Uncleanliness Next to Godliness
Whilst praying and reading about this passage, I found myself drawn in an unexpected direction. Much has been written and said about the way this passage illustrates differences between our culture and that of Jesus. We have different understandings of the supernatural, of the nature of demons and possession and exorcism, of mental health, of what it means to be healed. These topics have had much ink spilled over them and are worthy of reflection. But I found myself returning to the curious scene after the man's healing, when his neighbours see him restored to health and beg Jesus to depart from their town.
This miracle takes place outside the Gentile city of Gerasa, but there are plenty of shared assumptions between the cultures of ancient southwest Asia. Among them are ideas about clean and unclean places and things. Unclean places are where people do not go unless compelled. The tombs of the dead or the depths of the wilderness, for example. In these places are unclean things, such as corpses and demons. Good, upstanding, cautious, "clean" people avoid these places. And it is among the tombs outside of Gerasa that Jesus encounters and heals the man possessed and raving.
When Jesus heals the man, the swineherds run off and tell the news to anyone who will listen. The story spreads so quickly and the townsfolk come so quickly that they arrive while Jesus is still with the man. When they see that the man is now clothed and in his right mind, completely his old self, they are afraid. Why would a miraculous healing cause fear? Surely this should be an occasion for rejoicing with their newly-restored brother and neighbour.
Perhaps the people are frightened at this proximity to divine power. They are Gentiles who have heard tales about the "Most High God" of Israel, but to see the god's power revealed in their midst is unnerving beyond any story. Especially in their region, outside of the kingdom of Israel. If this god's power knows no geographical boundary, what might happen next? Or, in spite of living in a world filled with the supernatural, perhaps they are simply incredulous about healing miracles in the same way that so many are today. Events without obvious, empirical causes are to be treated with suspicion and fear.
After registering their fear, Mark tells us that the townspeople then beg Jesus to leave. Brushes with the presence of divine power are uncomfortable, to be sure, but why ask such a gifted healer to leave? Jesus has not only shown his power to heal, but has also demonstrated that he has command over spirits. Even those spirits who do not wish to be commanded, as in the case of this Legion. Surely this is someone whose gifts a city like Gerasa could use for a time. And there is plenty of evidence to persuade the skeptics in the healed man sitting with Jesus.
He is well and in his right mind, clothed, and behaving like the rest of his neighbours. And this is the off-putting, fearsome, uncomfortable piece, of course. This man is their neighbour. He was deemed an unclean man because unclean spirits live in unclean vessels, like swine. And, while he was known to be unclean, it was easy to consign him to life away from town, among the tombs, the dead bodies, and the unclean animals who frequent the place. This man was someone who could be safely forgotten about, left to whatever fate the demons and ghosts had in mind. Safely forgotten until Jesus restored him to health and made him clean. Now he walks among his neighbours again, restored to a cleanness and health. The shameful averted gazes and awkward questions will begin when the healed man returns to Gerasa. The restoration of their neighbour may be cause for him to rejoice, but it is both an indictment for his neighbours who abandoned him in his hour of need and an uncomfortable mirror of their own needs for healing, held up by the work of Jesus.
In Lent, this season of examination and repentance, where in our own lives do we find those neighbours who we have left among the tombs and the dead? Who are the ones that we have deemed unclean, who we know but make us uncomfortable and we would prefer to forget? At the time of reconciliation, when we meet those neighbours in their healed states, how we will account for our treatment of them? When the king of kings returns and says to the assembled nations, "Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me," how we will be judged?
When we uncover those parts of ourselves that are broken and infected by sin, it is easy to dwell on our shame and failure. We are all too ready to feel as though we have finally committed the one offence that God will deem unforgivable. Here, of course, we run afoul of humanity's favourite sin, pride. Even in sin, we find ways to create ourselves the centre of the thing. We imagine ourselves the most sinful, the nadir of human virtue, the one person who is beyond God's boundless grace and mercy.
We forget that, in this very story, Jesus heals a man thought lost by every one of his neighbours, in Syria far outside of his homeland. Jesus travels to Gentile territory and into the most unclean of places to cast out demons and bring health to the forsaken. God's healing knows no bounds. We search ourselves for what is not of God, what is sinful not so that we might wallow in it or live forever in shame, but so that, like the man living among the tombs and abandoned by his neighbours, we might present our brokenness before God and, in sincere repentance, find ourselves healed, transformed, and restored to the lives for which we were created.
Create in us clean hearts, O God, and put new and right spirits within us. Do not case us away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from us. Restore to us the joy of your salvation and sustain in us a willing spirit. Amen.
