1st Sunday After Trinity 22nd June 2025
Readings: Isaiah 65.1-9; Galatians 3.23-end; Luke 8.26-39
Theme: The Kingdom of God is Here and There
St Luke presents us with an account of the poor demented man, ‘Legion’, who lives in the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. This story is used symbolically by Luke to reveal what the Lordship of Jesus means for all peoples.
However, this Gospel symbolism reveals a reality that is stranger than the fiction that this poor man inhabits. We know it is a symbolic story, adapted from St Mark’s version (Mk. 5.1-20), rather than a literal one, because Lake Gennesaret is 33-miles North West of Gerása, which was the city of the Gerasenes (the Hebrew verb Gerás means to expel). This would have made a stampede of the pigs into the Lake impossible because as pigs are unable to sweat, due to an insufficiency of sweat glands in their anatomy, they would have overheated and died during their 33-mile stampede into the lake. This is why pigs like muddy pools on hot days as they use this muddy water to cool off.
So, what is the meaning of the symbolism that St Luke wishes to convey to us through this story of the healing of the demoniac and the destruction of the pigs?
The first of the symbols is the location of the story itself. The story is set in the country of the Gerasenes, that is, in the region known as the ‘Decapolis’, which at the time of Jesus (as we know from early sources that the Xth Legion Fretensis was there) had Roman soldiers garrisoned there from 70 AD. The journey to this region would have been equivalent to a foreign trip for Jesus and his disciples, as it was outside of the Jewish territories and so it represents a walk on the wild side, a venture towards the pagans, and the demented ones at that represented by this man in the story who is possessed by many demons.
The second of the symbols is given by the name that is revealed for the man. The name of the man is discovered in the story when Jesus asks him for his name and he replies ‘legion’. This name represents the Roman legion that, in all likelihood, would have been garrisoned in Gerása at that time.
The third of the symbols are the herd of swine. In New Testament times, pigs were seen as unclean animals. They were the most frequent animal used in the Greek and Roman sacrificial rites, and so, for the Jews, eating port is akin to apostasy as it represents all things pagan for the Jewish community. Moreover, the pig or the wild boar of the area, was used to symbolize Roman might, as when Roman power was symbolized by the large white sow, that gave birth to 30 piglets and the boar was a symbol of the Xth Legion Fretensis, for example. So, the pigs here symbolize the power of the Roman Empire.
How about the poor demented man who is possessed by the many spirits, what does he symbolize? We are told in the text that the man is outside of the city, isolated, homeless and without clothes. This reveals that his liberty had been taken away, as those who could not wear clothes were slaves, prisoners and demented people at the time (Dt. 28.48; Isa. 20.2-4). This theme of liberty is related to the imprisonment of the Jewish people in the law that we hear about today in the second reading taken from St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, which also announces the breaking out of the tribal confines of “Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female”, because in Christ, we all belong to one family. In the case of the Gospel, the liberation of the possessed man will be from the many demons which possess him.
In short, the symbols used to depict the man in the story tell us that this poor demented man has lost his identity. The various demons which had taken away his identity are expelled (Gerás) from the man by Jesus and enter the swine. These pigs then rush down the steep bank into the lake and are drowned. In other words, the oppressive forces are exorcised by Jesus in this expelling of the demons from the man. One of these oppressive forces in this particular context of the story is the Roman Empire, which here thus represents an anti-kingdom to the Kingdom of God. It is built on violence and exploitation and this is being expelled by Jesus in the manifestation of the Kingdom of God here in the Decapolis. The pagans and the gentiles, who had been under the yoke of the Roman Empire, just like the Jews, are also liberated from its power. The message of the Kingdom of God revealed here in this story of liberation is that all are included, Jews and Greeks, as St Paul puts it.
The prophet Isaiah had prophesized about this liberation brought about by the Messiah for the Jewish people long ago. As we hear it in our first reading from Isaiah:
‘a people who sit in tombs…who eat swine’s flesh…I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there’.
So, a new city will be given to the people, a place to inherit and to settle. And, just as the demoniac had been cast out of the city and so was isolated and homeless and has now been restored to his home in the city, so too will the people of God been brought to settle together in the new city which is the Kingdom of God.
The evangelistic message of this story comes at its conclusion. When one is granted to settle in this new home of the Kingdom of God it comes with a commission or a duty from Jesus:
“’Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming through the city how much Jesus had done for him.”
So, we are to tell people just how much Jesus has done for us and what this means in order that others will come to know and love him too. Just like the Gerasene demoniac, our encounter with the risen and ascended Lord will lead us to liberation from the many demons which torment us, and these demons are different for each person depending on our background and make up and so on. It is good, therefore, for each of us to get to know our own demons so that we can bring them to the Lord to be expelled. This liberation by Jesus of our demons precedes our being sent home by him to dwell in the Kingdom of God, where no demons live. In this New Creation of the Kingdom of God, the ‘here’ and the ‘there’ are already united in the one Lord Jesus Christ who liberates us from our demons and proclaims the year of favour to all captives.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.