Chains of Fear

June 28, 2015

Mark 5:1-20 (Off Lectionary)

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2And when [Jesus] had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8For [Jesus] had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

14The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it.17Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. 18As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” 20And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I read for you this gospel story – the story about Jesus landing on the beach he was headed to last week, rather than skip ahead as the lectionary would have me do.  Because I want you to know what happens.  What happened after Jesus rebuked the squall of the wind and the disciples in that boat.

Jesus takes this nervous, confused, fearful group of men out of the boat, the ones who just got to see God in full glory, master of the very elements of creation… But before Jesus could even pick them up by the scruffs of their necks like a mother cat and say, ok, guys, let’s do this.  The demons show up.   

Up rushes a man possessed with a legion of demons! The wild-eyes, the self-inflicted bruises, the inhuman strength, there is no question what we would do today if we encountered this man.  Exactly what the Garasenes have tried to do: lock him up.  Though our drugs might be more effective in subduing him than their chains, our intent is the same – remove this dis-ease we do not understand from our community.  It’s the way we know how to handle things – on our own.

But this legion of demons rushes to bow before Jesus, recognizing the power that the disciples have just completely missed out on that boat.  The demons bow down before the God most high, knowing their heyday is about to end.  Jesus commands them out of the man, and at their request, sends them into the pigs who, in the demons continued pattern of destruction, drown in the sea.

Those demons.  They know who Jesus is.  Their only fear is what will happen to them now that Jesus knows the rucous they’ve been causing.

You might think the people would be happy to be rid of them, once and for all. 

But that’s not how the story goes.  The people of that village, rather than be elated at the reuniting of the man with the community and overwhelmed with joy at the power Jesus uses for good – instead they are afraid.  Just like those disciples were on that boat. 

We might understand if they were just mad at Jesus for killing their pigs. But notice. It’s not anger over their pigs, it’s fear that drives them.  They just want Jesus back on that boat heading back home to Galilee.  

Now remember, the Garasenes were not a group of people that Jews generally associated with.  It wasn’t the disicples’ idea to cross over to the other side.  Jesus and his followers were in a culture and with a people that were not their own.  But as it turns out, the Garasenes aren’t all that different than the 12.  Regardless of ethnicity or cultural, we are all human – every single one of us would have eaten that fruit in the garden of Eden.  We all want to grab for control, to pretend we can better orchestrate the world than the God who made it.  And we all are prone to react the same way when God’s true power is revealed – we run scared.  The Garasenes react just like Jesus hometown did a few verses ago – Please leave, Jesus!  You are disturbing our comfortable, settled, ignorant, demonic peace. 

When Jesus frees the possessed man, he lets loose the demons of fear.  Instead of the people, being able to segregate their fear.  Instead of being able to confine it to the graveyard like a bad halloween movie.  Instead of being able to try to lock up the fear far away from their consciences and daily lives, now, they are scared.  Because now they don’t have a place to point to, a place to shove-off anything different from themselves.  The fear might be anywhere.  They don’t have a place to contain it anymore. 

Whether it is the disciples on the boat, or the Garasenes on the shore, that’s it, it’s Fear.  It is fear that makes us want to push out the hope and new life, because it is just too unfamiliar.  It’s fear that urges us to try to have as much power over others as we can.  It’s fear that decides we are better off away from people who scare us, whether because they are mentally ill, because they are GLBTQ, or because they have a different color of skin.  (The headlines have brought us many opportunities to think about who we fear in America today.)

When we are doing the tough work that we started last week, the tough work of listening to other voices, seeing other faces, hearing other stories and grieving with those who are “other” to us.  We are doing the tough work of “Seeing All People and Perspectives” – one of Bethlehem’s four core values (1)The illuminating Word of God, 2)Seeing All Peoples and Perspectives, 3)Serving our Communities with Delight, 4)Opening the Eyes of Faith at Every Age).  Last week and this week, we are beginning this hard work to examine our white privilege and systemic racism. 

We are ready to face our fears.

Will you speak them with me, Church?  What are you afraid of?

Me?  I’m afraid.

I don’t know what to say or how to say it.  I don’t know if someone who we all label as “non-white” is going to perceive me as a friend or as someone who will wield the power of how I look to get what I want.  So I am afraid at times to even try to build a friendship.  Why should they trust me?  It’s been generations and generations of white people doing just what they suspect. 

I know I have received benefits that cannot be measured just because of the color of my skin.  Other white people are more comfortable with me than they would be with brown or black people, and so I have an “in” with them.  I have access to conversations about everything from job possibilities to grant funding for my favorite charities that many people of color do not have access to.  I smile at me on the sidewalk, usually, if I smile first.  People lend me an extra few cents if I can’t find the right change in my purse.   

And yet, I am afraid.  I am afraid that this system that privileges me means that people who do not benefit from those privileges will see me as demonic.

And that’s how racial privilege works.  It’s all about the fear.  And keeping it in place. 

If we stay afraid, if we let fear stop us.  If we let fear hold us to our normal habits and what comes easy, then we are locked inside ourselves, in our privileged world, dragging around these chains.  We get so tightly locked in on ourselves that we forget there are people who are not experiencing the world the way we are.  There are people, less than a mile from us in any direction, who are followed when shopping in a store, who aren’t given the benefit of the doubt when the police officer pulls them over, or who have to give a wide berth to white people on the sidewalk, lest someone’s forgotten handbag become an accusation of theft. 

And this, my friends, is the shame of the racial system in America.  That our fear of changing it is continuing to solidify it day by day, our fear of reaching out to people who are not in our comfort zone.  Our fear of having a real conversation about the tough issues of race, is perpetuating the very things that God wants to change.  Fear is the opposite of Faith.

God wants change, God’s will is to eradicate racism.  We believe God’s kingdom is coming.  We have seen Jesus calming storms and casting out demons over and over again as God steps into our world and uses every gift God has at God’s disposal.  We pray, at least weekly, as Jesus taught us,Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Our eyes have been opened God, by the events of this past year, these past 50 years, these past 300 years!  God is giving us eyes to “See All People and Perspectives” in ways that we never imagined. Our eyes have been opened to the ways that God condemns racism and how it imprisons us all.

And we have seen freedom.  We have seen grace.  We see forgiveness.  We saw people studying scripture extend a hand of welcome to the Garasene in their midst.  We see people who are mourning extending a hand of forgiveness.  We see people who history tells us should be the most afraid, as they are the most likely to end up imprisoned or killed, yet, they are the most free!  Allowing God’s light to shine through them to us!!

Today Jesus says, God is in control, not us.  And that is a wonderful freedom.  We don’t have to fix all racism everywhere, that’s God’s job.  But, we get to do our part!  We get to be a part of this beautiful coming kingdom!  And God will be with us, just like Jesus in the midst of the storm and in the strange new place, never leaving his disciples. Like the man in our story today tells us, God’s freedom is better than our fear.  God is offering us freedom today.  WHAT DOES THAT FREEDOM LOOK LIKE? 

Like a man, possessed by a legion of demons, who were tormenting him and making it impossible for him to live a reconciled life with his neighbors, impossible for him to experience the fullness of love.  Freedom looks like that man experiencing what was thought to be impossible: having new life, human connection, love in community, the love of God. 

God offers us that same freedom today.

Please pray with me…

We pray for your way, Lord, we pray that everyone in our beloved church may know the good news that you have freed us from this fear.  This fear that is holding us in captivity, the fear that drives us to care more about keeping the status quo than entering into a new life of freedom. 

We pray that your light may come into the darkness of racism in the United States of America  and shine so brightly as to expose it, that we might be freed, together with our black and brown brothers and sisters, from the insanity that binds us.

Amen.