Sermon June 20-I Kings 191-15, Lk.8:26-39

 

Fear and facing fear touches both of these passages. One is running for his life and the other runs around within his confused life. In the restoration of a demoniac we see a man brought back to health. Demon possession was a manifestation of a social disorder internalized. Demons were always looking for a point of entry, and the ancient world was full of charms and potent sayings to try to ward them off. When we sneeze, we still say God bless you as an ancient variant of this belief.

The story is set in  a place of fear with a possessed person with unclean pigs and unclean tomb, as life should not be in contact with death. As Pope John Paul II said often, we exist within a culture of death. In a wonderful irony, the evil demon knows Jesus before good does.

The name Legion cannot be an accident, as it was the name for a large contingent of Roman forces. In another irony, the demon horde that holds the man prisoner does not want to be imprisoned in the abyss. the man has been stripped of his life; all he is a mob of forces and he has lost himself.

 

In our time, mental illness has all sorts of scary stigmas. In trying to honor their rights, we may well have consigned them to crying out in the tombs of homelessness. Perhaps we need to consider making it easier to commit to a proper facility as a public policy tool.

Demons get fooled and die with the instrument of their salvation, and I bet that this received chortles from its ancient hearers.In the face of the power of Jesus, in the face of their social structure being changed, they ask Jesus to leave. Demoniac works back home, as he has found a home. After his restoration, he becomes an evangelist who gets to spread the message as an agent of Jesus in new territory.

 

Elijah runs after his great victory.Maybe he was willing to rely on God in the great contest with the priests of Baal, but a personal threat is another matter entirely. God knows he needs physical rest and refreshment. In the midst of work, everybody can use and deserves a vacation.  We all can use a break from worries and duties. that's why the Sabbath was instituted as a weekly vacation not only from work but the cares of the week. He sounds like Jonah ready to die. With refreshment, only then he is able to have spiritual uplift. It is another reminder that our lives are of a piece. The spiritual and the physical rely on one another; they are interdependent, bound together. Then, he gets the expected elements of the presence of god there at the mountain of God, the place of the 10 Commandments, Sinai: all of the storm and thunder, fire and smoke. This time God is not present in those physical signs. He reaches that special place of prayer and meditation: silence. The silence or small sound leads to a voice-then he is to go back to work after his 40 day wilderness sojourn. Elijah receives physical help and spiritual healing that allow him to continue to do hos work in the world.

 

When I was a boy, one was taught to say that I'm not afraid. We teach children not to be afraid or to be very afraid of strangers now. The healthier way is to admit fear and then how to cope with fear. Fear keeps us from doing the important work of our lives, inner and outer. We can repress or deny it, but the path toward wholeness is one where we learn to face the fear and move on with our lives.