Jesus and Change - Second Sunday after Pentecost
Author: Pastor Scott Schul
June 22, 2025
Today’s Gospel story of
the miraculous healing of a demon-possessed man contains some of the most
vibrant imagery in all of the New Testament. The details leap from the page, as if Luke wrote this with a blockbuster
movie script in mind. There’s the
possessed man, living in agony on the outskirts of town, in a tomb, dead not in
body but in spirit. There are the
demons, who verbally spar with Jesus, and of course the unforgettable scene of
pigs desperately stampeding into a lake to escape those same demons who had
previously tormented the man.
With so many things
going on, it’s easy to get distracted and sidetracked. Inevitably, a few people will focus on the
injustice of what happens to the pigs, or they’ll fret about the economic
consequences to the swineherds. If you
want to talk about that later we can, but for now I want you to brush away some
of those flashy and sensational sections of the story and hone in on one simple
question at the heart of this passage. What
do we do when Jesus proposes to change us and our world?
After all, for humans,
is there anything more upsetting, more threatening, more alarming than change? I’m not talking about little changes, the
ones we embrace, like a couple weeks away on vacation, a new set of clothes, or
rearranging the furniture to freshen things up. We don’t mind those changes because we initiate them. We control them. But when change comes from the outside,
without our cooperation or consent, that’s scary. We will almost always resist that kind
of change.
I can’t think of a
better example of imposed change than what happened during the pandemic. Sometimes I look back on the many weekly and
sometimes even daily changes we had to navigate here at the church, and I
wonder how we ever made it. The changes
we had to grapple with at Grace were just one small part of the changes we all
were navigating in our daily lives. Even
buying groceries or visiting a neighbor became burdensome and sometimes even
terrifying undertakings. It didn’t take
long for all of us to realize how much we despised all those changes.
So during the pandemic one
of the ways we coped was something we now call the “Comfort TV
Phenomenon.” That’s when we binge watched
old, familiar TV shows. Not new shows or
old shows we missed the first time around; these were episodes we’d already
seen, stories we already knew, and plot twists were already knew to
expect. And you see, that was the
point. In a time of enormous instability
and jarring change, watching an episode of Cheers or Friends for the fourth
time was comfortingly predictable and stable. It lowered our stress levels because we knew how the story would turn
out, and it gave us a much-needed break because it didn’t burden our already
over-functioning brains.1
In the bigger scheme of
life it’s no big deal if your coping mechanism is to watch Grey’s Anatomy for a
tenth time. But what about when Jesus proposes to change us and our world? That
usually isn’t change we initiate or seek. So how do we respond? Today’s
Gospel offers two possibilities. The
preferred one of course is the reaction of the demon-possessed man after he has
been freed and healed by Jesus. Look
first to his posture. He sits at the
feet of Jesus, ready to be obedient; ready to listen; ready to be taught. He is at peace for the first time in ages. He is fully himself, fully human, because he
is fully present with and attentive to Jesus.
But this man is defined
by more than the tragedies and unfairness he has endured. In his new life in Christ he has surrendered
his expectations and demands and is ready to follow wherever Jesus might ask
him to go. The man “begged” that he
might be with Jesus. Jesus had a grander
vision though, and sent him away to preach and proclaim the glory of God, a
sermon that would be particularly compelling because of the stunning visual of
the man himself, once exiled in horror to a tomb, now fully clothed and transformed
in body, mind, and spirit by Jesus.
Compare the healed
man’s response to the other alternative, the response adopted both by the demons and the people of the town. This
is a posture of fear, scarcity, stubbornness, self-will, and resistance to
Jesus. It’s no surprise the demons would react this way; they know who Jesus is; in fact, they have far more
clarity about his identity, authority, and power than even the disciples
possess. That’s why they submit to
Jesus’s demand for their name, and beg him not to banish them to the abyss, a
sort of spiritual pit or prison. Even
when Jesus offers them the option of entering the pigs, the demons cannot
control their fear and revulsion of Jesus and end up in that abyss after
all, through their own self-destructive actions and tendencies. Jesus threatens their very being, and so it’s
no surprise that they’ll do anything to avoid Jesus and his brand of change.
OK, it’s one thing for
demons to resist Jesus, but why did the people adopt that demonic
attitude? The answer isn’t complicated;
after they saw how Jesus healed that supposedly untamable man, they realized
Jesus had the power to change them. And that was change they couldn’t manage; change they hadn’t desired;
and change they didn’t want. After all,
look how hard they’d worked to keep the possessed man in a perpetual state of
misery. They put a guard over him. They shackled him. They invested enormous effort to keep things
just the way they’d always been.
I’m sure they’d concede
that life in town wasn’t perfect. But at
least it was predictable. And so they
would resist Jesus’s changes no matter the price collectively or personally. They might not have been watching the same TV
show over-and-over but they were quite content to live the same miserable,
predictable, daily existence. And so
when Jesus threatened to upset everything that was familiar, predictable, and
in their control, when he proposed to change them and their world, what did
they do? They told him to leave. Get out. Go somewhere else. And so he
did. Jesus never forces himself on us. That’s not how love works.
Understandably, you
probably don’t feel much sympathy for the demons in this story. But what about those townspeople? Do you feel a pang of pity and sadness in
your heart for them? Imagine! Jesus was right there, in their midst, and
they rejected him. What a tragedy! Maybe it’s not pity you feel but
disgust. What awful, sinful people! Well, from this distance it’s easy for us to
judge them and to see how their fear of change corrupted the spirit of their
town, spoiled their joy, and imperiled their salvation. We wouldn’t do that, would we?
Well, would we? Consider that question carefully, because in
each of our lives, there’s something Jesus wants us to change. You likely know exactly what he has in
mind! But in most cases, unless we hit
rock bottom like the possessed man and have no other alternative, then sin,
pride, and the desire for control cause us to resist Jesus and push him away,
just like the demons did. Just like the
people did. Because change is
terrifying. Change is inconvenient. Why won’t Jesus just leave us alone?
Well, because Jesus
loves us, and love compels him to show up and propose changes that might be
uncomfortable and inconvenient, but which we desperately need in order to be
whole, to achieve the fullness of our creation, to have a meaningful life, and
experience the joy of heavenly salvation. So, what will we do when Jesus shows up and proposes change? My prayer is that we will receive it as love
and obey him. Surrender to him. Trust him. No matter how scary that may feel. Amen.
© 2025 Rev. Scott E. Schul, all rights reserved
Citations
1 See https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/people-are-strange/202106/why-rewatching-tv-shows-feels-so-good;
https://ceoweekly.com/the-comfort-tv-phenomenon-why-we-keep-returning-to-familiar-shows/
Gospel Text: Luke 8:26-39
26 Then [Jesus and his
disciples] 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.
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.
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