Rev. Dr. Jon Smoot
Out of Control
BHPC
June 24, 2007
Rev. Dr. Jon Smoot
One of my favorite stories about the weather on the West Coast of Scotland, often called the Wet Coast of Scotland, goes like this: An American couple was touring this part of Scotland, and it had rained and rained the whole week they were there. Driving through a small Scottish village, they saw a wee laddie walking on the side of the road. They were so exasperated they pulled over, rolled down the window and asked the boy; “Son, does it rain here like this all the time?” To which the boy replied, “I don’t know, I’m only seven.”
We can so easily get used to, or at least numb ourselves to the deluge of the insanity, the craziness of our lives and of our world…I can daily read the paper and seethe inside at our elected officials and our administration, and then try to calm myself down as I turn the pages – but where did that rage go? We can become so used to the insanity in our lives and our culture, mistaking the constant downpour of all of this as “normalcy,” constantly and downwardly adjusting our expectations and our hopes and our actions as we hunker down, shielding ourselves from our world’s pain, our own psychic pain, and the pain in those around us.
We may not even be aware of the fact that we are too often living as people that are seemingly possessed, driven by compulsions and expectations and fears that we dare not even try to name. Yet if we do not name the demons, we more often then not find them dragging us to some cliff, to drown us in broken relationships, compulsions or addictions, and indeterminate, yet explosive rage. I don’t think that possession is too strong a word for a culture and a people that are out of control with our raging, all-consuming hungers or our un-assuaged quiet desperations.
I don’t think that possession is too strong a word for people of supposed faith like ourselves, people who daily firewall our tidy, comfortable, predictable little one-hour Sunday faith from God’s blazing grace and truth, and God’s blinding clarity that calls out the demons to expose them for what they are: soul-destroyers and world-destroyers. That’s just a bit too much for us to handle.
That is the point of Luke’s story, in case you missed it – the people that witnessed this phenomenal exercise of God’s power in this exorcism and restoration, recognized the mystery and the power of what had just taken place – I mean, come on - they could still smell the cordite in the air! But they cannot make a place for it or accommodate their lives to it, and their response is -- to ask Jesus to leave. Don’t we do that? We may not say it in so many words, but that is our attitude. We like God neatly boxed into respectable and predictable categories. We like our faith to be reasonable, orderly, structured – in the same way that we build our sanctuaries: everything is solid, secure, stable, serene, quiet, bolted-down. In worship there is the comfort of the liturgy, the stately reverence of the clergy, the expected words of reassurance that God is our buddy God, who loves us unconditionally, but doesn’t really expect much, if anything, from us.
A God who is even more Presbyterian than we are – everything done decently and in order, and never, ever busts loose and does something uncontainable and inexplicable.
But along comes today’s text intruding into our serene and stately sanctuary – and we really have no idea what to make of it: a crazy, raving lunatic of a man, shouting, naked, bound in chains, squealing pigs, crumbling tombs, screaming demons, pigs that become lemmings and throw themselves off the cliff to drown in the very same sea that Jesus had calmed from the storm the day before. It’s all enough to make a Presbyterian cringe. What’s a story from a primitive world view with its demons and exorcism got to do with us modern, scientific folk who believe in depression medication not in demons, in Ecotrim, not exorcism? Maybe it has more to do with us than we’re willing to admit…
Let’s dare to get a little honest with ourselves - scrape back a little of the veneer from your tidy, orderly, public-faced world, and the rage, the despair, the pain, the soul- wrenching prayers for help and healing can be heard – scrape back a little of the orderly, respectable veneer and you expose the demons of body, mind and soul that are wrenching you and that you see wrenching our poor, crazy world. Who wants to wade into that unholy mess? God does. Luke reports no other reason for Jesus’ visit to this wild, forsaken, unholy Gentile territory – no other reason, than godly compassion and power toward a deranged and tormented human soul.
But, notice what the possessed man does and says: He rushes up to Jesus and throws himself at Jesus’ feet and shouts: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me!” What a mixed message: “Help me God, but on my terms. I’m terrified by what is happening in me, but I’m more terrified of what I might look like after you get through with me.” Isn’t that what we do? Keep God at arm’s length, through our tidy little faith, because we’ve learned that Church is safe, but God is not?
There’s another reason we keep God at arm’s length, and ask Jesus to leave: It’s along the lines of “better the devil you know.” Don’t we have much in common with the demon – the demon who knows exactly who Jesus is, and fears him for it? Don’t we respectfully shout to God – “I know who you are – I give you an hour a week, don’t I? Now, leave me alone?” Don’t we box God into a corner, and firewall God from our everyday choices and actions – because we’re afraid of what God might drag us into? Recall that Jesus once said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”
– but with truth in advertising, he might have added, “But first it will tick you off, and everyone else around you as well.”
Don’t we daily identify, or try to identify where the demon-craziness is, and then devote considerable time and expense trying to guard and to control it through legislation, or pills, or shrinks, or task forces? Haven’t we learned, as a community to live with demonic forces, isolating and partially controlling them, only to shake our heads in despair when they break out, yet again, and again? Example: Let’s form a Governor’s blue-ribbon task force on mental illness, so that Virginia Tech doesn’t happen again – let’s not talk about the fact that in Virginia you can pick up hand-guns about as easily as you pick up 2% milk. Better the devil you know…
But know this: God will have none of it, because we are not telling the truth to ourselves, or in our community or nation. Don’t we yet understand that God’s desire and God’s power is ready to knit back together that which is fragmented and alienated in ourselves and in our community? Don’t we yet get that the answer to self-alienation and alienation from others that is ripping apart our lives and our world is God’s true and lasting and perfect humanity expressed in the incarnation of God’s own self in Jesus, the Christ? Don’t we yet understand that this gospel of God’s grace and truth is C-4 explosive? Yet, we play around with the gospel as if it were Play-Doh that we can mold to our own liking.
God commands us to face the terrors that stalk us and our community and our world – God wants us to wade neck-deep into the unholy mess and speak God’s powerful word of hope and truth and justice. It is then that we break loose from our chains, and free others from theirs. Then we find ourselves sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in our right minds, and eager to tell everyone how much God has done for us, and for them.
Thanks be to God.
(Resources: Craddock, Interpretation – “Luke”; New Interpreter’s Bible – “Luke”; “Pulpit Resource” Journal and “Lectionary Homiletics” Journal)
