How Much God Has Done

Luke 8:26-39

June 22, 2025

 

            When I was 7, I wrote a poem entitled A Wish. My mother saved this poem with the intention of embroidering it and giving it to me as a gift, which she did. It is in my office right now. Mom told me when she gave it to me that she wanted me to have proof that I was a well-adjusted child. We can dig into my mother’s reasons for thinking it necessary for me to know that I was a well-adjusted child in another sermon, but here is the content of my poem, A Wish.

            “I wish I were a teacher. Or even a nurse. Or a mother with children all around her. I wish I had a husband who was a millionaire. But I am just glad to be me. Because Amy Busse is me and that is that.”

            If I could make a wish today, it would be to talk with my seven-year-old self and discover what it was that made her happy to be her. What did she know about herself that made her so fundamentally content with the person she was? How did the seven-year-old Amy have such a solid understanding of what it means to be Amy? Because I can tell you that since that time I haven’t always had that understanding.

            I hope that it doesn’t shock or concern any of you that I admit that truth; admit that I have struggled with understanding myself, knowing myself, of having periods of identity crises, however that may be defined. I think it probably makes me normal. I think that one of the challenges we often face as we grow up and grow older is trying to figure out who we are amid all the good and the bad that we encounter and endure, all the life we experience. The self-assuredness I had at seven was lost to the deep self-consciousness of adolescence. It began to come back as I entered adulthood, but it was never the same because I was not the same. Who is the same?  Our living changes us, challenges us. All that we experience, the good and bad, the dramatic and the everyday shapes us. What we learn, what we see, who we meet, who we are in relationship with, friendship with, the loves and the losses, the joys and the heartbreaks – all those pieces and parts of our lives shape us, shape our identities. At different times in my life, at turning points along the way, in seminal moments, and in everyday reflections I have wrestled with the question of “Who am I?”  Sometimes my answer to that question has come with grief as well as hope, pain along with pride.

            I realize the pain I’ve felt during my times of identity wrestling is a far cry from the pain this man, this demoniac, endures. We often write off the stories of demon possession in scripture as being undiagnosed mental illness, as though mental illness is so easily treated and dealt with today. But the reality is that mental illness still carries a terrible stigma in our culture and context, so it isn’t as though we fully understand or accept it now. And while I am not sure what I believe about actual demons, I do agree with theologian Debie Thomas, who wrote that if we understand demon possession in a broader, more general way, as that which tries to separate and keep us from God, to keep us dead, when God wants us fully alive, then we are under bombardment every day by demonic forces. And they are coming after us and at us from all possible directions.

            But whether this man was under literal demonic possession or experiencing a severe and ongoing psychotic breakdown or both, he was in pain. He was in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain. Think about how awful this man’s life must have been. He is described as a man of the city. Does this mean that once upon a time he was an upright citizen? Fully functioning and capable? A person with family and friends, a profession, a life? But something changed for him. For a long time, he was without adequate clothing and shelter. He roamed among the tombs, which was probably its own sort of wasteland and wilderness. He was kept under guard but was that more for his protection or for the other people in the city.

He was bound with shackles and chains, but they could not hold him. He would break out of them and be driven by his demons “into the wilds.” The demons drove him to break loose of his bindings, but he could never break free. There was no liberation. Whatever had once made this man a whole person, a unique child of God, seemed to have been destroyed forever. It was a nightmarish existence indeed.

            But then … Jesus arrives. Jesus and his disciples have been traveling in a boat across the sea. While they were sailing they were assailed by a terrible storm, but Jesus calmed it with a word. Now that the storm has subsided and he and his disciples have crossed over to dry land, Jesus is confronted with a different kind of storm – the storm of possession that rages inside this man. 

            This story is found in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Luke tells us that when the man sees Jesus, the demons in him cry out,

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 

The demons recognize Jesus as the Son of God before the people do, and this is not the first instance of that happening. I find it interesting that, if I’m reading it correctly, Jesus has made at least one attempt at commanding the demons to leave the man. It’s almost as if their words are in response to his command. What changes everything is when Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?”  His answer? “Legion.”

            To us, hearing the word legion probably translates to “a great number” or “many” or “a whole bunch.” But the people witnessing this encounter would have heard it differently. They would have had a crystal clear picture of what a legion was. These were people living under Roman occupation. A legion of Roman soldiers was a troop of 5,000 to 6,000 men. That goes well beyond my initial assumption of what a legion might look like.   

            If the demons possessing this man are legion, then how could there be anything left of him? Whoever he was before surely was gone. But Jesus asking that question, “what is your name?” opens the door for the demons to leave and calls the man back to himself. The demons did not want to leave the man. They did not want to go back to the abyss of chaos and evil. As Debie Thomas also pointed out, even evil and chaos resist evil and chaos. The legion of demons  begs Jesus to let them enter a herd of swine feeding on a hillside. Jesus gives them permission. The demons rush out of the man, enter the pigs and the entire herd runs down the steep bank into the lake and drown. 

            This is the point in the story where I think many of us stop listening because we’re horrified at either the animal cruelty that’s involved here or the lost livelihood to the people who own those pigs, or both. It horrifies me too, I promise. But right or wrong, I think we need to get past that and pay attention to what happens next. We need to pay attention to the people’s response to the man. The swineherds have witnessed this, so they run off to tell everyone what they have seen and heard. The people come out to see for themselves and what do they find? This man, who had been so completely possessed by demons that his existence – for that’s all it was – was now truly alive. He who had been naked was clothed. He who had raged and fought and broken every chain that bound him was in his right mind. He who could not be still, be quiet, be calm was now seated at the feet of Jesus, the place where disciples sit. This man, who had been lost to the demons that warred inside him, was now returned and restored.

What do we think the people’s reaction should have been? Do we think they should have rejoiced, celebrated, praised God? Whatever we might think their response should have been, we are all probably disappointed at what it was. They did not run to the man with tears in their eyes, welcoming him back into the fold. They did not rejoice at his restoration. They did not praise God. They did not thank Jesus for giving them back one of their own. Their response was fear. They were afraid. Luke says that they were “seized with great fear.” To be seized with great fear sounds almost like another kind of demon possession doesn’t it?

            The people were seized with great fear, so they did not invite Jesus and the disciples back to their homes for dinner. There were no parties thrown or feasts given. They ask Jesus to leave. Look, Jesus, could you and your friends just go? Could you just leave us in peace and stop changing everything we know and understand? So Jesus gets back in the boat to return to the other side, to Galilee. The man – now healed and whole – begs Jesus to let him go along. But Jesus tells him to go home and tell the people at home how much God has done for him. Jesus commissions the man, the restored man, the whole man, to stay where he was and witness to the people. Make them hear you. Make them see you. Let them know how much God has done for you.

            We may believe this story doesn’t have a place in our contemporary lives. We may believe that we can explain away what the man suffered by calling it mental illness. We may think that that was then and this is now, so what does this story have to teach us? Where in this story, this strange, baffling, out-there there story do we find good news?

            Maybe this story is good news because it challenges us to confront our own fear. How have we been seized with great fear in the face of what God has done and is doing for us? How many times have we chosen the demons of death that we know rather than step into the life we don’t? How many times have we, again as Debie Thomas wrote, settled for tolerance instead of challenging ourselves to love, to really, really, really love?

            And maybe the good news is that this story calls us to remember how much God has done for us. Done, already, past tense. What has God already done for us? What life has God already given us? What healing has God already offered? What transformation has God already accomplished in our midst, in our community, in our lives?

            If I were to look over my whole life to this point, from that seven-year-old I was to the person I am now, I could name so many things that God has done for me. I could point to so many times when God has been there, with me, with, me, pulling me, pushing me, calling me, comforting me, challenging me, confronting me. And that’s just my one life. What about you? What about us? What about others who need to hear from us? Because Jesus didn’t tell the man to go home and praise God and stop there. Jesus told the man to go home and tell others. Tell others the good news. Tell others how he was unshackled and unbound and loved and made whole. Tell others his name and ask them theirs.

            We are called to witness to others what God has done for us, through our words, through our actions, through our lives. And we are called to help unbind and unshackle, to loose and to love. There is no such thing as privatized salvation. Salvation is for us, and salvation is for the world. It can all begin with one simple question. What is your name?

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.