I am convinced that the people who first heard the healing story in this week’s gospel laughed at its absurd events. Jesus sails across the sea to a foreign land. Just as he steps off the boat, he encounters a man possessed by a legion of demons. They’ve been tormenting this man for a long time, driving him to live naked and alone in the tombs and wild places, for even chains could not hold him. Jesus begins to intervene for the man and as the demons cry out in protest, they call Jesus “Son of the Most High God.” The demons beg to be cast into some nearby pigs and Jesus obliges. The possessed pigs leave their quiet meal on the hillside, run off a steep bank, and drown in the lake. The neighbors are amazed and horrified, and they ask Jesus to leave. He leaves after telling the healed man rather than follow Jesus, he should return home and tell what God has done for him.
Thought these absurd details catch our attention, the heart of this story is that Jesus’ intervenes on the man’s behalf. Jesus has barely arrived in this foreign place when he ends the man’s suffering, returning him to health and wholeness. For years perhaps, the man has been separated from family and community, alone and dangerous in a dangerous place. Jesus heals the man who can now return from barely living in the tombs to resume life at home. He will once again be part of the community.
In addition to the silly details of the story, part of the absurdity is that Jesus brings transformation to a difficult situation in a strange land. In the gospel stories and in our own lives, Jesus expands his compassion and healing to unfamiliar and unsafe places, unreasonable situations, and uncomfortable contexts. Jesus steps beyond boundaries and limits. Jesus brings hope and new life into complicated, difficult, and unexpected circumstances in our lives today. God’s healing action is not restricted to appropriate and reasonable places. God is active where God’s children most need help.
Peace,
weekly prayer | Jesus encounters a man with demons in Luke 8