Mark 5: 1-20
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
January 28, 2018
We conclude our sermon series today with one of my favorite Bible stories and one of the most thought provoking of Jesus’ ministry.
As the Gospel of Mark tells the story, Jesus and his disciples get in a boat and sail across the Sea of Galilee. Within just a few miles of water they leave the Jewish world and cross over to the Greco-Roman world. The boat landed on the shore of Gergesa (or the town of the Gerasenes); one of ten cities of the Decapolis.
Bible teacher Ray Van der Laan shares the Decapolis had a Greek Helenistic worldview. The first century Greco-Roman world was very human-centered. What mattered most in life were one’s accomplishments, social status, accumulation of material wealth, and appearances. As a result, anyone who did not measure up to these values was held in no account and pushed to the very out-skirts of town, marginalized by society.[1]
Back across the sea of Galilee in Capernaum, the Jewish worldview was that one’s value was found in belonging to God. Value is tethered to God’s covenant love through Abraham. However Jewish tradition was particular about this covenant status of belonging. What mattered most was one’s ability to be and remain spiritually clean according to the Law of Moses. To be “unclean” or to associate with one who was “unclean” meant that one’s spiritual wholeness or purity was compromised. Marginalization was the result there too.
As Jesus and his disciples set sail for the town of the Gerasenes, the pot gets stirred among these two very different worldviews.
Keep this in mind as we hear Mark’s story in chapter 5 verses 1-20…..
He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones.
When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by 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.’ He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.
Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.
The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid.
Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.
As [Jesus] was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.
He was known as the Gerasene Demoniac. The demons he wrestled had stolen his ability to accomplish anything in life. Whatever the chaos was that tore through him, it erased his former identity, it denied him the opportunity to be understood, it cut off his relationships with family and community, and it stripped away his integrity. The Greco-Roman world taught him shame; no one would ever love him for who he was. This worldview broke him down to dust and left him belonging to nothing more than hopeless despair.
It is no surprise that this ghost of a man ran to Jesus when the Rabbi got out of the boat. Even in Gentile territory, this man knew exactly who Jesus was. And as Jesus began to drive out the man’s chaos with authority to heal, the man begged Jesus not to torment him. He had experienced all the torment and division he could handle.
Our Savior saw a man who was more than the hopeless story that defined him. Our Savior saw a man who was in desperate need of God’s healing the jagged edges of his soul. What Jesus does is nothing less than amazing grace: he restored this man’s humanity. Jesus clothed this man in God-given dignity.
Jesus asked this man what his name is. Can you imagine not hearing your name called for a great length of time? That simple question created a space of fostering a relationship. It also opened a window of opportunity for the man to tell his story. Jesus’ empathy and compassion claimed this man in God’s never-ending love and restored this man’s identity as a beloved child of God.
Jesus freed him of the chaos, pain and isolation that once defined his life. This man’s new life was now filled with purpose for he was sent to go back home and tell his story. Jesus reconciled this man from the inside out and re-familied him to the ones who had known this man as a son, a brother, and a friend.
And yet this man, now healed and made whole, still felt the weight of human judgment. He feared no one would see him as Jesus saw him. It is in this moment that Jesus reinterprets two colliding worldviews.
Jesus’ actions confronted the Greco-Roman worldview. Jesus’ compassion and healing proclaimed God’s truth that everyone is a child of God, worthy of love and belonging. The source of this core truth is that we are all created in God’s image. The Gerasenes were so offended and threatened that they told Jesus to leave the neighborhood.
Jesus’ actions reinterpreted the Jewish worldview too. Jesus revealed God is willing to bend the rules of tradition for the sake of reconciling all humanity and creation back to himself. God shows no partiality (Acts 10:34).
The disciples were amazed and more than likely shocked. They sat in that boat as this all played out. I can imagine their jaws dropped as their Rabbi did God’s work in forbidden places according to tradition.
The disciples would continue to learn that following Jesus is risky business. You have to get out of your comfort zone to be about the Lord’s work of breaking down barriers to God’s freedom. At the end of the day, the only thing that counts is faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).
Mark’s story haunts me with the stark contrasts in the ways humanity is viewed by God and society. The Gospel says that no one too far beyond God’s grace.
I want for you to think about the children, individuals, and groups whom society says have no value today. Anne Lamott says, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Now try to see the ones whom society holds of no account through the eyes of Jesus Christ. Jesus not only draws near to those whom society casts out, but he lived and died in compete solidarity with the marginalized and all humanity.
Jesus too was judged by society as having no value. The Greco-Roman society and the Pharisaic tradition saw his only accomplishment as stirring up trouble. Jesus was stripped of his God-given dignity and was held of no account. He hung on the cross to be publicly humiliated and to die as a criminal. And yet it was in the tomb that God lifted up a beacon of hope that shined the light of new life in the darkness. That light still shines into the darkest parts of humanity; a darkness that will never overcome the light of Jesus Christ.
God does his best work among the most disparaging places of life. The fullness of Jesus Christ and the power of Holy Spirit reveal God does this for the sake of reconnecting us - re-familying us - back to God and to one another. We do not belong to ourselves but to God alone and we are our brother’s keeper.
We still live in that first century mindset where a person’s worth and belonging are defined according to human standards - accomplishments, social status, possessions, and appearance.
In a time of great division, it is imperative for the greater Church to reclaim Jesus’ examples of empathy and compassion. These virtues are central to the integrity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Empathy and compassion always begin with our perceptions. It starts as an inside job and first begins with the self. Our capacity to learn empathy starts within our first year of life as an infant. This potential is shaped by our home values, community of faith, and environment.
The first step is a humbling one. It is learning to articulate our feelings. As we grow older it is remembering the human heart is a roller coaster of emotions and emotional needs. In our moments of feeling lost and misunderstood, we are found by Jesus Christ. We all share a longing to be unconditionally loved and freed from our inner and external chaos. What an incredible moment to feel safely embraced and understood by the heart of our Creator! You and I are here today because we identify with the mystery of God’s grace.
The second step is no less humbling. It is to see through God’s truth that our marginalized sisters and brothers are the same kind of different as you and me. When we affirm our shared universal longing to be loved, it yields a deepening conviction that all have intrinsic value because all are made in the image of God. We do not earn our worth, rather it is God given.
This gives us courage to be empathetic towards others – to get out of the boat and commit to the Lord’s work of restoring God-given dignity to our sisters and brothers. The Spirit nudges us to draw near to those who are different and those who are on the margins and to be a beacon of light.
Empathy is a grace-filled space of human connection. Empathy requires us to seek to understand first so that we may come alongside another with compassion (willingness to suffer with another). These virtues are the ties that bind us together in Christian love. The only thing that counts is faith working in love.
What might the gospel look like in your life and mine if we strive to see through Jesus’ lenses of empathy and compassion? This question matters because if we call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ then we are to be agents of God’s compassion. The Spirit is on the move to continue teaching us what we have learned and seen and heard in our Rabbi and Savior.
May we work for justice that heals and seek peace that reconnects us to God and one another in our homes, schools, community, nation, and world.
In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sources Referenced:
[1] Ray Vaner Laan “The Mission of Jesus: 5 Lessons on Triumph of God’s Kingdom in a World of Chaos” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), lesson 2 DVD, “Decapolis: The Other Side – Jesus and the Man from the Tombs”.
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