A Homily on Jesus and the Gedarene Demoniacs

Today I preached my first homily, at the Healing Prayer and Eucharist service Church of the Incarnation holds Wednesdays at noon.  It's an intimate service, with only about 30 people attending, and led by Fr. Rick Phillputt, who has a deeply pastoral heart.  Incarnation uses the Roman Catholic lectionary for weekday eucharistic services, so the texts were Amos 5:14–15; 21–24 and Matthew 8:28–34.  Though it was tempting to preaching on the passage from Amos (a powerful one that ends with the passage about letting justice roll down like a river), I opted to preach on the Gospel, as I thought it would be more appropriate for the setting.  It's an informal service, so I preached without a manuscript, but wrote out what I wanted to saw and read it a zillion times so I could remember it.  I've included the written version of the sermon below.  

To my surprise, I enjoyed the act of preaching and felt that the delivery went well.  I'd appreciate your feedback (for good or ill) on the content, though, as I'm less sure about that.  This business of sermonizing is not as easy as it seems! (For a sermon on the same text by a man much wiser and holy than I, the late Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, go here.)


Matthew 8:28–34

"Have you ever noticed that strange things seem to happen around Jesus?   Take today’s Gospel lesson for instance:  Jesus meets two demon-possessed men and casts out the demons into a herd of pigs, who immediately drown themselves in a lake!  What are we supposed to make of this?  Why is this good news?  The townspeople certainly didn’t think it was good news at any rate—they begged Jesus to leave their neighborhood! So what are we to make of this strange story of Jesus’ exploits?

"As always, looking at the context provides us with a helpful clue.  This story is one of nine miracle stories Matthew relates between his recounting of the Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7 and what is sometimes called “the mission sermon” in chapter 10.  Our story is closely connected with the stories which immediately proceed and follow it: the calming of the sea (8:23-27) and the healing of the paralytic man (9:1-8).  All three stories are linked by their connection to the Sea of Galilee, and more importantly by their emphasis on Jesus’ authority.

"The preceding story showcases Jesus’ authority over the winds and the waves.  He and his disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee and a storm comes up and threatens to swamp their boat.  But Jesus calms the storm, leaving his awe-struck disciples to wonder, “What sort of person is this?” (8:27)

"Our story happens on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the city of Gadara.  It highlights Jesus’ authority over demons.

"The following story is the one about the paralyzed man whose friends bring him to Jesus to be healed.  Astonishingly, Jesus tells the man that his sins are forgiven!  And to prove his authority to do so, he goes on to heal the man’s body as well.  As a result, we are told, the crowd “glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”

"'What sort of person is this?' Jesus’ disciples had asked of him.  Answer: the sort who can calm storms, drive out demons, and forgive sins.  In other words, the sort of person who does what only God can do.

"Let’s look more closely at our story to see how it displays Jesus’ authority.  The two demoniacs, we are told, were “so fierce that no one could pass” by them.  (Mark and Luke include the further detail that the demoniac—only one man in their versions—had even broken the chains with which the locals had tried to bind him. The demons so controlled the man that he went about naked, raving, and bruising himself with stones, Mark says.)  Yet, on seeing Jesus, the demons cry out in the men’s voices, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God?  Have you come here to torment us before the time?”  In other words, the demons recognize Jesus as the one who will judge them at the end of time.  As one commentator puts it, “Jesus in his earthly ministry is already introducing the eschatological ‘cleanup’ of the forces of evil.”1  The demons fear Jesus’ power over them. 

"Indeed, they even beg him to send them into the nearby herd of pigs (2,000 in number, Mark’s Gospel reports).  The pitiful plea of the demons is further evidence of Jesus’ power over them; they can go only where Jesus grants them permission.  Moreover, in contrast to the common practice of exorcists in his day, who used complicated incantations, Jesus sends out the demons with one commanding word: “Go!” The great Reformer, John Calvin, put it wonderfully when he said that as the demons handled the man, so Christ handled the demons.

"Why do the demons request to be sent into the herd of pigs?  Calvin speculated that it was because they wanted to incite the townspeople to curse God as a result of the massive economic loss the pigs’ death would bring.  But perhaps the reason Matthew includes this detail is simply that the pigs’ headlong rush down the hill serves as visible evidence of the exorcism.

"The herdsmen were understandably terrified—and deprived of a source of economic livelihood—so it is not surprising that the people of the city asked Jesus to leave their neighborhood. “What sort of person is this?” they were no doubt asking. Luke and Mark end the story by telling of the newly demon-free man’s desire to follow Jesus, and Jesus’ command for him to stay and tell of all that God had done for him.  But Matthew omits this in order to keep the stark spotlight on Jesus’ authority and power.

"Strange things do happen around Jesus.  Why?  Because he is the incarnate Son of God.  He does what God alone can do: forgives sins, commands the elements, and delivers us from Satan’s tyranny.  Jesus said it best himself, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me' (Mt. 28:18). And that is good news."