First Sunday after Trinity
“Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons[d] begged Jesus[e] to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.”
Overview
Naked lunatics, suicidal pigs and talking demons; what’s not to love in today’s Gospel story form Luke 8:26-39. Well, according to the first reading, Isaiah 65:1-9, quite a lot. Isaiah lambasts those who sit in tombs among pigs (both of which Jesus does in the story from Luke). These things are UNCLEAN, dirty, impure.
Yet Isaiah is really railing against religious hypocrisy, those who keep themselves apart from the mass of humanity and judge others, those who say: “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” Jesus doesn’t care about getting down and dirty with the “unholy”; he ventures boldly into the world of those who are seen as unfit for human company. The response is extraordinary: the townsfolk beg him to leave. We are not told why, but maybe because his act of radical inclusivity threatens the social hierarchy.
For those of us in the church today this passage is both an encouragement and a warning: encouraging us to leave our comfort zones and go to places unfamiliar, to embrace those who are different from us; warning us that to do so is not without consequences, and may not be welcomed by those firmly embedded in their comfort zones.
FIRST READING
Isaiah 65:1-9
I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’,
to a nation that did not call on my name.
I held out my hands all day long
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and offering incense on bricks;
who sit inside tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat swine’s flesh,
with broth of abominable things in their vessels;
who say, ‘Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.’
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all day long.
See, it is written before me:
I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their laps
their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together,
says the Lord;
because they offered incense on the mountains
and reviled me on the hills,
I will measure into their laps
full payment for their actions.
Thus says the Lord:
As the wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it’,
so I will do for my servants’ sake,
and not destroy them all.
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah inheritors of my mountains;
my chosen shall inherit it,
and my servants shall settle there.
GOSPEL READING
Luke 8:26-39
Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
