Three years ago, when we read this gospel in church…it was on the heels of a mass shooting by a mentally ill gunman…and I preached a sermon on mental illness. Somehow, it seems appropriate to talk aboiut it again today. Because the statistics haven’t changed. The circumstances haven’t changed. Another seriously disturbed man entered a nightclub a week ago and wreaked havoc, taking lives, leaving carnage in his wake. Mental illness continues to take its toll on our communities.
And if we realize anything from this gospel story we read today…it should be that it’s nothing new. Since the beginning of time, people have dealt with illnesses that take their toll not just on the body, but on the mind as well. Some have blamed it on demonic possession – or a result of witchcraft or curses….like those ancient Palestine in our Scripture. Others, like the ancient Greeks, talked about the “humors” of our body…understanding that something about the very physical makeup of people exhibited itself in things like melancholy or mania or paranoia or delusions.
Different treatments and ways of dealing with mental illness have gone in and out of fashion over the centuries. Some have revered their mentally ill. Some have tried to “fix it” through blood letting or sacrifices or medicinal herbs and opiates and such. Others have simply shut them away..or left them outside the community to fend for themselves or die. Our gospel today tells the story of a man, shackled and chained, a “madman” – consigned to live in a graveyard, naked to the elements. That was the only solution the Gerasenes were able to come up with.
We have more options these days, with medications and therapies….but it still is simply a fact of life for many people…that is not “cured” but “managed”.
They say….in a room full of around 100 people, like we have here, that at least a quarter of us have dealt with major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, debilitating anxiety or some other form of serious mental illness. And nearly all of us will be affected by it within our families or close friends. This is nothing new. It is nothing to be ashamed of, any more than cancer or heart disease. It is part of our human story.
It is part of the story of the children of God. Who are also Gifted. Beautiful. Marvelously made. Intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Sometimes, that beauty is easy to see. There are those with mental illness who are able to create or accomplish things of great beauty…artists like Michaelangelo (who was probably autistic)…theologians of grace like Martin Luther (who most assume was bipolar or manic depressive)…great leaders like Abraham Lincoln (who by all accounts, struggled with depression). But often, beauty is not what we see when we encounter mental illness. Instead, what we most often see are lives shattered by self hatred, suicide, violence, fear, and hopelessness.
That’s what people saw in the man among the tombs at Gerasene. A man so overcome by the chaos and powerful forces inside him…that he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. He calls himself “Legion” for the army of darkness within him that will not let him live in peace. The forces beyond his control that drive him relentlessly farther and farther into the darkness.
But Jesus…Jesus saw something more. He saw the beauty. He saw the child of God this man was created to be. Because that is, after all, the way God sees us all, isn’t it? In our lesson from Isaiah today…the prophet looks around at the world, and sees something that he believes God should abhor. It is everything God despises – the people are arrogant and cruel, violent and corrupt…deserving of destruction. But the Lord says what? “Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it…”
God sees beauty…where we are blind….because God sees us for who we truly are…for what we were created to be.
That’s why…when Jesus’ boat lands at the edge of the graveyard….and the madman…the demoniac …approaches…Jesus sees, not the mental illness…but the person. The beautiful child of God.
And Jesus…he calls this man back to himself. He heals him….just like healing a leper or a blind man or a child who is dying. Jesus heals him.
So ….as a church…as the body of Jesus….how do we respond to mental illness in our community…in our family…in our friends? Because, the thing is, we will not be able to heal people or “fix” them…no matter how much we may want to…any more than we get to heal blindness or cancer or raise the dead. There simply isn’t a “cure-all” prayer out there or a magic pill that works for everyone. The treatments that are available are hit and miss with folks … and when it comes right down to it, many people are so disturbed, they won’t even accept the help they need even if it is offered.
So what do we do? I suppose as citizens, we can be advocates for mental health care …that every person at least has options available to get help. That people aren’t kept from getting the help they need because they can’t afford it or live in the wrong neighborhood or some such thing.
But as the hands and feet of Jesus, we are called to do something more. When this man, possessed by his inner demons, meets Jesus, he is so lost, he doesn’t even know himself anymore. But Jesus knows who he is. And Jesus knows the voices that torment this man do not define him. He knows he is not legion….but he is a child of God. He knows that this man isn’t “weak” somehow because he has been overcome. Because, the truth is that anyone would be made crazy by the forces that have been at work in his life. In fact, a whole herd of pigs (who by all accounts are highly intelligent mammals) seeks an immediate end to the torment this one man dealt with, rather than experience it for one minute longer. He was under siege by forces that were as powerful as any army.
Luther, in his writings, expressed compassion toward those who were driven to commit suicide. Though the church’s teaching was that those who committed suicide were damned….he disagreed. He taught that those who were overcome by despair …by the power of the devil….were no more to blame than a man who is murdered in the woods by a robber.
Luther understood mental illness….most likely because he battled his own. And he understood that mental Illness overcomes us like an enemy, seeking to destroy us. When Luther struggled with his own inner demons…he used to spit out… Go back to hell, Satan — I’m baptized! Whatever was going on in his head, he clung to the fact that Jesus claimed him, clothed him, loved him, no matter what. Even when he sunk into pits of despair. His despair would not change God’s love.
And that is what we do, as the church, in the face of the devastation of mental illness. We refuse to see people as anything less than a child of God. Even if we cannot help them. Even if we cannot release them from chains that hold them captive. We trust that God loves them, claims them, and will not let them go.
Not ever. And we trust that God is more powerful than the darkness and the powers of evil that seek to destroy us. We trust it….even when we do not see it. Even when we do not feel it. We trust that nothing… absolutely NOTHING…can ever shake God’s love for us and for this world. There IS a blessing in it, after all. Amen.
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