WWJD?

Luke 8:26-39

 

            Sometime in the 1990’s a minister from a church in Michigan challenged his youth to respond to any ethical dilemma by first asking the question, “What would Jesus do?” T-shirts were printed with the slogan WWJD. As with any bumper sticker theology, the idea spread and sold like hotcakes. It became impossible to walk into Target or Wal-Mart and not find a display of wrist bands, in every color of the rainbow, offering the chance to join the holy crusade by announcing your allegiance to the one who believed in loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

        It was a wonderful movement which only lost steam when young people actually asked, “So what would Jesus do?” On discovering the answer, many quickly switched bracelets to “Live Strong” where they could emulate the narcissistic behavior of their new hero, Lance Armstrong.    

        Jesus is a tough act to follow. When someone dares to state, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”, it is easy to think perhaps Jesus is just a little too full of himself. I am pretty sure that is what the folks from Gerasa thought. Jesus stepped into a life and death drama with a solution that was hardly satisfactory to anyone. That’s often the problem when we witness what Jesus does.  

A man was possessed by demons.   I am not particularly comfortable with this kind of language. Many of you work in mental health. Thankfully the determination of the psychological state of a patient today hardly compares to the methods used in a culture which believed the world was flat. Jesus encountered a man who today might have been diagnosed as schizophrenic. It is important to note the intention of the writer of Luke was not to prove the existence of the demonic. In Luke’s culture, possession was the only logical explanation for erratic behavior. If you are comfortable with the idea of demons, so be it. If this kind of language seems primitive, that is fine also. Placing emphasis on this part of the story hinders us from discovering the real message of the text. Something was wrong with the man. Jesus had the power to heal him. The point is when Jesus used his heavenly ordained power the status quo was severely disrupted.

The madness of the possessed man frightened everyone. He spent most of his adult life in shackles in order to protect the community. According to the story, Jesus confronted the demons controlling the spirit of the man and ordered them to leave. Having no place else to go, the demons begged to be allowed to enter the pigs that were feeding on a hill overlooking the lake. Once possessed, the pigs charged over the cliff and promptly drowned.

Please don’t link this story to a beloved gorilla in a Cincinnati zoo and slander Jesus with animal abuse. I would remind you that in the Hebrew culture pigs were universally condemned as unclean. If PETA had existed, even they would have found Jesus blameless. The Hebrew culture viewed the death of a pig pretty much the way we would view the death of a rat. Pigs were an abomination. That said, there was a small problem. Jesus performed the exorcism outside the city of Gerasa, a Roman garrison. The soldiers occupying the fort were not Jewish. They enjoyed pork on their dinner plates and ate it regularly. The owners of the herd were enraged. Jesus had disrupted their very livelihood. Their loss was catastrophic. They demanded Jesus leave town before he could cause any more damage. And what of the man who was healed? Jesus told him to return to his home and declare the goodness of God.

 This is much more than the healing of a man possessed by demons.  Look closely and you will see a story ripped straight from our recent headlines.

I ask you, “What do mental illness, local commerce, and Jesus have to do with each other?”  Let me be a little more direct. What do madmen, the sale of AK-47’s and Jesus have to do with each other? Another mass murder ripped across our headlines and our hearts. Was Omar Mateen mad, was he mentally ill, was he a terrorist, or was he a combination of all three? I am not sure we will ever know but once again the conversation has quickly shifted to our national debate on automatic weapons. Some have asked why the mentally ill are allowed to purchase such a weapon. Others are asking why anyone is allowed to publicly sell a weapon designed specifically built for combat. A clear majority speaks of freedom and the right to defend oneself. It is an ongoing and I fear endless debate led by parents who have lost children against an industry with a huge economic stake in the conversation. What would Jesus do?

Jesus saw a man who was suffering from a lifetime of mental illness. He healed the man and placed the source of the madness into what Jesus considered to be an abomination. The pigs died and the owner was outraged. Jesus was forced to flee. What did Jesus do that was so wrong? He chose life over commerce.

So my question becomes, what value do we place on a human life? I have no idea how much money the gun industry makes each year. I do know it has been estimated there are 300 million legal guns owned by American citizens. I have no idea how much we as a nation spend on mental health? Maybe the numbers are similar? I suspect the gun industry spends a lot more on defending our rights to own legal weapons than it does on mental health issues.

Sixteen years ago I was drinking a coke in a bar in Havana, Cuba. The news broke concerning the massacre at Columbine High School.  My Cuban friends looked at me and asked a question I still cannot answer. “Why do people in America own automatic weapons? That is such madness?”

Orlando is proof that our madness continues. In our text this morning Jesus seems to be saying that life is more important than commerce. I realize my reading of this text is prejudiced by my disdain for the Gun Lobby. So what do you think Jesus would do? As you ponder this question in light of this text I ask only one thing. Allow your understanding of who Jesus is to be at the center of the conversation.    

     Amen.