She drifted into my office on a stormy afternoon, much like those we’ve just gone through. She had no appointment, nor did she even ask if I had time to talk. She just drifted in and hovered over my desk, tears in her eyes, lip quivering. I invited her to sit down and tell me what was wrong. She refused to sit down, but she did blurt out, “In answer to your question, EVERYTHING! Everything is wrong.” Of course I asked, “Everything? Tell me about that.”
And she did. For an hour, two hours, three maybe, she told me about everything that was wrong. Health – in jeopardy; education – incomplete; job – terminated; family – parents divorced and in conflict; romance – non-existent; finances – just trying to get by; church – an argument here, a misunderstanding there. And faith? Well, the words were there about her faith being strong, but the face and the tears suggested that it was not. Everything was wrong. She finally did sit down so that at least we could look one another in the eye and get down beneath this legion of issues.
I knew that afternoon that this would not be a quick fix. This would not be an instance when I could trot out a couple of Scriptures and say, “Take these and call me in the morning.” This would be a long-term struggle. The issues were overwhelming. They were legion. And I felt some tension too. After all, I had sermons to preach, a budget to raise, hospital visits to make. I had neither the time nor the skill to help her resolve this profound mess. How could she live through a legion of overwhelming issues? And how could I, with all my limitations, possibly release her from all that tied her down?
For if, you see, we are captured by a difficult past, so much so that the present seems demonic, then we will try to break our chains over and over, and will for a time succeed. But we will find that the old demons come back to haunt us, for we have not yet turned to someone who can name them and give us permission to discard them. When we turn to someone who will help us send our demons away, then our legion of issues is lost, and our language turns from self-pity to praise. Legions lost mean language loosed.
When Jesus stepped out of the boat, fresh from calming the stormy Sea of Galilee, another storm hit Him right away. No time to rest, no opportunity to shake off seasickness, no chance to interpret to His disciples the “Peace, be still” He had spoken to the wind and the waves. A new storm, this one in the guise of a man with a legion of problems and a desperate voice. A man who embodies our internal tensions, for he on the one hand ran toward Jesus, as if he wanted help, but then on the other side he screamed at the teacher, “What have you to do with me, Jesus … do not torment me.” When we are beset with overwhelming issues, and our problems are complex, we rush to those we think might help, but at the same time we reject them and fear them. We get lost in the legion of evils.
For if, you see, we are captured by a difficult past, so much so that the present seems demonic, then we will try to break our chains over and over, and will for a time succeed. But we will find that the old demons come back to haunt us, for we have not yet turned to someone who can name them and give us permission to discard them. When we turn to someone who will help us send our demons away, then our legion of issues is lost, and our language turns from self-pity to praise. Legions lost mean language loosed.
Examine with me this wonderful story. Is it possible that you and I are to be found in this story of a man beset with a legion of issues so overwhelming there appeared to be no answer? But when he did lose his legion of issues, his language was loosed for others to hear. Legions lost, language loosed. Follow the story with me.
I
First, let’s notice that this man was captured in a deadly past. When the text says that he was living among the tombs, it is not only describing the custom of the day, whereby those considered dangerous were relegated to the cemetery, out of sight and therefore out of mind for “nice” people. It is not only that; it is also that symbolically, metaphorically, he is captured in the dead past. He is located, mired, in what cannot be changed. He is walking among the dead and is himself dead inside.
The birthplace of our legion of overwhelming issues is often among the tombs, in the past. When we go back and remember our childhoods, some of us discover abuses that shaped us and trapped us. Would you be surprised to discover that many people who exhibit criminal activity were the victims of violent abuse when they were small children? Dr. Sheryl Chapman at our National Center for Children and Families says she finds that the surest predictor that a person will become a sexual predator is that she or he was sexually abused as a child. Like begets like; and the sins of the fathers are indeed visited, as the Bible says, on the third and fourth generation.
But abuse does not have to be physical or sexual to be damaging. Far more common is emotional abuse. Emotional and spiritual abuse. Behind scores of people who present overwhelming emotional issues, you will discover a home where the father was absentee, or the mother was crushed by all she had to do, or someone dumped all his emotional baggage. And even when we think we have put all that behind us, even when we think we have critiqued all of that and broken its hold on us, it still haunts us and comes back to hurt us. The Bible says of the Gadarene, “Night and day among the tombs … he was always howling and bruising himself.” When you live in the past, you will howl and struggle and bruise your own heart.
If you listen to me speak about my family for very long, you will hear me tell appreciative stories about my father. You will hear me describe his sensitivity, his spirituality, his dedication to his sons, and his love of great music. I will tell you a dozen stories about my father before I will tell you even one about my mother. What was wrong with her? Nothing. Nothing at all; and that’s the problem. My mother was perfectly moral and upright. She was rigorous in her participation in her church. She was correct in her grammar, neat in her penmanship, fastidious about her house and her clothing, exact in her accounting, and always snapping at her imperfect sons, of whom I am chief of sinners.
There was something toxic in her perfectionism, and it has affected me. I duplicate it. If I cannot get something right, I don’t even want to try. I don’t play any sports; why not? Because I am not athletic and I won’t get it right, so I won’t even try. I don’t get up on the dance floor at wedding receptions; why not? Because I am not any good at dancing and I won’t get it right, so I won’t even try, to my wife’s great relief. You may not believe this, but I don’t stand up in meetings and make impromptu speeches; why not? Because my tang gets all tungled up and it won’t be perfect, so the only speeches I make are sermons I have worked over and rehearsed and revised and memorized so that maybe what you get is somewhere approximately close to right. But if I can’t get something right, I don’t even want to try. Perfectionism … from emotional abuse. Mild abuse, yes, but abuse just the same. There is still bit of a bruise from emotional misuse. To a certain extent, I still live in the tombs.
Emotional abuse. Its close cousin is spiritual abuse. I really fear for the next generation, because there is a great deal of spiritual abuse going on. I think not only of Catholic priests and all that has been uncovered about some of them; I think not only of the unhealthy debates about sexual orientation carried on by both sides of that issue. I think primarily about abusive preachers who insist that all power must be in their hands, and about abusive churches that expect all their members to live in strait-jackets, and about abusive cults that demand total allegiance and exercise mind control. When all of that is taken to the next generation, there will be reaction and emotional sickness such as we have never seen before. And a host of people will be like this Gadarene demoniac, living in the tombs and caught by the abuses of the past.
I tell you, if you are a grace-giving church that is not interested in judging others, that is a great gift. I pray that never, never will you turn your back on that.
For if, you see, we are captured by a difficult past, so much so that the present seems demonic, then we will try to break our chains over and over, and will for a time succeed. But we will find that the old demons come back to haunt us, for we have not yet turned to someone who can name them and give us permission to discard them. When we turn to someone who will help us send our demons away, then our legion of issues is lost, and our language turns from self-pity to praise. Legions lost mean language loosed.
II
The Gadarene – listen to him some more. “’What have you do to with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Do not torment me.’ For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ [The man] begged [Jesus] earnestly not to send [the unclean spirits] out of the country.”
Isn’t this where we are if we have felt overwhelmed? Isn’t this where we are, once we poke our noses out of the tombs behind which we have been hiding? We know there is help, but we are afraid of that help. I know who you are, Jesus, and I have heard what you have to say, but please, don’t hurt me. Don’t torment me. I want help, but leave me alone. I want to live, but don’t get close to me. Ambivalent. Of two minds. Tormented between the edginess of hope and the comforts of despair.
You see, the symptom of a person facing overwhelming issues is that she or he knows that there is help, but pushes that help away. If we have been abused, we hunger and thirst for authentic relationships, knowing that in the love of another there will be wholeness and healing – and yet we find it hard to trust anyone. Dad hurt us, the pastor lorded it over us, the class bully beat on us – and so we don’t trust authority figures any more. Mom shrieked at us, the teacher shamed us, the object of our dreams put us down hard – and so we don’t trust those who once attracted us. That very attraction is strangely mixed with repulsion. Ambivalence, of two minds, tormented between the edginess of hope and the comforts of despair.
And when we cannot trust anyone, neither will we trust God Himself, especially if over and over again we have been humiliated and shamed in His name. Our ability to trust God is associated with our ability to trust other of God’s children.
And so we find it very hard to let go of our past baggage, very hard to let go of our issues. They have become our crutches, they define us, they tell us who we are, even if we hate them! You know me, I am the Gadarene demoniac! That’s who I am! You know me, I am the man who for 38 years sat at the well of Bethsaida, complaining because no one will help me. And then along comes Jesus, asking the penetrating question, “Do you want to be healed?” Some of us are afraid to be healed, lest we have to stop playing the “poor me” game that has supported us for so long.
I remember the student I counseled about her perfectionistic streak. It takes one to know one, you know! The closer I got to her issue, the closer I came to naming it, the more she objected to everything I had to say. She would call and ask for an appointment and then would not show up. She would drop in, not even knowing whether I was the office, and then would cut off the conversation by telling me I probably did not have time for her. Ambivalent all the way. I stayed with her case, however, and when I finally got her to put a name to her problems, she jumped up out of her chair and shouted out, “That’s it. You’ve got it. Perfectionism, that’s what I have. What a good counselor you are!” She got me all puffed up – and then deflated me by promptly disappearing, never to be seen again in any of our student group activities! She was ready to have her problem named, but not ready to send it away. It was her crutch and I was about to kick it away, no more props. She hated it and she liked it, all at the same time.
So Jesus – what did He do? Like the best of counselors He got the sickness’ name out from His patient. He didn’t name the disease so much as He got the name out. And then he gave permission for the disease to be sent away. Let’s not worry about the herd of swine and the batch of demons. Let’s not even worry about all that pork tumbling into the sea. In Jewish culture it is the unclean going to the unclean and being destroyed. It is the demonic being wiped away. The key phrase in this passage is, “He gave permission”. He gave permission for old habits to be discarded. He gave permission for old feelings to be left behind. He gave permission for the things that hurt us and bind us and hold us back to be wiped away. Jesus gives us permission, brothers and sisters, to live beyond the garbage in which we are mired. He gives us permission to see ourselves as sons and daughters of the Most High. He gives us permission to walk away from the past and leave it there.
And it comes down to this: will we trust Him? Will we trust Christ to take away from us what we cannot take away ourselves? Will we get behind our suspicious past and our overwhelming present and trust the one who knows us better than we know ourselves? Will we trust Jesus Christ to take away our props and our false hopes and put us right out there on the edge? Will we believe that He wants not to use us, not to get something from us, not to experiment on us? Jesus wants only to heal us, He wants to empower us.
But we will have to trust Him. No other way to say it; no fancy language to give it – we must trust Him. We must know that He has us in His heart; we must know that in Him is pure love, untainted by selfish motives. We must believe that there is health in this one who, while we were yet sinners gave His very life for us. He will give us permission to send away our demons, send away our props; and then He will give us new life. New life. New life comes to those who trust Jesus Christ.
For if, you see, we are captured by a difficult past, so much so that the present seems demonic, then we will try to break our chains over and over, and will for a time succeed. But we will find that the old demons come back to haunt us, for we have not yet turned to someone who can name them and give us permission to discard them. When we turn to someone who will help us send our demons away, then our legion of issues is lost, and our language turns from self-pity to praise. Legions lost mean language loosed.
III
The end of the story has not yet been told. What does the Gadarene want to do with his new life? The man so healed wanted to get into the boat and to leave town with Jesus, but Jesus gave him another directive. To this one whose legion of overwhelming issues had been named and sent packing, Jesus gave a new command: “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.”
Here is the test of whether the past is really past. Here is the mark of where we must go with our issues. Can you go home? Can you go back to those who knew you in the old ways, and tell them how you have changed, and why? If Christ has made a difference in your life, then let loose your language. Your legions have been lost, now let your language loose, so that others may come to trust you, and through you to trust Christ. “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.”
Home may be, as Robert Frost said, the place where when you go there, they have to take you in. But home is also where the heartache began and the homeboys are the ones who are still in their issues. If you can live authentically there, you can do it anywhere. And you have a story to tell that home needs to hear, that the office needs to hear, that the neighbor needs to hear. Go and tell how much the Lord has done for you.
There is nothing demonic in this world of battered and bruised people that an authentic relationship to Christ cannot send away. There is nothing crushing in this world of abused people that the love of Christ cannot heal. “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.” But the only way the world will know of it is to see what has happened in us. “We are the only Bible a careless world will read; we are the sinner’s Gospel, we are the scoffer’s creed.” If our legions of issues have been lost, then our language must be loosed into songs of praise and words of witness.
As the songwriter has it, “Share His love by telling what the Lord has done for you. Share His love by sharing of your faith. And show the world that Jesus Christ is real to you every moment, every day.”
For if, surely now you see, we are captured by a difficult past, so much so that the present seems demonic, then we will try to break our chains over and over, and will for a time succeed. But we will find that the old demons come back to haunt us, for we have not yet turned to someone who can name them and give us permission to discard them. When we do turn to the One who will help us send our demons away, then our legion of issues is lost, and our language turns from self-pity to praise. Legions lost mean language loosed.
