community,
was out there in the tombs, naked and howling?
Later, when he sat fully clothed, and sane,
and needed to be reintegrated into the community,
they couldn’t handle that.
It upset the equilibrium that the scapegoat provided for them.
So there’s a message in this story that the power of the Gospel,
the power of the risen Jesus,
is stronger than dysfunctional systems of family
and community and even church,
that have a way of scapegoating and marginalizing,
and keeping some people from living the full lives
they were created to live.
And in the end, the binding power of
sinful community narratives will bow to,
and need to give account to,
the Jesus who ate with tax collectors and sinners.
And all those who were bound will be freed.
Good news, right?
There are also personal and spiritual paths into this story.
If you start from a spiritual paradigm
that includes the potential for oppressive, demonic forces
to indeed possess an individual, and overpower them,
binding them, mind, body, and spirit,
and keeping them from being whole,
then this story, when read quite literally, is good news.
So there’s a message here that the power of the Gospel,
the power of the risen Jesus,
is stronger than any demonic force,
known or unknown, named or unnamed.
In the end, any spiritual force, in any form,
that keeps people from living full and whole lives,
marked by peace and joy and safety and fruitful labor,
that force must also answer to Jesus,
the great healer and restorer.
And all those who were bound will be freed.
Good news, right?
Many roads into this story, and they all lead to freedom.
_____________________
Friends, we live in a world where evil often seems to get its way.
The good people don’t always win.
Violent and deceitful people seem to work their way
into places of power and influence—
around the world, and in our own land.
And systems of violence and oppression are persistent.
We all know that slavery in America did not actually disappear
after the Emancipation Proclamation.
It only took different forms,
because those who held the power were not ready to release it.
And the legacy of white European oppression of native peoples
is also still with us,
in various forms, and to various degrees.
The powers of evil are persistent.
Devastating wars and acts of state-sponsored genocide,
still happen around the world—either currently, or in recent past.
Gaza, Ukraine, Darfur,
the Uyghur people in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar,
the DR Congo, South Sudan, ISIS in various countries,
and too many more to name.
This kind of wanton destruction of men, women, and children,
and of whole communities,
is evil, and it’s persistent.
And individuals and family systems are also subject to forces of evil
that oppress and bind and restrict and abuse—
whether spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical,
or some combination of several of those,
because they all interconnect,
and keep us from being whole people.
Today’s strange Gospel reading is good news
for a world in chains, and howling,
and being tortured by demons of every variety.
Many of us feel—either individually, or socially, or politically—
that we are bound, prevented from living a full life.
But the urgent good news of Mark tells us,
there is an even more persistent power for life,
a power that is greater than the power that seeks death.
God is for life.
_____________________
20 years ago, Mary Louise Bringle wrote a hymn text
that took this Gospel story about the demoniac,
and brought it home to our present reality. Listen . . .
Cast out, O Christ, cast far away the demons that destroy:
the haunting dreads that choke our souls, the hates that stifle joy.
Our raging griefs, our jealous fears are Legion in their name.
Our shackled hearts implore your grace to loose our binding shame.
Once long ago, from Galilee, you sailed to storm-tossed shores.
And still, in pow’r, you brave new paths to breach our bolted doors.
Your Word breathes life and health and hope that break through evil’s thrall.
You send us, strengthened, home in peace to live your gospel call.
—Phil Kniss, January 21, 2024
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