a homily for Proper 7C
Text: Luke 8:26-39

Listen to the homily here and read along below

The Man

I feel bad for this guy. We don’t know his real name. He is cast out from the city, living naked, possessed by many demons, despised and reviled.

If we are being honest, we use him and throw him away just as easily as the people do. His place in the story is to be the man possessed by a “legion” of demons. He is the victim, the patient, and the nameless.

In his great moment of release, he asks Jesus to take him, to accept him, to be with him, and Jesus rejects him; leaves him behind to be with his own people. To live with the people that cast him out; who hated him; rejected him. Even with his new-found humanity, he is once again a literary pawn.

This man, possessed by many spirits is freed, as the spirits leap from his body and into those poor pigs, who run themselves into the water. And when the pigs’ keepers come back from town, having told the people what Jesus has done, they find the man has changed.

No spirits. But now the man is no longer something less than a man. He is clothed. He is normal. He is one of them. And he is at the foot of the sorcerer who made this happen.

The Fearful

In the text, the people who hear of Jesus’s action are afraid. It doesn’t make clear what precisely frightens them. But I suspect it is the man’s clothes. He is once again like them.

He is whole.

He is not defective. Inferior. Wrong. Broken. Lesser.

He is one of them.

Is there no greater fear for us than the broken being made whole? Like last week, when we read about Simon the Pharisee who could only be “Simon the pharisee” if that woman remained “the woman the sinner”. We are only whole when there are broken people to abandon.

And abandon we do. Locking them in hospitals or leaving them to wander the streets. Or we reject them for not knowing rules they were never taught.

How much scarier are they, however, when they are no longer broken? Do we let our daughters marry them?

Do we even believe they are a new creation, even when Jesus has made them into something else?

The Minister

We know that the man is not actually abandoned by Jesus, he is given a ministry. Unlike others in the gospels, he is not told to keep his new life a secret. He is told

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

This man is told to evangelize: to proclaim the Good News.

He is precisely told to “declare how much God has done for [him].” How much. That Jesus hasn’t done a little, but much. That it is something to be declared. It has happened. He has been restored. Like the woman whose son is brought back from the dead, this man is returned to community and his very humanity is restored. This is how much: Jesus brings people back together.

And this man’s job is to talk about it and bear witness to this mighty act of salvation among his people. He hasn’t been abandoned. He has been charged with the hardest job of anyone: to share GOD’s grace with the fearful.

That’s much harder than talking to a non-believer. Non-believers know where they stand. The fearful don’t really know where they stand; our brains and hearts get disconnected when we’re afraid.

The Broken

The broken and the reconciled are among us. We might try to cast them out, but they come back to us. They walk in and sit with us. And sometimes they even come back. But do they stay? And do we act like we want them?

Here’s the thing. Jesus sends them to us. Jesus sends the broken to testify to their pain. Jesus sends the healed to testify to His reconciling power. Sometimes, we are the receivers of those touched by grace. It isn’t always about us.

I’m reminded of that great line from Matthew:

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:40)

The power of this gospel story is not the healing, but that Jesus trusts the man who was healed to minister to his people. These fearful, angry people. And sometimes we let our fear and anger get in our way. Sometimes we are the people. And sometimes we are the man: made whole and returned to humanity. Once we were lost, broken, and cast out from our community. But look! Here comes one who brings us back from nothing! That is a story to share.

We are all called to witness to a fearful world. A world that is broken and lost and far from GOD. A world that needs us to share how we have been made whole through Christ. May we find our voice.