Last week in the parable of the prodigal son, the son goes off to a gentile area where he does his dissolute living, which means it’s a land of impurity, and just to emphasize this fact, we are told that he ends up tending to pigs, which is one of the ultimate humiliations for any Jew because it means that they will remain ceremonially or religiously unclean all the time. That plays an important role then in the son’s restoration into the father’s house. Today’s passage is also about ritual impurity, but more importantly about Jesus’ reaction to it. Jesus has crossed the sea of Galilee into gentile territory. On the way there, a storm strikes the sea and the disciples are terrified, but Jesus is sleeping through it, until they wake him up and Jesus calms the storm, which amazes everyone because not only is Jesus able to overcome the forces of nature, but more importantly water was seen as a sign of chaos, and so Jesus’ calming the storm is the first sign of what he is able to overcome. Just as the miracles of healing the woman with the issue of blood and raising Jairus’ daughter immediately after today’s miracle are also crucial for showing his power and dealing with things that were said to be unclean.
So, he goes to the area around the town of Gerasene where he immediately encounters the man known as the Gerasene demoniac. But, Mark also wants us to be very clear about this man in relation to rules of Judaism. So, he is in a gentile land, unclean, he lives among the tombs, which is pointed out three different times, unclean, and he lives near pigs, unclean. But, the man is not only surrounded by uncleanness, he is also said to be possessed by demons, which means he is “utterly and completely alienated by God.” Everything tells us that this is not the person anyone who is religious is going to come near, nor can he approach God. He is as far from God as you can possibly get. He is also separated from society itself, which is why he lives not in the town, but in the graveyard outside of town. The best modern analogy is that the man is like a homeless man we might encounter who is walking down the street ranting and raving, perhaps not even saying words that make any sense, the man who makes us want to cross the street, or maybe even go to another street because we’re not sure what to do and we’re not sure what he will do. And neither did the people because they had tried to contain him with chains, which was to keep him from hurting himself, as we are told that he is hurting himself, and so finally it seems they had just given up. There was nothing they could do to contain or control him. He is the one that no one wants to talk about, that we wish would just go away, and is clearly separated from God.
But there are several more important points about this story. While we can go through and guess what the physical ailments are that the people Jesus heals may have had, this is really the only one of the healings in which it appears that the ailment is not physical, but instead is mental. We could make a guess as to what his diagnosis is, perhaps schizophrenia, but that’s not really as important as simply recognizing that he has this problem and seeing how Jesus responds to and treats the man. First, just being recognized as being ceremonially unclean would keep most Jews away from him, but when the man comes up, first he bows down to Jesus, which is a form of worship, and then Jesus says, “What is your name?” What is your name. There is something about mental illness that makes it one of the anonymous illnesses. It’s something we don’t talk about, either about ourselves in our families. It’s a secret shame. That’s true even though 1 in 5 adults will experience some form of mental illness in any given year, and 1 in 25 will experience that an illness that seriously interferes with their life. And of those who have mental illness, a little more than half will never seek any assistance. And so, naming what it is that we are experiencing is the first step of trying to deal with it, because naming something makes a difference. This morning we are going to hear from someone willing to name his issues for us…
I could be wrong, but as far as I can tell this is the only time that Jesus asks someone their name before the healing takes place. Everyone else wants to take this man’s identity from him and have expelled him from society. Many of the commentaries on this passage say that his humanity has been taken from him. Not only do I think that’s overstating things, but it’s the very thing that we do with people with mental illness. Rather than seeing them as human, as just like everyone, we instead make them separate, the other, and so part of over coming this is to see them and name them, not as something foreign or different, but just as we are. For me this story also hits close to home because of my own family story of mental illness. My last name by birth is not Nash, but instead Schroeder. We say that the sins of the father don’t, or shouldn’t, pass on to future generations, but we know that sometimes they do. My grandfather was adopted by the Schroeder family, and given their name, but he was severely abused in the household and ran away at the age of 14 and never looked back. Now the story we were told was that his mother had died during child birth and his father was in the navy, and so he was put up for adoption as an infant. But in searching the family tree, we found out that was not the case. His mother had what sounds, from a 100 years away, like schizophrenia, and refused to care for him and he was put up for adoption at age 7. He told my father that he could change his name if he wanted to, which he never did, but my brother and I did, back to the family name of Nash. But it’s not just there. My father’s mother died as a patient of the Arizona State Mental Hospital, and my father deals with mental illness, but is currently unmedicated. He has been on medicine in the past, but as soon as he starts feeling well, he’ll go off it because he thinks everything is better and he does not go to see his doctors, which is the opposite of what needs to happen. Listen to Johnny’s story of how he treats his condition…
While there are indicators that mental illness does have something to do with genetics, there are also environmental factors that play a role, which means that anyone can have mental illness. But, to try and get a hold of it, we have to first name it, and then the second step is to seek help, which is often the hardest part. That’s what this man does, is he goes to Jesus seeking help, and Jesus asks him his name, and we are told the name is legion, because there are many. It’s not clear exactly what that means, and there is lots of speculation, including the possibility that it’s a reference to the Roman military, as the legion found in this area had the sign of a boar on their shields, and certainly brought destruction to people. But it could simply be that he is dealing with many issues, as most of us do, and so he seeks Jesus steps in healing, and in the negotiations in this exorcism, it’s decided to send them into the herd of swine, who run into the sea and are destroyed, which we are not going to discuss, but I can certainly understand why the swine herders are upset by what happens.
Last week I said that I didn’t have time for those talking about their addiction to talk about how important prayer was for them in getting and staying clean, but Johnny also uses prayer as his spiritual discipline…. After the man is healed, he begs Jesus to let him go with him, which is in contrasted to the others who beg Jesus to leave. If you were here when we talked about the story found throughout Mark, you might remember that the man’s response is exactly the response that Jesus wants from people, which is to get up and follow. But here, rather than letting the man follow, to become a disciple, Jesus instead sends him to go back and to tell his friends what God has done for him, and he goes away and becomes an evangelist, one who proclaims the good news. And it appears that he is effective, because later when Jesus goes back to the Decapolis, 4000 people gather to hear Jesus. The man tells others what God has done. When it comes to how we deal with mental illness, the same is true. The more we bring it out from the darkness, the more we talk about its realities, the more the talk about our own struggles, the better off we will all be, so I asked Johnny what he would say to others who are dealing with mental illness….
Some of you may have seen the story of a promising student and baseball player at Eldorado High School who committed suicide this week. I worked with several families who are affiliated with the church and who were teammates with him, and talked about where God was in the midst of this, but the other thing I told them is for them and to tell others, that we think that holding everything in, not telling others where we are struggling, or that we are having a hard time coping is a sign of strength, but it’s not. Not seeking help is not strength, that’s weakness. What takes strength is asking for help, or telling others what’s happening, of going to God and seeking healing, of seeking hope, because hope is possible. So, if you’ve dealt with mental illness, or are a family member who has dealt with mental illness, let us go forth and shatter the idea that this is a taboo subject, to bring it out of the darkness, to let everyone know that they are not alone, they do not need to suffer alone, that God is with them and that help is available and hope is possible. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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