26 Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Luke 8:26-39
32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
My sermon from 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (June 22, 2025) on Luke 8:26-39.
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So what do we do with all those pigs?
I’ll admit it’s sort of strange that the One who could feed thousands with a few loaves of bread and calm storms with just a word agreed to send a bunch of supernatural beings into a herd of hogs who then jumped over a cliff. Theologians, priests, pastors, and kids sitting in the pews have wondered what made Jesus so against bacon. And while we might try to explain away Jesus’ actions by pointing out his Jewish identity and how kosher food laws disliked pigs immensely, we tend to experience Jesus as the One who gives life and rather than participating in its destruction. This story is “taylor ham” made to draw all our attention to all those hogs rolling around in mud on a hot and humid day. I wonder, though, if keeping our attention on what seems strange to us actually causes us to miss noticing what is going on. And instead of focusing on what happened to the pigs, we should wonder why Jesus was around pigs in the first place.
Now pigs have been a part of the history of all different kinds of communities for thousands of years. Yet those that accepted them and those who rejected them can often help archaeologists identify who might have called certain areas their home. In the ancient Near East, a place without pig bones might reveal a place where those who followed the Jewish kosher food laws actually lived. We’d expect Jesus, a Jewish religious leader who followed the kosher rules, to spend most of his time in the towns where he and his friends could easily find a bite to eat. But here he was, in the middle of ministry, visiting a place full of pigs. The pigs Luke described, though, weren’t hanging out in small farms for only specific families to use. The herd on the hillside took a lot of money, time, energy, and resources to build and maintain. Its owners were incredibly wealthy, serving as the center for a business empire that included a number of employees and other businesses supporting their work. The presence of these pigs not only shows Jesus being in a non-Jewish place his disciples didn’t expect him to be. It also points to him being in an economically accessible place necessary for the life of the community. Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee, leaving where his ministry began, to explore a mixed, diverse, and non-Jesus environment. And it’s there when Jesus met a man from the tombs.
We could, I think, choose to give our attention to what seems shocking about this man. We’re told he came to Jesus dirty, unkept, and without any clothing. This man, though, wasn’t naked since broken chains around his wrists and shackles around his ankles were the only jewelry he would wear. The scars and wounds all over his body would have made him look like one of the bodies lying in the tombs. If we spend all our initial energy on what he looked like and the so-called spirits tearing at his soul, we can quickly lose track of the story by coming up with some kind of mental illness or situation that explains away what he was going through. But before we rush to make everything about this lonely and isolated man understandable, we should also realize he wasn’t living on his own. He wasn’t the one putting chains on himself as a way to keep him from running off into the wilderness. The community, those who filled the place he called home, had placed him under guard and built this kind of life for him. Jesus wasn’t only in an unexpected place full of people who followed kosher food laws and those who didn’t. He also stepped off the boat and found a community who walled themselves off from one of their own. They probably did so because they assumed this was the only way to keep the man and themselves safe from whatever was attacking his soul. Yet what they created actually reinforced what those spirits wanted to do in the first place. The stories in our Bible about unclean spirits or demons weren’t simply stories about people living with mental illnesses they hadn’t yet properly diagnosed. The Bible recognizes these spiritual struggles as real; and they were trying to do two specific things. First, the spirits wanted these individuals to harm themselves as a way to interfere with their ability to care, love, and serve those around them. A person who is fleeing away from others is one who can’t pray or be with those in need. Secondly, as a way to keep breaking that sense of community, these spirits always try to isolate the people from one another. The driving of this man into the wilderness or to the shore of the Sea of Galilee was to make him assume he’s always alone. Harm and isolation are the two hallmarks of what these demonic spirits are always up-to. And the throng of people who kept this man under guard created the kind of community to reinforce what the unclean spirits were already up to. So before the man could speak, before the unclean spirits who recognized Jesus could tell him to go away, Jesus – in words we do not hear but with a clarity that caused the spirits to tremble in fear – ordered everything keeping this man and the community apart to leave and never come back.
We assume Jesus’ words were primarily directed towards the spirits consuming the man living in the tombs. Yet I can’t help but notice how Jesus’ words were also for those who tried to chain them there. Over and over again, what’s demonic in our Bible is whatever breaks the relationships between God and the people. And while those forces are sometimes spiritual, cosmic, and over-the-top, people are also very good at creating these kinds of forces themselves. Jesus did more than simply heal this one man and destroy an almost comical amount of bacon. Jesus changed the sacred, spiritual, and physical connections at the heart of the community. The community who had isolated him assumed they were keeping everyone safe and secure but would discover how that division might not be holy and true. Our instinct might be to assume the man was now like everyone else. But the fact they isolated him and his first response wasn’t to isolate them shows how something new took place. Jesus took a place of difference, of tombs and cities, of relationships and isolation, of Gentiles and Jews, and created a space of healing, connection, love, and hope. And while that sounds pretty awesome, what Jesus does will always scare everyone. The demons who realized what happened were given the chance to do something other than separating people from their God. Their response to this holy invitation, though, was to destroy even more of God’s creation. The people also weren’t sure what to do so they asked Jesus to go somewhere else. Yet whatever Jesus chooses to do, always remains. The opportunity to build a different kind of community rooted in something holy, loving, empathetic, and relational doesn’t go away. Now there are times when we assume that walling ourselves off from one another is what we’re supposed to do. And while that might make sense in individual cases, when communities choose to define themselves by the walls they build, who God has made us to be begins to break down. There are times when the hard work of creating a new kind of community seems like it’s too much so we shouldn’t even try. Yet the One who has already gone into the tombs we build whenever God’s love shows up – promises to be with you – and he will bring you through.
Amen.