“My name is Legion; for we are many.”: Why the church needs to keep talking about demons (Mark 5:1-20) Sermon One of Four Part Series

5They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes. ²And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. ³He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; ⁴for 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. ⁵Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. ⁶When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; ⁷and 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.’ ⁸For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ ⁹Then Jesus^* asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ ¹⁰He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. ¹¹Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; ¹²and the unclean spirits^* begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ ¹³So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake. 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. ¹⁵They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. ¹⁶Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. ¹⁷Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. ¹⁸As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. ¹⁹But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ ²⁰And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed. ~ Mark 5:1-20

     The first thing I want to tell you is that Jesus steps out of boats.

Now boats are very important to Jesus – he calls a number of fisherman who use them, they help transport him from place to place, they provide food for his group through fishing, and even serve as a floating platform from which to speak –boats are helpful, familiar and maybe even fun. I wonder if in their many cruises around the Sea of Galilee if conversations didn’t arise that went something like this. Peter says, “You know guys. We’re in this boat a lot. I wonder if we couldn’t make it a bit more comfortable. The Master was a carpenter – maybe we could put in some benches, or maybe even some bunks.” “Yea,” John, jumps in. “We could make it bigger so that it’s easier to sleep.” Andrew pipes up, “Hey, how about a kitchen with a coffee maker. I mean we could make sandwiches and try some wake boarding– that’d be cool.” And Jesus wept.

Okay – that didn’t happen. But hey I’m a preacher at heart and we always wonder about things like that! But we get the sentiment. One of the most destructive things to happen to the church is when we refuse to step out of them. When we turn the church – the body of Christ – into a thing. Do you realize on a daily basis that we speak of the church in a way that the NT never does! We say, “What time is church? Are you going to church? I’ll see you at church.”  Now, I’m not trying to say that church buildings are bad. In the same way that Jesus used boats for the work of the kingdom. These are places where we meet other believers, can worship, find refreshment, and learn helpful things for the Christian life. But the Christian life is NOT a life at sea but on the land.  Our church buildings are to be ferries not cruise ships - to be transports and platforms for ministry because Jesus will always step out of them – always! He’s interested in the cities, the wild places, the tombs. That’s what’s being stressed – as we will soon see - Jesus is going into the “unclean” place of paganism, militarism, and exploitation.

When Jesus steps out of the boat – is when ministry begins. And immediately, he encounters a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit.

But before Mark says what Jesus does he wants to recount how society dealt with him. How the man had been handled with chains and shackles used to restrain and subdue him “among the tombs.” But Mark does more than describe these chains. He also wants to highlight their inability to work, to heal and to transform this wounded individual who howls at night and bruises himself with stones.  One almost gets the idea that Mark is saying that the chains are part of the problem.

What do we make of these failed “chains” and “shackles”?

          

          1.    Chains are those structures which seek to remove and separate people. They are the impersonal, punitive ways we seek to control those in society who don’t behave.  They are often solutions without relationships, without healing.  We must have people within the church who affirm that human beings are not fundamental problems to be solved with chains but enslaved people in need of liberation and compassion. What does a culture of chains look like?

A 2015 article by Newsweek documents are reliance in the U.S. on chains:[1]

·       The U.S. has the highest prison population in the entire world.

·       Over 2.2 million people are currently in U.S. jails or prisons. That’s more than the entire population of New Mexico.

·       Over 2.7 million children in the U.S. have a parent behind bars.

·       There are over 5,000 jails and prisons in the U.S. That’s more jails than colleges in the U.S. and in many parts of the country, there are more people in jail than living on college campuses.

·       The U.S. prison population has more than quadrupled since the early 1980s: when mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drugs when into effect.

As we begin to envision what a spiritual fight looks like, we must first recognize the failure of our current culture of chains to solve the problem of people who are often bound by forces beyond and outside of their immediate control. Whatever, those powers might be. Our chains may supply some protection but they do not provide the transformation that Jesus offers. They simply cannot be the tools we rely upon as agents of God’s kingdom. 

2. Chains are fundamentally products of our fear. I don’t want to be glib about this. Fear is powerful and sometimes even warranted. This guy certainly sounds scary (look at these images). 

 

 

 

But our current climate of social and political fears, our overwhelming desire to protect ourselves at all cost, is not the ministry of Jesus or the church that follows his name. Jesus liberates the chained he doesn’t use them. Chains are not good news. They don’t work on demons.

We now have to address the topic that we cannot avoid. Demons. At this point, I wish to do something that doesn’t often happen in sermons. I would like to begin a conversation with you about demons and spiritual warfare. I would like us to read the scriptures together, listen attentively to them and one another prayerfully, and gently engage one another over the next couple of weeks. What are we to make of the legion of demons? Why should we talk about them and spiritual warfare?

So, who or what is Jesus encountering in this passage? We need to read closely.

Our text says twice that the man had an “unclean spirit” (vss. 2 and 8) which later is revealed to be “unclean spirits (vss. 12-13) a “legion, for we are many” (vs. 9). The man lives in an unclean place, among the graves, often harms himself with stones, howling with pain, and is capable of impressive feats of strength (breaking shackles and chains, vss. 3-4). The demons (or is it the man) also recognize who Jesus is, are afraid of him, and beg him not to be sent “out of the country” but into a herd of pigs, which Jesus grants causing two thousand pigs to hurtle themselves off a cliff to drown in the lake. And if that sounds like a simple explanation for what you believe to be personal, spiritual agents who harm people and seek to thwart God’s kingdom, let’s look a bit deeper.

We should also remember that our story has a social and political context. This is Jesus’ first entry into the Decapolis, ten Greek cities, enlarged by Alexander the Great and settled by Macedonian military veterans. It boasted a temple to Zeus which, interestingly, used pigs for sacrifice, and also had a temple dedicated to the cult of Caesar. This region had been sacked and occupied by a variety of kingdoms (Ptolemies, Seleucids, even the Jews and Herod, and finally by the Romans, whose control they were under requiring tribute and forced conscription. 

Given that history of forced, militarized violence and economic oppression, I find it interesting that the demons refer to themselves in Latin as a Roman military unit – a “legion” could be upwards to six thousand soldiers – one of the most disciplined military formations the world has ever known.  It was a world, in other words, of oppressive religious, political and militarized forces. I also am intrigued by the notion that the demons don’t want to be forced “out of the country,” speaking like an occupying force.

Furthermore, I am intrigued by the complicated way in which Mark writes about the demon possessed man – who is speaking?, for example. It is the man who howls at night and hurts himself and begs Jesus not to torment “me” (vs. 7). “He” addresses Jesus, speaks as demons who beg Jesus and refer to themselves as “us” and yet in vs. 10 it is the man who “begs” Jesus not to send “them” out of the country. So there is strange switching back and forth between different subjects (singular and plural), making it not always clear who is speaking, sometimes in the same sent.

⁹Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ ¹⁰He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.

So what is going on here? Is this a story of sinister, spiritual agents possessing an individual, is this mental illness caused by violence and oppression, or is there a middle ground of complex, distorted spiritualities that are greater than individual angst or brain chemistry but not exactly personal beings. I’m not entirely sure. Regardless, these are forces that do not align with God’s intent for his creation. This man was broken in every way possible: from God, himself, others, and the rest of creation. He is dominated by forces that the New Testament clearly identify as spiritual, which cut off from the basic needs of community and creation – friends, clothes, food, etc. Regardless, of what we think they are – they are both spiritual and real! Even if we can’t exactly determine or agree upon what these forces are, why should we keep talking about them?

How might the subject of demons help us think about the brokenness of our world and our role as agents of God’s kingdom?

1.  To talk about demons is to challenge any simple construction of blame – “We are legion for we are many.” 

 

Mark is trying to document the complexity, I believe. We already noticed that in vss. 7-9 we have this utterly bizarre movement between personal pronouns – “I” and “He” which are the demon(s) and another time which is the man. Truth is, we can’t actually always sort out who is speaking. We need to define the brokenness and sinfulness of our world in ways that acknowledge that all people are at the mercy of Powers far larger than their own individual decisions. We need to rethink our over reliance upon sin as simply rebellion.  To talk about demons, whatever they are, is to acknowledge that decision-making is difficult and prone to a variety of forces outside of our own control – whether that means mental illness, cultural upbringing, or economic forces that prey upon our lives. I’m not saying that people don’t have some personal responsibility – everyone does, even those beset upon by demons – but we need to enter into that complexity with humility and grace. We will never be able to be agents of good news if we always and simply blame people for the problems that they face. Why is it, for example, that it is often the church that struggles the most with people who have mental illness? So we need to think critically and theologically about the forces that impact people’s lives. And we need to recognize that we will never be the compassionate people we need to be if blaming others for their plight is our only or primary understanding of the human condition.

2.  To talk about demons frees us from the temptation to demonize those who are marginal or even do evil.  To demonize, of course, is essentially a reverse exorcism. It doesn’t free people from demons but turns them into demons.  A couple of years ago, an editorial writer in Santa Barbara wrote an op-ed piece about homelessness in which he likened people on the streets to “filthy pigeons” and “zombies . . .lurching forward, arms outstretched, in our faces, asking for money.” It’s not hard to imagine the logic of such language. Zombies can’t and shouldn’t be helped – they are humans not victimized by demons so much as human beings who are demons who seek to victimize us. So we should be careful when our focus on evil has us looking at people. When we do that we often no longer see them as ones whom God loves, whom he seeks to free, but evil itself. What if they are beset upon by demons?

3. To talk about demons is also to wrestle with the inner and outer realities of God’s world. 

Our passage reminds us that spiritual warfare and God’s salvation– engaging those struggling with demons – involves more than freeing people from inner spiritual torments but also outer spiritual ones, as well, like nakedness, homelessness, even friendlessness. When the man is freed from the demons he is found “clothed and in his right mind” (vs. 15). Now, it used to be that people taught that Jesus got rid of the demons but would leave them naked – evangelism without social justice. Others have said that Jesus wouldn’t worry about the demons but only the man’s nakedness – social justice without evangelism.  But demonic evil in this story is not just personal inner oppression but also outer structural evil, as well. Only by confronting both the inner and outer worlds of people’s lives will we inhabit the exorcism ministry of Jesus. If you’ve tended to think of spiritual warfare as mainly about how our prayers help fight off aggressive demons, I challenge you to expand how you think about spiritual warfare. But if you imagine that our battle is simply about addressing social injustices, I want you to expand your vision, too. So we need to be careful of avoiding two extremes: on the one hand a spiritual dualism which separates the world into the spiritual and physical spheres with the former being the more real world and the latter something that will simply waste away. On the other hand, we need to avoid a materialism or politic that knows nothing of an inner dimension or spiritualness of human beings. Both are blind to evil’s full effect and to God’s full salvation. So for Christians the move that is faithful is not from the material to the spiritual but rather from materialism to incarnation. Incarnation is the Church’s way of speaking about Spirit dwelling in matter. Salvation, true liberation, is always incarnational not just about spirit but the spirit of our stuff, not just about our soul but the soul of our entire self which includes our bodies. 

But now a simple question, “how did the man get clothed?”

4. Spiritual warfare is always about restoring people to a community that cares and collaborates.

Once Jesus cast out the demons I imagine a chaotic scenario much like this: “He’s shivering, hurt, and naked.” “Hey Peter, what size shirt do you wear?” “A large.” “All right, let’s have it. James, you have an extra set of pants pass them over. Who has shoes? What about something to eat?” I imagine that little bunch of disciples gathered around this man, forming a human dressing room, and clothing him. Real exorcism will always demand a collaboration to care for people’s bodily needs.

And Jesus’ advice to the released man is a helpful ending – “Go home to your friends” (vs. 19). Friendship in Jesus’ name is the solution to the evangelical divide between evangelism and social justice. Because friends don’t let friends sleep outside, friends don’t let friends walk among tombs alone or place them in chains, friends value what you have to say and know your name, and see you as more than a rebellious sinner but also one enslaved by forces outside your control.  Friends should challenge you – your thinking, your behavior, but not chain you. Befriending those who walk alone, cry at night, maybe even hurt themselves, and restoring them to community IS spiritual warfare.  When we offer our lives to Jesus and seek to love our neighbor as ourselves, we are facing off with demons. When we befriend those struggling with demons, when we befriend one another in Jesus’ name, the demons tremble. Demons always want you alone.

5. To talk about demons and spiritual warfare is to talk about the soul of a community. It demands that we ask, “what kind of community are we created to be?” (look at this image)

Our story ends with a spiritual battle between two communities. On the one hand, we have the community of disciples standing with Jesus who welcome, help and care for the newly released person. On the other hand, we have the people of the “city and in the country” who want Jesus to “leave their neighborhood” (vss. 14-17). This brings us back to the demons. Where did the demons go after the pigs go plop in the lake?  I don’t know but Mark leaves us with an intriguing element that is worth pondering. Did you notice that the fearful demons who “beg” Jesus to go away resemble the people who chained the man and also “beg” Jesus to leave their neighborhood (vs. 17)! Is this group possessed by the legion or have they succumbed to a sinister demonic reality? Either way, I would suggest that there fear is demonic. Friends, there is a spiritual battle going on around and forces which push us toward self-centeredness, self-protection and away from self-sacrifice. Which kind of community will we choose to be?

---

[1] http://www.newsweek.com/eighteen-facts-you-need-know-about-us-prisons-308860