Scripture: Mark 5:1–20
As we read together our Gospel reading from Mark, I want to remind you of the invitation of St. Ignatius, a priest and theologian who founded the Jesuit order. Ignatius invited us to read the Gospels with a simple question: “Where are you in the story?” As you hear the story today, ask yourself who you are, where you most identify within the narrative, and what part of the story you are most drawn to. Hear now Mark 5.1–20.
Mark 5.1–20
1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He 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 him, 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 he 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 him 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 he 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 he 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 he has shown you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone was amazed.
There is no right answer to this project, which seemed to be Ignatius’s point. Perhaps you found yourself identifying with Jesus? With the man freed from bondage? With the disciples? The herdsman? The community members? The pigs? The demonic Legion? Perhaps tomorrow your answer would be different? A year from now? A decade? The way we read this story, informed by the Holy Spirit, changes given what we need and hear in the moment.
Speaking of, I was drawn to a new reading—for me—by the Bible scholar William Placher. He writes about an interesting set of coincidences about this story. The story begins by telling us that Jesus leaves the familiar territory of Galilee, where he and all of the disciples had made their homes, and that they sailed across the Sea of Galilee into Gentile territory. Mark tells us that they traveled to the land of the Gerasenes, or Gerasa. He writes that they got off of the boat, and encountered this community. But geographically, this region is some 37 miles away, not right on the shore. Mark’s hearers would likely have known this. Also, they would have known the name of the city because it was the site of a famous uprising against the Roman military. The people of Gerasa rose up and challenged their Roman oppressor in a violent uprising. But that is only the beginning of the military associations in the story. According to Placher, the symbol of the wild boar was used by Roman soldiers stationed in the area at the time. Furthermore, the term “herd,” used for the group of pigs in the story, was usually not used for swine, but for a group of disorganized military recruits. Furthermore, the demon uses the name “Legion,” which was a military term for a group of some 6,000 soldiers. Furthermore, the language Mark uses, including that of Jesus “dismissing” the demon into the pigs, and then then pigs “charging” down the slope, are all military terms. Placher suggests that there are too many coincidences to be accidental. He admits that it is hard to discern exactly what Mark’s point was, and perhaps that exact point was lost to history, but there is an argument to be made that once you take all of these coincidences together, it seems that Mark might be making some kind of point about political resistance to a military oppressor.
Now, this word can get us into trouble these days. In common parlance, resistance has become a popular word for the practice of identifying those who disagree with you politically, targeting them as enemies, and them opposing them using whatever means deemed necessary. After all, you are resisting an oppressor, thus, any level of resistance is deemed appropriate.
For example, we must be careful 3 years to the month after the January 6, 2021 insurrection and breach of the national Capitol. After all, those who assaulted our Capitol claimed they were engaging in their right to resistance against an oppressive power. Of course, they were given false information about the clear results of the election. Of course, they had been told that they would be protected after they succeeded, and the government was overthrown. Of course, they thought that they were doing the right thing, thus any level of violence was acceptable. And as a result, blood was spilled and the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power was abandoned. And those who participated in the violence returned home to hang their heads in shame. In the aftermath, many have chosen to blame everyone else, from Trump, to QAnon, to the Proud Boys, and any number of catalysts that had never had any interest in protecting them. They returned to become an embarrassment to their families, their communities, and themselves.
Which is, by the way, akin to what happened in Gerasa as well. After the armed insurrection against the Romans, the Roman Empire responded with extreme violence, returning to the community to kill over 1,000 men, setting fire to their homes and the homes in the surrounding villages, leaving the town decimated for generations. They chose the weapons of the Empire to attempt to defeat the Empire, and as a result the Empire out-Empired them, using those same weapons more effectively, leaving the community in ruins.
Mark must have known this as he wrote his Gospel. Again, we cannot be sure what his goal and underlying purpose was, but let me suggest that perhaps he had a contrasting and an alternative word to say about resistance. About the resistance of Jesus. Not the resistance of Empire, or even those who would use the Empire’s weapons against Empire, but a different thing altogether. Let us ask together this morning, “What does resistance mean for us today?” Maybe Jesus gives us a clue in Mark 5.
First, the Jesus way of Resistance is about paying attention to those whom no one else wants to attend to. This demon-possessed man was literally trash. He was considered unclean in at least three ways. First, he was possessed by a demon—a Legion of them, in fact. That would be enough to consider him ritually unclean, but there’s more. Second, he lived in the graveyard. You and I can visit the cemetery and greet beloved departed friends and family, and no one thinks anything of it. But in that time and place, anyone who even visited the dead would be considered unclean, and this man lived there. Finally, if that weren’t enough, he lived on a pig farm, among ritually unclean animals. Jesus’ disciples must have been beside themselves that Jesus would even approach this man, let alone save him. This morning, who are those we consider unclean? Every other morning in the local paper, we read about our homeless neighbors, often about the reactions of some of our other neighbors to them. If Jesus showed up in Lawrence today, would he go hang out on Mass Street for restaurant week? Or take in a game at the Fieldhouse? Or would he head straight for the camp behind the Amtrak station? The very person that the community considered most unclean, Jesus marched right up to. Talked to. Took a moment to live in his world. What would it look like for us to do the same, as we engage in the resistance of Jesus?
Which brings us to our second point. The Jesus way of Resistance is about healing. Plain and simple. This is a hard passage for us to understand, because we use a lot of varied and different language about demon possession. We talk about evil and brokenness in so many different ways that it can get easy to lose the plot here. Jesus healed this man. He was alone. In pain, physically and emotionally and spiritually and socially. And Jesus restored him to healing. In every way possible. Whatever words we use to describe the lostness of this man, let us not lose the fact that he found himself and his purpose in the healing of Jesus. If we are to join the resistance of Jesus, it will be to heal, not to take up arms against our enemy. It will be to restore, not to destroy.
Ahmi Lee puts it this way: “Jesus has the power that no one else has to deliver the demoniac who was suffering a death by a thousand cuts (quite literally). It is only Jesus who can restore the health, dignity, agency, peace, and place in the world of the man who had lost everything.”
Finally, a third point from the story: the Jesus way of Resistance is about nonviolent storytelling? I know that seems like an odd phrase, but follow me. As soon as this man is restored to health by Jesus, he wants to follow him. But Jesus refuses his offer. Instead, he gives him a mission.
It is a mission of nonviolence. Remember that this is a community that has been surrounded by violence. In response to their oppressor, they chose violence. In response to that violence, the Romans upped the ante with more violence. This man’s family and neighbors and community knew only violence. Until Jesus inserted a spy…an agent…a man on a mission of nonviolence. Conservative scholar Preston Sprinkle writes about the fact that this nonviolence was core to the work and mission of Jesus. He writes, “the nonviolent rhythms of the cross meet the melodies of the world with dissonance.” Sprinkle writes that throughout Scripture, and especially the Gospels, and into the Early Church, the people of God consistently refused to have a standing army, refused to collect taxes to support a military, refused to return violence with violence. It sounds like a recipe for destruction, but in fact this counter-cultural nonviolence dismantled Empires and military powers and those who would rule by military force. He says it this way, “The New Testament is ubiquitously clear: don’t retaliate with evil for evil; do good to those who hate you; embrace your enemy with a cross-shaped, unyielding divine love.”
Thus the second part of the mission: nonviolent storytelling. When this man wanted to go with Jesus, he sent him instead on a mission of resistance…by telling his story. According to Jesus, resistance is telling the story of healing to our friends and family, even when it strikes a counter-cultural chord. His community wanted Jesus gone. They had had enough of outsiders destroying their way of life. Licking their wounds, they told Jesus to leave. But then this man told his story. From the inside out, he began to dismantle their assumptions of violence and power. And he did it all…with a story. This man is in a way the first missionary to those outside of the faith. His voice, his story, his nonviolent, counter-cultural way of being, became the beginning of a movement that still changes the world today.
Inago loved to hear stories about military battles. And armies. And soldiers. Growing up in Spain in the 1400 and 1500s, he patterned his life after those he read in those stories. As soon as he could as a young man, he became a solider. He loved engaging in military exercises, and showing off his military dress. It was said that he would strap his sword to his side, and don a flowing cape, and walk around town to the delight of onlookers. He was arrested and charged with violent crimes at the community carnival, only escaping prison time because of his privilege and family name.
Then Inago went to war. Actual war. Where his leg was struck by a cannonball and he was gravely injured. Though he survived, he would never again walk without a limp, and his military career was over.
When he was laid up, recovering from his injuries, he began to read about the saints and martyrs of the Church. And he began to understand the true nature of power. These women and men, without swords or cannons, walked into the flames of oppression with nothing but the power of God on their side. Inago was amazed by their courage. Their power.
He was immediately converted. He committed his life to the work of the Church, and never looked back. He began using the Latin version of his name—Ignatius—and began teaching the power of the Gospel stories. It was St. Ignatius, who invited us a few minutes ago to ask with whom we identify in the story of Jesus…who invites us still to live and breathe and engage in these stories as if they were our own. Because they are.
St. Ignatius is famous for the saying, “Go, set the world on fire.” Perhaps a summary of Jesus’ call to the Gerasene missionary. Perhaps a call to each of us today.
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