Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Don’t Follow Me; Go Home!"

Text: Luke 8:26-39

this was one of the strangest stories in the gospels.

Jesus has cast out demons before this point in the story …

and of course, that by itself is

a strange and uncomfortable concept for many of us …

but we can sort of wrap our minds around it

by talking about it as healing

from mental or psychological or emotional illness.

However we think about it,

Jesus makes people well,

and they are usually grateful,

and the people who watch the whole thing happen

usually rejoice and believe.

That’s the usual demon-casting-out story line.

And this story doesn’t fit.

For one thing,

Jesus carries on an extended conversation,

almost a negotiation,

with the demons, who speak through the man.

It’s as if the demons say to him,

okay, we give up, we know you have the power to cast us out,

only, please don’t send us back to the abyss.

And Jesus agrees …?

He gives them permission instead

to possess a whole herd of pigs?

Did he not know what would happen next?

that the demons would immediately cause the pigs

to run lemming-like into the lake and drown?

Or maybe the pigs committed mass suicide

to try to get rid of the demons?

What would the SPCA have to say about all that?!

It’s a weird story.

And it isn’t even over yet.

There’s a gap of time while the pig-herders

run away and breathlessly inform everyone

what has happened up there among the tombs.

And the townspeople drop everything

and come running to see the naked crazy man,

who is now completely sane and fully clothed,

and, according to Luke, "sitting at Jesus’ feet";

that is, learning from him.

Are the villagers excited? Are they happy? Are they thankful?

Do they clap their friend on the back

and say wow, great to have you back?

Do they ask Jesus if maybe he could heal

some of their other illnesses and problems?

They do not.

They ask him to leave.

They are frightened out of their wits.

Whoever or whatever he is,

they have seen what he can do,

and they want nothing to do with it.

Weird story.

And then finally,

as the formerly-possessed man realizes

that the villagers have rejected him,

and are afraid of him even more now than they were before,

he begs to be allowed to come with Jesus,

But Jesus says no; go home.

The only instance I can think of

where he turns away someone

who was ready to drop everything, right that moment, and follow him.

Weird story.

But you know …

As much as I will never, I suspect,

understand that bit about the pigs …

this last part does seem to make some sense.

The business of "don’t follow me; go home."

"Declare how much God has done for you," Jesus says,

and with that,

our friend gladly goes away,

and makes his way through the whole city,

telling anyone who will listen about what God has done.

Who better to tell the story

than the living, breathing evidence himself?

And where else would he possibly

have had as much credibility?

And, after we’ve watched the townsfolk interact with Jesus,

we know they need to hear the message!

Perhaps, though, their fearfulness

is not as weird a reaction as it seems at first glance.

After all,

one of them has just lost a large herd of pigs …

perhaps others are wondering if their livelihoods are threatened.

Better to persuade Jesus to leave the area

than to take the risk that your sheep

will be the next to go into the water!

Or your crops go up in flame.

Or your fishing boat capsize.

No telling what may happen, if Jesus stays around.

But I suspect there’s more to it even than that.

If it were just a question of someone’s missing pigs,

and a threat to everyone else’s livelihood,

people might be angry at Jesus,

but there’s more than that going on here.

They are frightened of him.

They see what Jesus did

with a man they all knew to be hopeless.

A man possessed by a legion of demons.

Someone whom the heaviest chains and strongest guards

could not restrain.

Someone who lived among the dead,

and went around stark naked,

and had violent seizures.

Someone they feared.

Yet when they see him clothed, and sane …

their fear simply gets transferred.

Who is this Jesus,

whose power is even greater than

the power of those evil spirits, or whatever you want to call them?

Sure, those demons may have been scary,

but over time the townspeople

had figured out ways to manage them.

Or to avoid them altogether.

Keep the one who is possessed by them locked up,

or if that doesn’t work, run him out of town,

make him go live among the tombs.

They may never have been able to control him completely,

but they knew where he was,

and what to watch out for.

Not the ideal situation,

but something they could live with.

And of course,

it’s always tempting and convenient in a psychological sense,

to be able to locate evil and focus it in

someone or something outside yourself.

Keeps us from having to look at

anything that might be amiss within ourselves.

But along comes Jesus

to upset their careful equilibrium.

It’s no wonder they weren’t grateful.

They recognized a power greater than

those demons they had more-or-less successfully controlled.

A power which they could never control,

and I suspect they realized it right away.

A power which was for good, not for evil …

and I do think they sensed that, however dimly …

but which might ask something costly of them in return.

Starting with a couple of thousand pigs!

Maybe it’s not so surprising that they were afraid.

Jesus was like nothing or no one they had ever seen.

Easier to send him away

than to figure out what to do with him if he stayed.

Unfortunate,

but perhaps not so very strange after all.

It leads us back to the surprising conclusion of the story.

"Let me come with you, Jesus.

They don’t want me here anyway.

You’ve made me well …

I’ll do anything in the world for you."

An understandable response!

Ideally, perhaps, the response we should all make

as we understand what God has done for us.

Drop everything, and follow Jesus.

But maybe we misunderstand what it is

that Gods needs or expects from us.

Often we are fearful like those villagers,

wondering what God will ask of us, what God will demand from us.

What if it’s not that scary?

What if Jesus’ answer to us

is, "Return to your home,

and declare how much God has done for you."

As if to say,

"Follow me by staying put."

Apparently, God neither needs nor expects for most of us

to pack up and leave to preach the gospel

in tribal villages of South America

or bustling Asian cities

or the dry savannas of Africa,

or whatever else our mental image is of the mission field.

And, it seems, most of us are not expected or needed

to race off to seminary for three or more years,

and get our heads stuffed full of stuff

so that we can declare multi-syllabic thoughts about God.

What God seems to need the most, from most of us, is simply this:

Stay home, and declare how much God has done for us.

Now the first part of that is easy:

Stay home.

Not necessarily inside your house,

but in your home territory, as it were.

Most of us do that pretty consistently,

and we don’t mind it a bit.

The other part is a little more challenging:

to declare what God has done for us.

We can get kind of tongue-tied about that.

Presbyterians have never been real comfortable

talking to others about our faith.

It’s a private sort of thing.

Something you don’t discuss in polite company,

like politics, or money.

You’ve heard, I suppose,

what happens when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Presbyterian?

You get someone who goes around knocking on people’s doors,

but doesn’t know what to say.

We laugh, but it’s true, isn’t it?!

I will say this, however …

Even the Christian groups who do much better than we do

at witnessing and evangelism …

spend more time talking about generalities,

and trying to persuade you to believe certain things,

than they do telling what God has done for them.

It is a little scary to contemplate

sharing that kind of truth about ourselves.

To approach other people,

not with, "Here is what I believe and why,"

but rather, "This is what God has done in my life."

It’s risky.

Because people are just as frightened by good news today

as they were two thousand years ago.

It’s powerful …

and it might ask us to change.

But who, better than we,

can share the message on our home turf?

We, who are the living, breathing, evidence ourselves

of what God has done?

Not that God has made us perfect yet,

but God has changed us,

and we are the evidence.

And who better then we

to talk with people who know us already?

Who trust us, and believe us,

when it comes to other questions of life,

and who just might trust us and believe us

when it comes to matters of faith as well?

Not everyone is called

to pick up and leave home in order to follow Jesus.

Some are … and in fact, next Sunday’s gospel reading

takes a look at some of those.

But most of us, perhaps,

are needed by God, right here where we are.

And that is not a lesser calling

than a missionary, or a preacher who leaves home.

It’s just different.

Return home,

and declare what God has done for you.

May we have the courage to make such declarations …

May we know the joy of seeing them bear fruit.

Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)