Monday, January 29, 2018

Too Colorful?

The Gerasene Demoniac
Monday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
Mark 5:1-20
(This text is so colorful I pasted it at the bottom of this post…a MUST read)



Living among the Tombs
Broken shackles as wrist and ankle jewelry
Wailing and screaming
And hitting himself with stones
Possessed by Legion
A legion is 4,000 to 6,000 soldiers!
Beyond imagining

Jesus sees him…really sees him
He knows his name
Dangerous…now he will never be the same

But Mark, having painted this over-the-top portrait
Knows how easily we can dismiss him
It is the reaction of the Demoniac’s community that is so startling in its realism
Why are they so afraid?
Why not, gratitude?
Why not, come and stay for some more pedestrian healings.

The readers/hearers step into the story here

I am of the townsfolk
I brought the Demoniac supper from time to time
Leaving it at a safe distance
… but close enough for him to find it
I got used to him
I felt so, so…healthy and whole next to him

Is that what is scary?
Jesus might move on to me
He might notice that wound I CLAIM doesn’t need healing
What is clear is that he is powerful
My masks will be nothing more than tissue paper

Best if he just gets out of town
Everyone thinks this way
And take the Demoniac with you!

But he doesn’t
Jesus commissions him
He stays
Cleaned up
In his right mind
He stays
As a sign for all of us…we can’t hide our brokenness in his anymore

Mark is talking to me!  The Demoniac is his foil!
Clever
Very clever



Jesus and his disciples came to the other side of the sea,
to the territory of the Gerasenes.
When he got out of the boat,
at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him.
The man had been dwelling among the tombs,
and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.
In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains,
but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed,
and no one was strong enough to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides
he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.
Catching sight of Jesus from a distance,
he ran up and prostrated himself before him,
crying out in a loud voice,
"What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I adjure you by God, do not torment me!"
(He had been saying to him, "Unclean spirit, come out of the man!")
He asked him, "What is your name?"
He replied, "Legion is my name. There are many of us."
And he pleaded earnestly with him
not to drive them away from that territory.

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside.
And they pleaded with him,
"Send us into the swine. Let us enter them."
And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine.
The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea,
where they were drowned.
The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town
and throughout the countryside.
And people came out to see what had happened.
As they approached Jesus,
they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion,
sitting there clothed and in his right mind.
And they were seized with fear.
Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened
to the possessed man and to the swine.
Then they began to beg him to leave their district.
As he was getting into the boat,
the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.
But Jesus would not permit him but told him instead,
"Go home to your family and announce to them
all that the Lord in his pity has done for you."
Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis
what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.



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