Scripture: Mark 5:1-20
Jesus Heals a Man Possessed by Demons
5 Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 This man lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain, 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces, and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before Jesus, 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 He begged Jesus earnestly not to send them out of the region. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding, 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” 13 So Jesus gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, stampeded down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned in the sea.
14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the man possessed by demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion, and they became frightened. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the man possessed by demons and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. 18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But Jesus refused and said to him, “Go home to your own people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy God has shown you.” 20 And the man went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone was amazed.
Sermon: The Most Valuable
Today’s story of the man possessed by the evil or “unclean” spirits, (or even “demons” in other translations) unfolds on occupied land, in the region called Gerasenes, under the boots of the Roman Empire’s army. The Bible explains that it is the ‘Gentiles’ area, outside of the main Jewish cities and towns. Regardless of whether they were Jewish or Gentile regions, all of them were under the control of Romans. In the 1st century of Palestine, the Romans were occupying Palestine and oppressing the Indigenous peoples for imperial gain.
What does any colonizing power or colonization do? Control.
The main strategy of colonial control is through division. Divisions between people, disconnection between communities, robbing them of self-determination on their own lands.
Not only taking the lands, colonizing systems make sure their control permeates into the people’s psychological, mental, and spiritual realms, making them live in fear. Colonization leaves deep scars in all aspects of culture and personal lives. The wounds last generation after generation, creating intergenerational and social trauma, poverty, homelessness. Today’s Gospel story touches on both individual mental illness and the ills of society.
The story of the man possessed by evil spirits, set in Gerasenes, is also a story unfolding in the mind of a man, showing that he greatly suffers from symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is a deeply traumatized person, possibly having multiple personality disorder. Much research on trauma, especially as the result of severe childhood abuse, help us understand that when a young person does not have the ability to process terrible suffering, for some, different personalities are created to give the child a sort of internal distance from them. The child goes through isolation not only from the community, but also from their own self.
Let’s hear the story again from a trauma-informed reading. A man, from the city who is possessed by unclean spirits, is naked, and living among the tombs. The story tells us that the man self-harmed but did not hurt others.
The man is someone who has been sinned against - wounded, harmed, afflicted by the ills of society — especially colonization. He’s been wronged. When we encounter today’s story from the lens of those who have been sinned against, the afflicted, the wronged, we move to see the whole situation more organically, connecting an individual’s mental illness with the ills of society.
The man lived among the tombs. Tombs were not simply a functional place where dead bodies were buried. Like a cemetery, tombs were separate, placed apart from the resident areas of the town or city, on the hills or in the mountains. It was a place of social separation.
Then, when this man possessed by the spirits saw Jesus from a distance, he entered the place of the living, and bowed down, followed by an interesting and surprising dialogue between the healer and the sufferer. I hope that you may notice that the sufferer, the man with the unclean spirits or even “demons”, makes two requests of the healer.
The healer says… “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”
The supplicant requests… “I adjure you by God, do not torment me”.
What does that mean, “Do not torment me?” (Pause)
We need more information.
The healer, then asks… “What is your name?”
The sufferer responds, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
A Legion is the largest division of Roman soldiers, containing some 5,000 men. I remind you, this is an occupied land. It has been politically overthrown, communities displaced by the Roman military and political conquer (which happened BC 63). Everyone is impacted by the colonial force, instilling fear, disrupting God-given ways of life, relationships, choices and actions.
Then, the sufferer makes their second request to the healer, Begging earnestly ”Please do not send the spirits out of the region.”
What does that mean: “Do not send the spirits out of the region?”
The Gospel of Luke has the same story, and it describes that the man with the evil spirits pleads, “Do not order the unclean spirits to go back into the abyss.”
So, “Out of the region” equals “Into the abyss.”
What is the abyss? In Jewish thought at the time, the abyss was not only the place where the dead await judgement, but also where unclean spirits were incarcerated. Incarceration! The abyss is the place of incarceration, where unclean spirits would be permanently confined, tortured, or tormented, more like punishment, rather than being released into peace or oblivion. It is a place for perpetual subjugation. Nothing is resolved by uprooting the cause that has created the problems in the first place: the societal ills that cause intergenerational and individual trauma, homelessness, mental disruption, disconnection from the lands and community.
Sending the spirits to the abyss, the place of incarceration, only reinforces the problem in a circular way. Confining the spirits only perpetuates the root cause of/which is “disconnection.” If the man’s spirits are “unclean”, disturbed by colonization, the path for healing must address the “unclean” social root cause, which is colonization.
The Elders say, colonization divides and disconnects, while the Spirit of truth connects us.
The healer understands the suffering of dislocation… Disconnection from their own self, their own community, and their own Creator.
The sufferer suggests… “Let us enter the swine and be drawn into the lake.”
As Mark explained last Sunday, pigs were deemed unclean among Jewish people and other ethnicities who followed the rules in the Torah. If they kept pigs, it was not for themselves, but for Romans.
The residents of Gerasene were employed in supplying the Roman Legion which stationed there, and pork was the primary meat staple for the Romans. So raising a huge herd of 2000 swine is understandable. Considering this historical background, “pigs being drawn into lake” could mean the self-destruction of colonizing power or “unclean” colonizing spirits. Actually, the symbol of the Roman Legion that stationed in the region was a wild boar (pig!).
Have you seen anywhere else in the Bible in which Jesus listens to and accepts the requests of unclean, or evil spirits, or demons?
What I understand from this surprising dialogue between the healer and the sufferer is that the root cause of suffering may be evil, unclean, and demonic…
Accepting the man’s request, Jesus does not cast the demons out of the region, or into the abyss, the place of the incarceration of the unclean. Instead, Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?”
Asking someone’s name can have different purpose and impact, and one of the purposes, expressed here, is, especially reading today’s story with a trauma-informed lens, important. For Jesus, it’s asking who he is. For the suffering man, the question asks him to engage with the reflective process to think about WHO AM I. It is to express self-identification. Could we imagine it this way? The healer invites the sufferer to a ceremony for healing. Jesus responds to the demon’s request by allowing them to engage in a ceremony, then to enter a herd of swine which then rush into the lake to be drowned. They are allowed to dissolve into the land/water, and not be trapped in perpetuity… Jesus sees beyond the demonic possession and recognizes the human being who is created in the image of God.
Richard Wagamese, the author of Embers, illustrates that in an imagined dialogue between himself and Old Woman:
Me: What is the purpose of ceremony?
Old Woman: To lead you to yourself.
from Embers, Richard Wagamese
Jesus wouldn’t have asked the demon’s name, and invited him to a ceremony of self-identification unless Jesus had come from a place of empathy. I understand that empathy is the most valuable part of this story (not exorcism). In my definition, empathy is the innate human and divine capacity to be able to see and engage, see past the surface, symptoms, numbers, statistical data, labels, stigma. Empathy is our ability to discover the image of God in every child of All Creation.
In today’s story, the man self-identifies as Legion, “For we are many”.
Over the years, I have met a few people who shared with me their journey with multiple personalities. These wonderful people had suffered from childhood abuse when they were young.
What I learned from their stories is that when the personalities, or identities, who had been companions in their lives eventually left them during the process of integration and healing, or when these companions dissolved into the host identity, the departure of these identities left them in deep grief. They felt emptiness and tremendous loss; a necessary pain in their healing process. These people with Multiple Personality Disorder had suffered greatly from disconnection, even from their own self. The pathway toward healing must be one of connection, and reconnection, to their own self, the land and the community, and to the Creator, if Creator or God is the experience of their spirituality.
The direction of societal healing, just as it is for mental and individual healing, needs to be towards and through connection.
Putting them into the “abyss”, into the “incarceration to the cycle of disconnection” is never a solution.
Today’s reading continues, saying that the people came to see what had happened and found the man who had been possessed by the demons “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.”
However, the spiritual journey for those who have been sinned against, wronged, those who are naked, wounded does not end with being assimilated into the social status quo: just becoming “normal” or civilized.
“Being clothed and in their right mind” is not the end of this man’s healing journey.
So, how does Jesus end today’s Gospel story?
When this man, now healed, asks if he can be with Jesus and follow the disciples, leaving the region, Geresane, Jesus refuses his request this time and instead sends him out to HOME, the LAND.
Jesus commissions and blesses him: “Go home to your own people.” It’s a blessing that summons him from the ABYSS OF DISCONNECTION to the journey of reconnecting with home.
Child of God, Wounded Healer, go home and lead your people to CONNECTION. Proclaim healing as decolonizing pathway and use Empathy as the most valuable in ministry — to see the image of God in all Creation and work towards social healing.
May it be so. Amen.
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