Today we will be commissioning five of our members into a new program at Hickory Neck called Stephen Ministry. These individuals have gone through six months of training, with over 50 hours of class time, homework, and practice preparing for this new role. Stephen Ministry uses the tagline, “Christ caring for people through people.” The idea is that a parishioner going through crisis or a major transition can be assigned a trained Stephen Minister, a person who will meet with them regularly for a season to offer support, care, and listening ear. The Stephen Minister does not solve issues, but is a companion on the journey. Care receivers may be looking for this confidential support through an illness, the death of a loved one, divorce or a job loss, or any number of painful life experiences. The Stephen Minister walks with us, prays with us, listens and hears us, reminding us that we are all broken, and through Jesus we can be made whole.
I think that is why I love that we get the wonderfully bizarre story of the Gerasenes today. The Gerasenes have become care providers of sorts, but in today’s lesson we learn they are scared. They have developed a system for dealing with the possessed man of their village. They know when to bind him and when to abandon him. They know he is dangerous, and unclean, but they have figured out how to keep the town safe. He is the identified patient of the town – the one who has the “real” problems. By identifying the demoniac as the patient, no one else has to look at their own demons – the ways in which each of them are “vulnerable to forces that seek to take [them] over, to bind [their] mouths, to take away [their] true names, and to separate [them] from God and from each other.”[i] So, when Jesus casts out the impossible demons, and sends them to their death through their herd of swine, and the townspeople find the demoniac healed, clothed, and sitting in his right mind at the feet of Jesus, they do not celebrate or thank God for healing. Instead, they stand afraid of the power of God. Now that the demoniac is healed, they are afraid this Jesus will see their demons or challenge their feigned health. In response, they do not ask for an explanation, but ask Jesus to leave. Their fear leads to paralysis.
To be fair, fear is a natural and sometimes necessary emotion. Fear helps us develop a healthy sense of preservation. Fear allows us to make necessarily cautious decisions. Fear can keep us safe. But fear can also lead to paralysis, and perhaps more importantly, to a lack of trust. And when we are talking about God, a lack of trust evolving from fear gets us into trouble. We start doubting the graciousness we know God intends for us. We start avoiding the very work that will give us joy and fulfillment. We start losing our sense of connection to God – who happily emboldens us when we allow God to do so.
We see in the Gerasenes’ story the goodness that can happen when we work through our fear. Despite the fact the townspeople are fearful of Jesus’ power, Jesus brings about healing anyway. And knowing the people of Gerasene may continue to be fearful, Jesus has the former demoniac stay behind so he can testify to the salvific work of God. As one scholar points out, “The story ends with Jesus commissioning the healed man to stay where he is and serve as the first missionary to his townspeople — the same townspeople who feared, shunned, trapped, and shackled him for years.”[ii] Jesus does not scold, shun, or shame when he is asked to leave. Jesus keeps holding out hope in the face of fear – Jesus holds hope that the townspeople might be healed like the demoniac is healed. Jesus loves graciously and expects transformation in the face of hopeless fear.
We commission lay ministers today who are more like the healed demoniac than the Gerasenes. They have experienced brokenness and pain in their lives, and they stand in the light of Christ’s healing, ready to walk with us Gerasenes in our fear. Maybe our fear is in acknowledging our brokenness, when we would much rather just ask Jesus to leave. Maybe our fear is sharing our vulnerability, especially when we feel like we are coping “just fine, thank you very much.” Or maybe our fear is the unknown path of what we may need to go through to get to healing, health, and wholeness. If a man possessed with legions of demons can come out the other side whole and healed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, surely Jesus stands ready to handle whatever demons we have. Whether we take a Stephen Minister along that journey with us, or we simply hear God longs to wash us with grace, kindness, compassion, and love, our invitation today is let go of all the scary brokenness around and in us. Yes, letting go is scary. But God shows us over and over again how when we let go of our fear, God is there with abundant, wonderful, powerful love. And just in case we doubt that love, God offers us companions on the journey. Amen.
[i] Debie Thomas, “Legion,” June 16, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2259-legion, on June 18, 2022.
[ii] Thomas.
Seeking and Serving 