June 20, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
I have been told that it’s tough to be sick. While I have been a person blessed with generally good health, I know that to be ill, you worry about how long you will be sick; the fear that it might take a long time to get well. Yet one of the benefits of illness is that you don’t have to go to work! You can stay home and no one will condemn you for lying around in bed. Sick people are relieved of all responsibility. It’s enough of a challenge for them to be sick. They have no other purpose in life than getting over their illness and getting well.
Recently, I rediscover the medicinal treat of eating arrowroot starch—goot fun. When I eat this opaque sweet paste, I have all these childhood memories of my mother making goot fun for me when I was sick—usually after eating too much fried foods—gnet hee. I can remember staying home from school and watching soap operas. It wasn’t that much fun but I was excused from going to school that day.
That’s our way of thinking about being sick. But it may not be Jesus’ way.
Gerasene Demoniac
Today’s Gospel is one of the strangest moments in Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus is out in Gerasene, a Gentile territory somewhere in the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee. In this strange place, he encounters a sad, strange man. This man is possessed by demons. We would say that he is very ill. He screams. He is naked, deranged, and so sick that he lives out among the tombs. To be naked in public was especially shameful in Jewish eyes. The tombs were not only unclean, but they were the abode of the dead. This sick man was violent, self-destructive, and a danger to others. He was the living dead.
In a dramatic fashion, Jesus heals the man, delivers him of his affliction. The demons are cast into a herd of pigs that rush headlong over a cliff and fall into the sea. Like I said, it’s a strange story.
This wild scene ends with the man clothed, in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Now “sitting at the feet of Jesus” is an understanding that this man who was once possessed by demons is now a student of Jesus. In fact, this man who was once very sick becomes Jesus’ very first gentile disciple.
But then the story takes another interesting turn. Jesus tells the man, “Go home and tell what God has done for you.” Go home. Go home to those who so long ago turned you out. Go home to those from whom your illness has separated you. Go home and tell. Go home and witness to what God has done for you in your healing.
The man first begged Jesus to allow him to be with him. He wanted to remain with Jesus who has healed him. He knew that all those people whom he thought would never abandon him are not the kind of people he wanted to go home to. He wanted to get into the boat with Jesus and the other disciples and leave Gerasene. But Jesus tells the man, “Go home and declare how much God has done for you.”
And the man does just that. He goes “proclaiming throughout the city” how much Jesus has done for him. He doesn’t just go home and witness. He witnessed throughout the whole town.
Status Quo Bias
Have you ever prayed to God to make you sick so you wouldn’t have to go to school on the day you are having an Algebra quiz? Not that being sick was that much fun. But when you are sick, then you are relieved of all responsibilities. You are excused from the tasks that usually consume your day. Sickness regardless of how uncomfortable or inconvenient it may be frees us from the burdens of life. Our only job, when we are sick, is getting well.
For the most part, we want to get well from what is making us sick. But for this Gerasene man, he has been sick for so long that he was no longer seen as a person but a demoniac—one possessed with demons.
In healing the possessed man, Jesus not only altered the Gerasene social order, but he transformed their understanding of what was possible. As horrible as it must have been for the possessed Gerasene man to live among the dead, at least he was under control. The townspeople knew where to locate him and what to expect from him. His home address was at the tombs.
If Jesus could cast our demons what else was Jesus capable of doing? That’s what the townspeople were thinking. The people were seized with fear and they asked Jesus to leave town. While being sick may be no fun, uncomfortable and inconvenient, at least we know what it’s like to be sick. You stay home. You are freed from worrying about your responsibilities even if it’s only for a day. You get to watch soap operas and eat goot fun.
The Gerasene people were seized with fear because they were afraid of change. People studying how people make decisions that end up being bad choices have come up with a behavior called, status quo bias. Status quo bias is the tendency to perpetuate the current state of things regardless of whether it is in one’s best interest. Status quo bias reaches so far into the human psyche that researchers have found that if a “default option is provided,” it will far surpass knowledge or past experience in predicting how an individual will make a difficult decision.” In other words, “the way it has always been” is a far greater motivator than any argument or presentation of evidence because the decision to change entails the risk of the unknown.
When Jesus came to the Gerasene city and met the man possessed with demons, his condition was such a fixture of life in the countryside that there was a protocol in place for binding and guarding him. They have tried many times to guard him and bound him with chains and shackles, but he would break free and the demons would drive him back into the wilds. Everyone in town knew that this pathetic man is located in the tombs of the dead. He’s been there for a long time and no one was about to change that—until Jesus came into the city.
After the swineherders ran back into the city to tell especially to their bosses that it was not their fault that they have lost all the pigs off the cliff, the townspeople found the man sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. Their response is not joy or gratitude but fear. As word spreads throughout the countryside Jesus is asked to leave as his actions caused the entire region to become seized with fear.
At this moment, you and I may not be physically sick, bedridden or cast out to live in the tombs with the dead. But are you sick perhaps in a spirit way that if Jesus were to come and heal you from what may be keeping you from giving your life to Jesus and following him in discipleship that you would want to keep the status quo intact. You would rather remain sick in spirit than to have Jesus heal you.
Are we afraid of change that we want to keep ourselves just the way we are and ask Jesus to leave town before he cast out more demons that we have come to depend on?
It was harder for the townspeople to see the man healed than to watch him suffer in the graveyard. They, like the demon, begged Jesus to leave them alone.
Goes Home
Jesus, who was often willing to shake the dust off his feet, gets back into the boat without a word and prepares to set sail. The person who’s been healed looks at Jesus and at the crowd who banished him to the graveyard: “Please, let me go with you!” He’s ready to follow. There’s room in the boat. He’ll leave without looking back. There’s no one who hasn’t already told him goodbye. These people had bound him with chains. But then he thinks about his family: “Will my wife take me back? Will my children call me “daddy” again? Will the neighbor’s children run when they see me coming? Will they believe I’ve been healed?”
As these thoughts are flashing through his mind, Jesus says, “Go home, and tell them about God’s love.” The man went home and told them how Jesus put his life back together and everyone heard it was amazed.
Father’s Day is an appropriate Sunday to read about the Gerasene demoniac. This day provides an opportunity for us to remember our fathers for good or bad, health or ill. By imagining how the Gerasene man’s children might welcome him home invites us to take a sentimental moment to reflect on the role our fathers had and perhaps continue to have in our lives today. They may represent a person with demons and we have tried to banish him away from our consciousness. They may represent a person who was healed and brought back to the living and to that end; we have welcomed him home with no more fear. They may represent a person who is loving and caring like our Father God is and therefore, we have an ongoing positive relationship with our fathers. But what if your relationships have not been positive but rather contentious? What if it’s filled with demonic thoughts and negativism that you just want to keep things like they are forever?
As I mentioned earlier, being sick and staying sick relieves us from all responsibilities. When we remain sick in our relationships with our fathers, we don’t have to work on reconciliation and making peace. While it may be no fun or uncomfortable or inconvenient to have a broken relationship with our fathers, maintaining this status quo bias is easier than to face the unknown risk of a new day.
That’s our way. But it’s not Jesus’ way. Jesus told the man to go home and witness to what God has done for him in his healing.
When I thought about my father this week, I remembered the time when he made out of scrap wood a shoeshine box for me. He painted it navy blue. After he returned from World War II, he saw that little boys could make loose change by shining shoes. He filled it with shoe wax—black, brown, and cordovan. There was a large black brush and long cloth to buff the shoe so it might shine. Being a shoeshine boy in my father’s eyes was his way for me to make some money. This was his status quo bias—Chinese boys can only succeed in subservient jobs.
I never shined one pair of shoes for money. I felt that it was too subservient for me to do. What did happen was that I shined all the shoes in the house—my father’s, my mother’s, and even my brother’s. I don’t have that blue shoeshine box anymore but I have a newer one and it contains all the shoe waxes, the brush and the buffing cloths. Every time I see this shoeshine box, I am reminded of what it represents—my father’s hope for me to go out and make a living.
Are you ready to go home and witness what God has done in your life and in turn proclaiming Jesus Christ in the world?
This poor man has suffered for many years. He has not had the joy of a family, a job, an ordinary life. And what does Jesus tell him during his first minutes of his health, freedom, and wholeness? Jesus gives the man a job. He tells him to go tell everyone what God has done for him. Jesus tells this man—without theological training, without education, as far as we know—to go back to town and tell people what God has done for him.
And the man does just that. Even though he would be perfectly justified to go back home, take up the joys of ordinary life, relax and enjoy being in his right mind, he goes out and shouts that God is active, that God is here, and that God is healing love.
I know that there are people here in this congregation who are right now embodying this story. Jesus has touched you, delivered you, healed you, and spoken to you. And that’s a great blessing. Yet you didn’t just sit back and enjoy the blessing; you also felt commissioned and called to work for and to witness to the one who blessed you and healed you.
Let us not let our status quo bias keep us sick and ill and from being healed by God’s love. Let us not let our status quo bias stop us from appreciating and celebrating the fathers in our lives. Let us not let the status quo bias in this world keep us from healing the sick, proclaiming good news and from going home and witnessing to what God has done for us.
The blue shoeshine box in my memories will always remind me of my father’s hope for me regardless of how limited it might be, how status quo it was—it reminds me of my challenge to go out into this world and to buff a shine of good news of Jesus Christ on everyone I see.
Someday, I might paint the shoebox that I now have blue.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, in your Son our Savior, Jesus Christ, you not only come to us, you not only touch us, heal us, and love us, but you also call us to go out into this world to bear good news witness of your love and grace. Give us the strength to go home when we may need to bring reconciliation with those we love. Grant us that opportunity when we might share in your coming glory and in your present reign in this world. Amen.