Shackles and Chains are Not the End
Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost
Gospel: Luke 8: 26-39
As our lectionary moves through its regular three-year cycle, we’re allowed opportunities to consider the readings in fresh ways through the lens of the progression of our lives. While the readings are consistent and repetitive our journeys largely are not, and as such what we draw from the well of the scriptures should ideally be just as new as the experiences that continually shape us.
The last time I preached on this passage from Luke, for instance, the word “fear” was the focus of my sermon, one written in the shadow of the mass shooting at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills, Alabama just a few days before. In light of the events in the Middle East yesterday evening, that same word – fear – very much still applies. There’s fear over the growing tensions and conflict in that region. There’s fear for the safety of the people of all nations, fear for those serving in our armed forces, and fear for the Anglican and Episcopal Church throughout that area. I certainly encourage everyone to pray for stability, peace, and an end to the fighting and bloodshed there and in all nations.
Despite the fear that doesn’t seem to go away, I found different words bubbling up as I again followed Jesus on his journey and tried to summarize the reading: crossing boundaries and freedom.
Crossing boundaries and freedom.
The passage opens with Jesus having traveled beyond Galilee, sailing with his companions across the lake to the land of the Gerasenes on the opposite shore. He’s personally extended his ministry into a land of Gentiles, beyond the boundaries of the familiar into an unknown land and unexpected situation. As Fred Craddock notes, it’s the only time anywhere in Luke that we see Jesus active in an area that is primarily Gentile.[1] And while the visit was brief, the impact – particularly on a single life – was significant.
Immediately upon landing he’s met by a man long possessed by unclean spirits, someone driven to the edge of his homeland not by the actions of anyone or anything other than the influence of what was at work inside him. For the listeners of Luke’s time there’s a strong thread of uncleanliness running through this passage, tying together the unclean spirits, an unclean land of Gentiles, the unclean area of the tombs, and a herd of unclean swine. Now those who cared about this man attempted to keep him safe by chaining him in his home, but the power of his inner demons was too great, and he escaped to live among the tombs. Yet despite breaking free of his shackles he was still imprisoned, having shed only the physical chains; he was still very much bound by the chains of possession.
As we quickly see, however, Jesus commands the unclean spirits to come out of him – not something we see as a grand declaration but rather an act presented almost as an afterthought, after Jesus has been recognized and named by the unclean spirits. The man never asks Jesus for help; he likely couldn’t ask for help. Yet Jesus sees and knows – and he acts. In driving the spirits out of the man and into the herd of swine he has crossed – he has eliminated – other boundaries. There’s the one separating the broken man from a life of wholeness. There’s the one separating him in his solitude from the larger community. And there’s the one separating this nonbeliever from a new life of belief and a new life of service to the one who restored his life and emphasized - perhaps for the first time – his belovedness.
Perhaps the most significant thing about this healing, however, is something that’s noted by Joel Green: “Here is a man, first full of demons, then saved, who responds as a disciple and becomes the first person to be commissioned by Jesus for missionary activity.”[2] Not only is there no one beyond salvation, condemned to live apart from the world in a metaphorical area of tombs, but as we see here everyone – regardless of circumstances or where their journey may begin – has value as a child of and apostle for God in a new phase of their journey.
In today’s world, many struggle with various forms of shackles and demons that bind and separate them from inner peace, or good health, or a feeling of community, or a sense of welcome. The reality is that much about today’s world can be viewed, to return to Luke, as a legion of unclean spirits. For many the circumstances of life are chains that slowly accumulate into a crushing, unbearable weight. Much about the world and the actions of some in it drives others to the despair of isolation, trying to escape by hiding among the figurative tombs, fleeing from those who turn their backs on them – or, worse still, from those seeking to add to their chains and shackles. The cruelty and dehumanizing tendencies of some separate many others from the communities of which they so desperately want to be a part.
Their acceptance and belovedness as children of God is diminished by circumstances and actions that rob them of love and dignity. They are victimized, in the words of Robert Burns, by “Man’s inhumanity to man [that] makes countless thousands mourn!”[3] They are left crying out in words that I see as a slight change to the words of Legion, new words cried out by a child of God feeling crushed and hopeless: What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, end my torment.
And in those moments when we may feel the most isolation and the greatest weight of our shackles, Jesus once again crosses boundaries and lands on our shore. As this passage shows, even when we don’t have the words or the ability to speak what we need, he will know. Listen again to the words of today’s collect for the reason we’ll be unshackled and made whole: “[F]or you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness.”[4]
Those moments when we find ourselves dwelling among the figurative tombs are not the end; they are the beginning. The shackles of illness or fear, the chains of exclusion or isolation, the bonds of chaos or torment: they may mark part of our journey, but they are not the whole journey. The time will come when the Son of God will cross boundaries and bring freedom – and at that time, we too can take up the invitation given to the man healed on that hillside 2,000 years ago: “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”[5]
Amen.
[1] Fred B. Craddock. Luke, p. 116.
[2] Joel B. Green. The Gospel of Luke, p. 336.
[3] Robert Burns, “Man Was Made to Mourn: A Dirge.” Selected Poems, p. 55.
[4] “Collect for Proper 7: The Sunday closest to June 22.” The Book of Common Prayer, p. 230.
[5] Luke 8:39 (NRSV).