June 20, 2010 Galatians 3:23-29 Luke

8:26-39 “Declare What God

Has Done”
Dr. Ted H. Sandberg

One day, as the account in Luke 8:22 begins, Jesus said to his disciples, “‘Let’s go across to the other
side of the lake.’ Even though they don’t know why, they put out, and while they were sailing Jesus
fell asleep. While he was sleeping, a tremendous storm quickly came up and threatened to swamp the
boat. “[The disciples] went to [Jesus] and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we’re perishing!’
[Jesus] woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm,” calm
on the lake, but not in the minds of the disciples. “They were afraid and amazed, and said to one
another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’”
As amazed as the disciples were at Jesus’ power over nature, they were in for an even greater shock.
Following the storm, Luke tells us that Jesus and the disciple went across the lake to the country of the
Gerasenes. When the boat that was carrying Jesus and the disciples landed on the East side of the Sea
of Galilee, they were met by essentially, a wild man. This poor guy ran around naked. He didn’t live
in the city with ordinary folk, but in amongst the tombs. The people of the town had tried to keep him
bound with chains so that he wouldn’t be a danger to them or to himself, but the man kept breaking
loose.
That Jesus would go close to this man was remarkable, because he was terribly unclean. Nakedness
was strictly forbidden. The Gentile tombs would also be a source of ritual uncleanness for a Jew. 1
Note too, there’s a physical threat here, though the NRSV doesn’t translate it as such. The phrase, “he
fell down before him,” could be translated, “[he] lunged at [Jesus].”2 Clearly, Luke wants us to know
this man is possessed, and while Luke doesn’t make a great point of it, he also wants us to see Jesus’
courage in confronting the man and the demons that possessed him.
Jesus was dealing with a demon here. We don’t talk in terms of the demonic all that often today. We
believe that many of the individuals who were said to be possessed by demons in Jesus’ day were
simply ill. Many had symptoms of what we today call epilepsy. Others were possibly suffering from
what we say is mental illness. There are movies that deal with demon possession, and there’s an
occasional TV program that deals with demons, but most of us probably say that a person was said to
be possessed by a demon when people then had no other explanation for a person’s behavior. The
man in today’s story would certainly be called mentally ill. I doubt that any psychiatrist would call the
man possessed.
I’m not arguing for a return to demon possession as a mental diagnosis. On the other hand, it’s easy to
pooh-pooh evil and demons as things of the past when in reality evil continues to be present today.
Just because we can medically diagnose something as a disease, doesn’t mean that there isn’t evil
attached to it as well. I’m thinking specifically about addictions. Yes, there are physical reasons why
a person is addicted to alcohol, for example. But those physical symptoms can be treated relatively
easily. It’s the emotional and mental aspects of alcohol addiction that are hard to deal with, and they
can often only be dealt with by turning control of one’s life over to a higher power – God. The fact

1 1. Fitzmyer, Joseph A., S.J., The Gospel According to Luke (I-IX), Doubleday &
Company, Inc., Garden City, NY, p. 737.

2 2. Fitzmyer, p. 738.
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that so many individuals need God, need a higher power, to defeat alcohol and drug abuse at least
raises the real possibility for me that the demonic is involved in that abuse.
The demonic is usually portrayed in movies and TV with a capital D. The Demonic is all powerful,
all threatening, all evil. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Evil doesn’t have to be “The Great Evil”
force. Evil instead can be some accountant at work in some back office ordering cheaper blow-out
preventers rather than safer, more expensive ones, and some government inspector accepting gifts and
not enforcing the regulations. Evil can be some talk-show host spewing out half-truths to make a case
against some worthy cause. The demonic can be that addiction that causes an individual to lie and
steal and cheat in order to get another drink, in order to get another hit, in order to find another victim.
Evil is in the world today, just as it was in Jesus’ day. I’m not sure that we’re all that well off today
by denying the reality of evil.
In this morning’s passage, we read, “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.” In
the commentaries that I read for this sermon, none of them commented on the name Legion, other than
to say that a Roman legion numbered 6,000 soldiers. Obviously, Luke wants us to know that the
Gerasene demoniac was possessed by a great number of demons. But I also think there’s a quiet jab
here at Rome itself, or at least the occupying army. William Barclay suggests the possessed man
answered Jesus by saying “Legion,” because it felt like he was possessed by 6000 demons.3 That may
well be true. But I can’t help but feel Luke jabbing the Romans by aligning their Legion with the
demonic.
This Legion of demons cried out to Jesus, asking him not to send them to the abyss. The abyss was a
place of confinement for demonic forces which, though hostile to God, are ultimately under God’s
control. Why they thought that Jesus would have compassion on them, on demons, I don’t know. At
first glance, though, it may appear that Jesus did have compassion on them. He didn’t send them
directly to the abyss. He sent them into a herd of pigs. Of course, the pigs were “spooked,” and took
off in a stampede. Over the cliff they went, into the lake where they drowned, thus, I presume,
sending the demons to the abyss. The demons got what they deserved.
Once the demons leave the man, he regains control of himself. When the people of the town come to
Jesus to find out what’s happened, they find “man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet
of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”
We’d think this would make for a great TV drama with this perfect ending. Not so, because there are
a couple of problems. First, the swine herders weren’t happy at all that all their pigs had run over the
cliff and drowned in the lake. I can’t say as I blame them either. Of course, for a Jew – which Jesus
was – the thought of having those unclean animals suffer such a fate would’ve been more delightful
than tragic. I’m sure those Jews who heard Luke tell this story would’ve enjoyed the pig destruction.
[I think we see Jesus’ human, Jewish side here.]
But the owners of those pigs, and the herders of the pigs, wouldn’t have been happy. Their livelihood
was gone. Their property had been sent over the cliff, and they were angry.
Nor was the crowd who witnessed all this overjoyed with Jesus either. Luke tell us they were afraid of
Jesus, which is understandable. This Jesus was a man of great power, a man who had a power that

3 3. Barclay, William, The Gospel of Luke, rev. ed., The Westminster Press,
Philadelphia, PA, 1975, p. 108.
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they didn’t understand, and so they wanted him gone.
Why did they all want Jesus gone? Because they placed economics before the value of the man who
was healed. The healing was forgotten in the loss of the pigs. The fact that this poor man was no
longer possessed was forgotten, and instead the economic worth of the pigs was put first.
Which happens even today. As I was working on this sermon I was thinking to myself, “But Jesus
didn’t have to kill that whole herd of pigs. Maybe only one or 2 pigs would’ve been enough.” I
caught myself doing what the people of Geresa did – putting money before the man. Jesus was
teaching here that the value of one man was greater than a whole herd of pigs. The mental health of
one individual was worth more to God than the economic power of those pigs.
And if you catch yourself arguing against this kind of thinking, as I did when I wrote the sermon, and
as I’ve caught myself doing again and again, if you catch yourself thinking something like, “But think
of all those people who lost their livelihoods. Think of the economic loss. Think of the hungry
people,” if you catch yourself thinking this way, then think of this. First of all, the ones who lost out
were the very wealthy Gentiles, individuals who more than likely could have afforded the loss. The
poor common peasant didn’t own a herd of pigs. That was for the rich.
And even more, understand that the value of 1 person is greater than the value we place on money.
We’re not to value money above people – and we do all the time, don’t we? I believe this is “Legion”
that we’re to confront today. This is the evil that turns us against one another. We feel money is
worth more than people.
We can’t clean-up the environment because it’s going to cost too much money. So our land is
polluted and our air is polluted and we get more cancers, and nations continue to hunt whales. The
health care debate was basically about economics. Opponents said it was, and is, too expensive.
Ultimately, they say, we’ll have to raise taxes on the rich and the middle class. Can’t do that. So
people die waiting in the emergency room because the health care system is inadequate. Cars could be
safer, but then they’d cost more and profits would be less. Businesses transfer production to where
ever the cheapest labor can be found, dumping hundreds of workers in unemployment lines. The
companies are making a profit here, just not as great a profit as there.
And before we only blame the managers and board of directors of the companies, remember that too
often they’re driven by the shareholders who demand quick profit, we the shareholders.
It’s not wrong to make a profit. Companies need to make money. Taxes can get too high. There
needs to be a balance. But making more and more money isn’t the only goal. We are a community,
and individuals have responsibilities to one another. Ultimately, people are to come first according to
Jesus.
But too often, economics are placed before people. This is Legion. This is evil. This is sin. Now, as
then, we need to have Legion driven from the body of society. Now, as then, we need Jesus Christ to
free us from Legion as the demoniac was freed that we too may be of right mind. How easy it is to
put economics before all else, and to make rational arguments for doing so.
Even more, we are called to proclaim this message to the world. After the Gerasene was healed, he wanted to
go with Jesus, but Jesus said, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” That’s
what we are called to do, as well, declare how much God has done for us. We’re called to declare that God
has valued us more than the dollar. God has valued humanity more than some CEO making an extra million
dollars a year. God has valued humanity more than exorbitant profits, and we’re called to proclaim that

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message. May we, like the man who was healed declare how much God has done for us. Amen.