The Gadarene Swine.
Hymn:
Jesus the name high over all - YouTube
Prayers:
Heavenly Father,
You come as the light in the morning bringing in the new day--
the light in humanity bringing forth the new person.
Please disperse this world’s night, and make us children of your day.
Heavenly Father,
People go on sinning.
Their light is darkened and in their grey world they stumble because there is no way.
But your light burns in Christ to fill mankind with a burst of glory, and your world comes into view, a vision of splendour: people go on living.
Heavenly Father;
We are afraid of your light.
It is too searching too bright, and we do not want its beam upon our private life and secret thought.
We confess that we look for hiding places, and run into the night.
Nonetheless, search us out.
Shine your light upon us.
Expose our guilt and make us face it.
Bring us to the reckoning of your love.
Forgive us, and help us to bear your light.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen
Hymn:
Thou whose Almighty Word (Hymn) - YouTube
Readings:
Book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 65; verses 1-7
Luke’s gospel, chapter 8: verses 26-39
Hymn:
And Can it be That I should Gain - YouTube
If you can find a copy of “The Greatest Burger Ever Sold”, (by Nick McIvor, published by Minstrel.) please read “Insurance claim, pages 47 to 49.
This story is usually known as the story of the Gadarene swine. But there are differences of opinion as to where exactly it took place. Different manuscripts of the gospel describe the region of the Gadarenes, the Gerasenes or the Gergesenes. The names are sufficiently similar to believe that there has simply been confusion in the transmission of the story.
Where are these three regions?
Gadara, the home of the Gadarenes was about 10km South East of the sea of Galilee. It was an important centre of local power at the time of Jesus.
Gerasa was further inland, and an important urban centre, considered to have some strategic military value.
Gergesa was on the east shore of the sea of Galilee, and has a steep bank which goes all the way down to the water. It seems that is the best fit for the story, as neither of the other two alternatives have a lake.
Perhaps, in the early, oral tellings of the story, the narrators used the names of the places they had actually heard of, or thought were important.
We have an example of this in our family. Recently we needed a new copy of Jamie’s birth certificate. When it arrived, we discovered that it recorded the place of birth of his father, me, as Irby. As some may know, Irby is a small place in North East Lincolnshire. I was actually born in Earby, a small place, now in Lancashire, between Skipton and Colne. The registrar apparently heard “Irby” because that was a place they were familiar with. I asked whether this error could be altered, and was told that because it was now a part of the register, it would cost me nearly £100 to make the alteration, even though it was their mistake. Being a Yorkshireman, I decided to leave it alone!
What was the man’s problem? Clearly, living naked amongst the tombs was not normal behaviour. Tombs made people ritually unclean, indeed, it seems that they were often whitewashed to mark them out, so that people would not accidentally come into contact with them. Living there was a definite no no. Similarly, living naked was not the fashionable lifestyle that some adopt today, although our climate in this country make it impractical by my judgement.
He would have been at once a source of fascination, and revulsion to the locals. In the same was as people used to pay to go the asylum and laugh at the lunatics, people would probably have gone to see, perhaps motivated by pity, perhaps to mock, but he would have been well-known. Notorious might be a better word. Being naked, he would have been seen as no better than an animal.
By modern standards, we would probably describe him as mentally ill, or disturbed; definitely he would come under the current description of “Vulnerable”. The idea of attributing such illnesses to being possessed by demons has rather gone out of fashion, but that was how it was seen at the time. Is it a helpful description today? Whilst the idea has to be used with some caution, and a great deal of damage can be done by people who believe that exorcism is the solution to all problems with mental health, I believe that there are people who are in the grip of demons. People whose lives are blighted by ideas and beliefs beyond their control; people who perpetually live in dark places and are no, longer in control of their own destiny.
Why were there pigs? This always puzzled me when I encountered this story. We were always made aware that the Jews regarded many animals as unclean, and that one important difference between us a Jews was that they would not eat pork products of any sort. This is still true today. So why would anyone farm pigs?
The area in which this story is set, was known as the Decapolis, the area of the ten towns.
Dium later Capitolias also Dion, Aydoun in Arabic, in Jordan
Scythopolis (Beit She'an) in Israel, the only city west of the Jordan River
Hippos (also Hippus or Sussita; Al-Husn in Arabic) on the Golan Heights
Pella (west of Irbid) in Jordan
Philadelphia, modern day Amman, the capital of Jordan
Canatha (Qanawat) in Syria
Raphana, usually identified with Abila in Jordan
Damascus, the capital of modern Syria
It was a very Gentile influenced area, and was home to a Roman legion. It is possible that the pigs were used for sacrifice in the religious rites of the Romans, and Greeks, but the numbers involved seem excessive for this. We know that the Roman legions liked their bacon, so they were probably used as a part of the food supply for the soldiers. They would not have been welcome guests as far as the Jewish population was concerned.
As far as we know, the word legion was not a Greek word. It is a Roman word, descriptive of a unit within the army. At the time of this story a legion was about 5000 men. The word is borrowed into Greek as a symbol of there being many demons in control of this unfortunate man. I don’t think it was intended to be a precise number of the demons, although Mark tells us that there were over 2000 pigs in the herd.
Was the use of the word “Legion” a political statement? Was the “Legion” causing his condition the Roman occupation of the country? Had the man’s body and mind become an occupied colony of Rome?
If this were the case, then the banishing of the demons into the pigs, could be seen as a sort of poetic justice; giving Caesar back what was his. Whatever the symbolism, the controlling demons certainly left the man and he regained his right mind, his sanity as we might say today. He changed from a naked, raving, undesirable, to a fully clothed, rational, member of the community, capable of praising God for what had happened, and telling others about it. Giving his testimony as we would put it.
What about the farmer, we tend to forget about his part in the story. He has just lost 2000 pigs, which at today’s prices would be worth somewhere in the region of a quarter of a million pounds.! He might have been inclined to wonder whether the cure was worth the cost.
What do we get from this story?
This man was one of the people who were identified by Isaiah as being outside the norms of society. Make no mistake, he was an outcast, marginalised, an undesirable.
Just as in the times of Jesus, the modern world has its outcasts. There are those who are seen as undesirable. Those who are marginalised by those in society who consider themselves respectable. Some years ago, I took part in a church service where everyone present was invited to stand, and one at a time to say the name of a group of people who were marginalised by the church, and then sit down. One by one, people spoke and sat until everyone had identified a group which they felt that the church excluded, it was quite an experience, very powerful, and very humbling, when we realised that the church, which we had always assumed to be inclusive, was actually shutting itself off from am huge range of people, who were “not like us!”. Don’t say anything know, but consider who you think that the church might be excluding, and what we might do to correct this.
Jesus was concerned for the individual.
All these who we exclude are in dark places. It may be a costly exercise, but our calling is to bring light into these dark places. We are there to bring in healing.
The message of this story is that noone is beyond the reach of the love of God. That is our calling, to take the love of God to all.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus,
Healing is a costly business,
Ridding ourselves or others from false powers is a costly business,
We are not always up for the spiritual fight.
Help us rely on the power of your name.
Help us tell our own stories of spiritual healing without shame.
Help us change the culture of wherever God has placed us.
Amen.
Hymn:
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