4th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 7 C
Lectionary 12
Luke 8:26-39
"Fear and Surrender"
"Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. And as he stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes, and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me." For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him; he was kept under guard, and bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and 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. And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from 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 he sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him." Luke 8:26-39, RSV.
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
Fear is all around us. We can become frighten by what we see on television. We can have our own inner fears. People can be afraid of the water, Hydrophobia is fear of "water." Nyclophobia is the fear of "darkness." Acrophobia is fear of "high places." Taxophobia is fear of being "buried alive." Xenophobia is fear of "strangers." Necrophobia is fear of the "dead." Claustrophobia is fear of "confined places." I have a fear of dogs. When I first came home from the hospital when I had polio, and was learning to walk again, a dog knocked me down when I was outside. I guess, I couldn’t get up by myself, so the dog just stood over me until help arrived. From this day, I am afraid of dogs, dogs of all sizes.
Our gospel lesson is about fear. The fear the people had of the man with the unclean Spirit, named Legion. The spirit Legion had a fear of being cast out into the abyss. The herdsmen and the town people we afraid of Jesus after he cast out the demons as the swine went into the river.
As the text says
Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them; for they were seized with great fear;
The only person who was not afraid was the man himself who was possessed by the unclean spirit for the text says
When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and 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.
The man with the uncleaned spirit after he was healed sat at the feet of Jesus learning what he could from this man who had healed him.
Notice an interesting fact in this text, the man with the uncleaned spirit did not ask Jesus to heal him, but Jesus did anyway. For the text says:
And as he stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes, and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me." For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man
The spirit did not want to be tormented by Jesus, but the man himself was quiet. I suspect the man was just happy that he was willing to stand there and allow Jesus to act upon his life. He did not ask Jesus to heal him, but allowed Jesus to have control over his life. And when did act and he was cleansed, what did he do? He sat at the feet of Jesus to learn all he could about Jesus.
I think there are two general themes to our gospel lesson this morning. One theme is we need to remember to surrender our lives to Jesus. Our whole lives. Not a part, our whole lives.
Another theme is fear, fear of the unknown. The people were afraid of Jesus because he healed a man and they did not understand this, so they were afraid.
This fact is seen in the following story:
Once there was a very wealthy young man who lived in a great,elaborate house with dozens of rooms. Each room was more comfortable and more beautiful than the one before it.
One day he decided to invite the Lord to come and stay with him.
When the Lord arrived, this young man offered Him the very best room in the house. The room was upstairs and at the end of the hall. "This room is yours, Jesus, stay as long as you like and you can do whatever you want to in this room. Remember Jesus, it’s all yours."
"Thank you," the Lord replied, and with that the man shut the door and went about his business.
That evening, after he had retired for the night, there came a loud knocking at the front door. The young man pulled on his robe and made his way downstairs. When he opened the door he found that the Devil had sent three of his demons to attack the man! He quickly tried to close the door but one of the demons kept sticking his foot in the door.
Sometime later, after a great struggle, he managed to slam the door shut and returned to his room totally exhausted. "Can you believe that?" the young man thought. "Jesus is upstairs in my very best room sleeping while I am down here battling demons. Oh well, maybe he just didn’t hear."
The young man slept fitfully that night. The next day, things went along as normal and, being as tired as he was, the young man retired early that evening. Along about midnight, there came such a terrible ruckus at the front door that the young man was sure that whatever it was would tear the door down. He stumbled down the stairs once again and opened the door to find that there were dozens of demons now trying to get into his beautiful home.
For more than 3 hours he fought and struggled against the demons from
hell and finally overtook them enough to shut the door against their attack. All energy seemed to fail him. "I really don’t understand this at all. Why won’t the Lord come to my rescue? Why does he allow me to fight all by myself? I feel so alone."
Troubled, he found his way to the sofa and fell into a restless sleep.
The next morning he decided to inquire of the Lord about the happenings of the last two evenings. Quietly, he made his way to the elegant bedroom where he had left Jesus. "Jesus," he called as he tapped at the door. "Lord, I don’t understand what is happening. For the last two nights I have had to fight the demons away from my door while you were sleeping. Don’t you care about me? Did I not give you the very best room in my house?"
He could see the tears building in Jesus’ eyes but continued on. "I just don’t understand. I really thought that once I invited you in to live with me, that you would take care of me, and I gave you the best room in my house and everything. What more can I do?"
"My precious child," Jesus spoke softly, "I do love and care for you. I protect all that you have released into my care. But when you invited me to come here and stay, you brought me to this lovely room and you shut the door to the rest of the house. I am Lord of this room but I am not Master of this house. I have protected this room and no demon may enter here."
"Oh Lord, please forgive me. Take all of my house, it is yours! I am so sorry that I never offered you all to begin with. I want you to have control of everything! With this he flung open the bedroom door and knelt at Jesus’ feet. "Please forgive me. Lord. for being so selfish."
Jesus smiled and told him that He had already forgiven him and that He would take care of things from now on.
Along about midnight the banging on the door was frightening. The young man slipped out of his room in time to see Jesus going down the stairs.
He watched in awe as Jesus swung open the door. Satan stood at the door demanding to be let in. "What do you want, Satan?" the Lord asked. The devil bowed low in the presence of the Lord. "So sorry, I seem to have gotten the wrong address." With that, he and the demons all ran away.1
This man in our story finally surrendered to Jesus and the demons left.
The man in our gospel lesson surrendered to Jesus and the demons left. He did not have to ask Jesus to have the demons leave, Jesus acted on His own accord. The only request that was made was made by the demon itself, Legion asked that they not be put into the abyss, but to enter the swine and Jesus agreed. But the swine being filled with the demons rushed down the bank into the river and were drown.
The man, now free from the demons, sat at the feet of Jesus and we can just imagine that Jesus was explaining to him who he was, the Son of God.
As we live our lives, we need to surrender them to Jesus, so that he may take care of us totally. We need to trust and rely on Jesus as we walk our journey of faith.
The following speaks volumes:
One of my friends has a pilot’s license and someone asked Bill if he ever took his children flying with him. Bill said, "Yes". The next question was, "What is their response?" I was particularly interested in Nathan’s response. He said Nathan curled up and went to sleep. Nathan could go to sleep because the pilot, his Daddy, loved him, and wasn’t going to allow anything to happen to him that wasn’t for his own good. That is not saying the two of them didn’t run into any turbulence, but Nathan could trust Bill, because he knew that his Daddy had his best interests at heart. How like our Heavenly Father that is. We know that He loves us, and won’t allow anything to happen to us but what is for our own good and in the process strengthen someone else’s faith. (William Barrows, Olathe, Ks.)
Yes, we might have turbulence or bad weather, but no matter what Jesus is there for us as long as we let him. As long as we surrender our whole lives over to him.
Our second them is fear, fear of things that we don’t understand or don’t want to understand. The towns people were afraid of Jesus because they could not understand or did not want to understand who he could drive out the uncleaned spirit.
We are like that in our lives. We fear things that we don’t understand or want to understand.
An example from my life.
When I was in the senior year of college, I began applying for teaching jobs. It was later that In entered seminary, but I graduated from college with a BA in elementary education. I had an interview on campus with a superintendent of a school system. It was a good interview and at the end he offered me a job teaching 4th graders. But he said that the school board would have to approve, but thought that would be no problem.
I left feeling confident that I had a job. My wife and I were engaged at the time and we planning a wedding as soon as I graduated. I had told the superintendent that I was going to my wife’s family for the weekend and he could contact me there with the final approval.
The phone rang, I answered and the superintendent told me that I did not get the job. He said the school board did not want some one like me teaching their kids.
His exact words were: "We don’t want someone like that teaching our kids"
Some one like what?
For he explained to them that I wore a long leg brace and used a cane for walking and they were afraid of my disability and would not hire me.
They were afraid of someone who was different so they did not want to have anything to do with me.
Surrender and fear. If we truly surrender our lives to Jesus, then I think we might have even less fear.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale June 18, 2007
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