This year, we’re doing midweek Lenten worship services in collaboration with all five of the Lighthouse Youth Ministry sponsoring congregations, and tonight, it’s Christ the King’s turn to host and thus, my turn to preach. Tonight’s topic is “Community with Those on the Margins.” We’re looking at a strange story of Jesus casting a demon into a herd of pigs, and rejoicing that God’s love crosses human boundaries to those the world overlooks or gives up on.
Tonight’s Scripture readings are Galatians 3:23-29 and Mark 5:1-20. Much of this sermon is adapted from my June 23, 2019, sermon on Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac, for which David Lose’s commentary on this story was helpful. I also found especially helpful page 336 of Joel Green’s The Gospel of Luke (Amazon affiliate link).
Here’s the sermon podcast audio and livestream from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
As you probably know, tonight is part four in our midweek Lenten series on the theme “Created for Community.”
In the early church, these weeks leading up to Easter—the season of Lent—was a time of preparation for baptism. This is the time when the church as a community shared the faith with baptismal candidates, before welcoming them as part of the community through baptism during the Easter vigil service.
During this season, we are reflecting together on what it means to be created for community, how God calls us to live together, to serve together as God’s people, supporting one another on the journey of faith. I think that’s especially important as we gather together as different congregations to remember that we’re all on the same team, united in Christ.
We started by remembering that we are all created by God. God calls us to be in community with all of creation, not exploiting nature, but caring and stewarding all that God has made.
Then we talked about being in community with all the saints, celebrating how the Christian community of the church extends beyond time and space, remembering those who have influenced our faith lives, and thinking about how we impact those who come after us.
Last week, Pastor Vince talked about being in community with our neighbors, looking at the faithful example of those four friends who brought their sick friend to Jesus, lowering him through a hole in the roof so he could encounter Jesus and find healing. We are called to let nothing stop us from loving our neighbors.
Tonight, we’re talking about how God calls us to be in community with those on the margins, and we’re going to get there by looking at what I think is one of the most memorable stories in the Bible.
If I were making a list of the top 10 strangest stories in the Bible, this one would be right up there with Balaam’s talking donkey and Elisha sending bears to attack teenagers who made fun of him for being bald.
Today, we’ve got a naked guy living in a cemetery, a whole legion of demons, and a herd of suicidal pigs. This is a weird story!
One key to this story is the location where it takes place. Jesus and his disciples have crossed the sea of Galilee in a boat. They’ve left Israel and they’re now in foreign territory, the Gentile region of the Gerasenes.
The pigs in the story are a reminder we’re outside of what had been Jesus’ usual territory, because remember for Jewish people, pigs are unclean. They’re not demonic or anything, but they’re something to be avoided, something filthy. At the end of the story when the pigs don’t make it, it’s no great loss, since they’re unclean anyway. (That said, I suspect the farmers who lose their herd might feel differently!)
The point is that Jesus and the disciples are crossing into unfamiliar territory.
Now, if you read this story in Matthew’s gospel, it’s set in the region of the “Gadarenes.” Geographically, that makes more sense, because Gadara borders the Sea of Galilee while the village of Gerasa is 30 miles inland. Some commentators, though, think Luke’s “land of the Gerasenes” is not a place, but a description. It’s a Greek pronunciation of a word meaning “the banished or exorcised ones.”
Jesus has come to the land of the outcasts and exiles. This is a place inhabited by people ignored by the world. These are people on the margins, people who don’t fit into polite society.
Who are those people in our world? Who are the people we don’t see? Maybe it’s those who don’t look like “us,” who shop at different stores, or live in different areas. Maybe it’s people who are unhoused, or people who are imprisoned. Our society is all too good at locking people away and forgetting the key.
Or maybe it’s people who are elderly or sick. When someone gets a diagnosis, there’s often a lot of support at first, but then sometimes when a situation becomes chronic, the support starts to slip away.
The same thing is true when someone loses a spouse. Our country is facing a loneliness epidemic, where people don’t feel connected to any community. Many people who are aging fear going to a nursing home, because once you leave your own home, it’s easy to feel forgotten and out of sight. Who else is overlooked in our society? I think of groups like veterans, second or third shift workers, or of course people dealing with mental illness.
When Jesus leaves the familiar region of Galilee and crosses over to the land of the outcasts, he and his disciples encounter this man, this Gentile, this outsider, who is basically a dead man walking.
We don’t know when the demons came into him or how it happened, but when he started acting strange, the authorities had tried to take care of him by guarding him and keeping him in chains. Since then, he’s broken free and now he lives in the tombs, another place good Jews would consider unclean.
This man is existing outside of society, and the world has given up on him. We don’t know how long he’s been like this, but think of the strength it must take to keep surviving when everyone else has given up on you, when there’s no hope.
Again, this story challenges us to ask who it is we have given up on. Who in our world is living among the tombs, abandoned to death? I think of people in war zones, or especially refugees who fled their homes decades ago and are still living in camps.
But Jesus does not give up on this man. Jesus recognizes the demons who have afflicted him, and he casts them out. And the result is not just the physical healing, but a restoration to community. In fact, Jesus sends this man back as a witness to the very people who sent him away.
Like all disciples, he is sent to share the good news of Jesus, but unlike others sent out to travel from city to city and knock on doors, Jesus sends him back home, to proclaim freedom in Christ to his neighbors.
Jesus has come for all of us, for the outcasts and the suffering, for the rich and the poor, for the citizens and the aliens. Jesus uses his power and authority to claim all of us as beloved children of God.
As Paul writes to the early Christians in Galatia, “as many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Not only does Jesus restore our broken relationship with God by laying down his life for us; Jesus also erases the lines we draw between each other. God’s love extends beyond race, gender, political party, nationality, church denomination, socioeconomic status, age, any of the ways we try to exclude people.
Jesus doesn’t leave people on the margins. God is in the business of reconciliation, restoring relationships, calling us into community. As the Psalmist says, the Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.
May we have the strength and will to follow Jesus’ example, and reach out to those on the margins in our world.
And if you feel tonight like you’re one of those people on the margins, hear the good news of the gospel: No matter what suffering you’re going through, no matter what pain or grief or loss you’ve experienced, even if you’ve been cast out to live in the tombs, Jesus still receives you.
Jesus still crosses over to heal and restore you. God’s love is for you. Thanks be to God. Amen.