Cast Out

Scripture: Matthew 8

The end of Chapter 8 of the Gospel of Matthew brings us a surreal and disquieting story.

In his travels, Jesus encounters two individuals who are possessed by demons. They are terrifying and fearsome creatures, so daunting that anyone who meets up with them turns back. But Jesus does not retreat when they confront him. Instead, He casts their demons out, sending them into a nearby herd of swine. The possessed swine rush down a steep bank into the sea, where they perish.

Just when you think this story could not get much stranger, it does. The swineherds who had been tending the flock rush into town and tell the story of the miracle Jesus performed. The entire population of the town gathers and goes out to meet Jesus. Do they praise him? Worship him? Celebrate his victory over evil? Quite the opposite: "and when they saw him, they begged him to leave the neighborhood."

This statement is so unexpected, so at odds with the narrative that comes before it, that I suspect many people read past it without noticing the disconnection, in the way we sometimes incorrectly finish someone else's sentence based on what we wrongly anticipate they are about to say. To the extent readers do notice the abrupt shift, many of them may think that it signals nothing more than that the people from this town were a singularly clueless and ungrateful bunch.

Perhaps that is the intended punchline: "Clueless and Ungrateful People Reject Jesus, Again."

But I don't think so.

It is risky to make too much of the organization of the chapters within the gospels. Still, it seems to me significant that Chapter 8 is overwhelmingly about one common theme: healing.

The first four verses describe how Jesus healed a leper--an utterly powerless and alienated outsider under the norms of his society.

The next nine verses offer a pointed contrast, describing how He healed the beloved servant of a centurion, a member of one of that society's most powerful and influential classes.

The next two verses briefly note how He healed someone connected with his inner circle--a relative of Peter's.

And, again offering a marked contrast, the sixteenth verse observes that He healed a collection of complete strangers. Indeed, it says that He "cured all who were sick" and who came to him.

So I think the first thing to understand about the story of the demons is that it is really a story about healing. And this means that it is fundamentally a story about love and compassion.

This is clear from another detail in the story that we may miss: the possessed individuals ask Jesus to cast their demons into the swine--indeed, they beg him to do so. Granted, the story may feel different to us because it is set up as a battle between Jesus and the forces of evil. But we shouldn't miss the parallel with the other healing stories: the leper asks Jesus to heal him; the centurion asks Jesus to save his servant. In other words, this is a story about how Jesus, out of his limitless care for others and infinite grace, responded to a plea for help.

And this brings us to a second point. The demons are not simply overcome and cast out by divine power. They are conquered by a specific kind of power, the power that comes not from vengeance or wrath or retribution but from love and compassion. Even for these people, the cursed of the earth, Love shows up. Love battles for them. And Love prevails.

Now, what does this say about the disaffected townspeople who want Jesus out of their midst? Well, it could say a number of different things. One obvious possibility--the one I entertained earlier--is that these folks were just another example of the clueless and ungrateful people who we run across in the gospels with unnerving frequency.

But I would like you to consider another possibility. What if they did understand? What if they got it? What if they grasped the overarching and unrelenting Truth that the most powerful force in the universe did not call them to conquest and victory and triumphalism but to quiet courage and empathy and healing--all in the name and through the upending offices of the living God?

Think about how an honest engagement with this reality would challenge them, would demand new things of them, would throw them in unanticipated directions. Think about how it would require them to make deep and lasting changes in their lives.

Think about how it would scare the hell out of them.

And, if you can imagine all these things, then you can imagine why they would have encouraged Jesus to hit the road.

These aren't bad people I'm describing. At the risk of a flagrant anachronism, I'm imagining decent men and women who just want to go back to their living rooms, their television sets, their laptops, their minor disciplines of brushing their teeth and taking a bit of exercise, their children, their favorite restaurant, their safe corners in a perilous world.

These are not clueless and ungrateful people whom we should feel free to judge.

These are our friends

our families

our neighbors

ourselves.

You see, I do not think that the reaction of the townspeople detours us from the central point of this story. I think that it is the central point of this story. I think that it is intended to draw us into some hard questioning of our own choices--or, more pointedly, of the things we do not choose.

And so we must ask ourselves:

What does the Love look like that would compel to live differently--radically differently?

Where have we already met it?

When will we stop sending it away?

Amen.