I am Legion....

Sunday, June 19
1 Kings 19:1-15; Psalms 42/43; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

What is your Name? Legion…for many demons had entered him.  Some days I think this could be my authentic response: Legion…for many demons have entered me.  And if we are honest, we are all a little demon possessed from time to time.  In fact, I think the man in today’s Gospel story is actually a representative of all of humanity.

What is your Name? Legion…for many demons have entered us.  Humanity is filled with demons.  Demons like greed, consumerism, anger, vengeance, cruelty, hatred, prejudice, self-centeredness.  Spiritual and mental demons like worthlessness, hopelessness, despair, apathy, indifference, and depression. We have physical illnesses and diseases that attack us like demons.

But I think the Granddaddy of all demons---and I call it the Granddaddy because I think all the other demons find their origin in this demon---the Granddaddy of all demons is FEAR.

Fear of not being enough, having enough, not being liked, not being important, Fear of not belonging, not being seen or heard, Fear of being left out, without power or status or prestige. Fear. And our society and culture is constantly manipulating that demon to get us to forget who we are.  That there is humanity underneath that legion.

Did you hear what fear did to the people in today’s Gospel?  They pushed Jesus away—they told the Christ to take his bags and shove off.  Great fear seized them. They saw what the healing power and redemptive love of Jesus can do—with their own eyes, they witnessed that drawing near to the Christ transforms and transfigures a person, and they wanted none of that.

“No,” the people in today’s Gospel say: “Go away, Jesus.  We like our status quo.  Get out of town; we want nothing to do with you.”

Status quo isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  But too often we strive to keep the status quo because it provides us comfort and convenience.  And again, comfort and convenience are not bad in and of themselves.  But comfort and convenience can become like cotton batting that gets wrapped around our ears, our eyes, and our heart.  Wanting to maintain our comfort and convenience can prevent us from hearing the cries of our brothers and sisters in pain; they can blind us to the need in front of us and in our world; they can shield our hearts from feeling suffering of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the outcast.  Like the people in today’s Gospel, at times we find ourselves pushing away Jesus in order to maintain our comfort and convenience---afraid of the great power Jesus has to transform our lives.

Did you notice how the man who was legion is described after Jesus’ healing power and redemptive love gets hold of him: Luke describes him as “clothed and in his right mind.”

In his right mind.  When we are freed from our demons, we are in our right mind. In the first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us we are to have the mind of Christ.  The Mind of Christ is our right mind because, as the Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber tells it, having the mind of Christ allows us to see differently. To see ourselves differently, to see the world differently, to see others differently.

When we have the mind of Christ, we see ourselves differently because we are released from the demons of shame, guilt, unworthiness, greed, self-centeredness and hopelessness.  When we are in our right mind, we are released from the demons of apathy, the mindset of us vs. them, the need to seek power and status at all costs, so we are empowered to see the world differently.  Having the mind of Jesus, we see others differently because we are freed from anger, vengeance, cruelty, prejudice, and hatred.

In the reading from Galatians today, St Paul refers to this as “being clothed in Christ.” We are the Children of God, St. Paul tells us, so we are to be clothed in Christ.

I don’t know about you, but when I get up in the morning, I have to choose to be clothed. I could stay in my pajamas all day.  Not only do I have to choose to be clothed, I have to have intentionality in choosing what I will wear and actually putting the clothes on.

Being clothed in Christ Jesus is much the same.  We have to choose it…with intentionality.  This isn’t the Jetsons where we can stand in a room with our arms stretched out and hit a button and WHAMO! we are clothed.  No, we must choose Jesus; we must be in intentional relationship and connection to the Christ.  

Being a Christian is about being clothed in the Christ so that we are equipped to live differently in the world. It is our connection and growing relationship with Jesus that frees us from our demons—just like the man in today’s Gospel—and then we are empowered and equipped to declare how much God has done for us by how we are in relationship with others and in the world.

 Beloved, let us choose to clothe ourselves in Christ every day, every hour of the day, every minute of every hour and every second of every minute.  Of course, we’ll blow it from time to time.  We’ll mess up. But this God of ours, this God simply says: Choose again.  No worries.  You are forgiven.  Try again.  This God  runs out to meet us with open arms, this God refuses to spend eternity without us, this God has a built-in reset button. The man in the Gospel needed the demons to be named before he was freed of them.  We too are to name our demons so we can be freed. Turn around God says, realign yourselves and, simply, begin again.

Imagine how the life of that man named Legion was transformed once he was freed from the demons of humanity.  Freed from violence and hatred and anger.  Freed to treat his neighbors as his fellow brothers and sisters.  Freed to see Creation as the gift that it is.  Freed to know that God is in control so anxiety and fear, guilt and shame didn’t have to direct and manipulate his days.

Imagine our lives as we choose to intentionally be clothed in Christ, to live and move and have our beings from the mind of Jesus---Imagine how the lives around us will change as we change—our relationships, our connections, this web of community to which we belong.

And oh, as more and more of us seek to be clothed in Christ, as we gather together to support one another in this life-changing journey, imagine the reach, the wave of grace that will spread out from this church community to the shores beyond these buildings. It could be like a Grace tsunami. As St Paul describes, there will be no more social barriers, no more cultural barriers, no more barriers of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual identity—no more us vs. them. Only us. Clothed and in our right minds.

Beloved, the mark of an effective church isn’t how many people show up on a Sunday morning.  The mark of an effective church is how many lives are changed for the better because that church community exists.