One day Jesus decides to get into a boat (Luke 8:22) with his disciples and they head off for the other side of the lake. He falls asleep in the boat and a great storm hits them sideways. The boat is in danger of sinking. They wake him up and ask incredulously how he can sleep when they are in real danger of drowning. So he rebukes the wind and there is calm. It is a very familiar passage and comes immediately before where our gospel reading began this morning.

They arrive at the other side of the lake and today’s gospel reading picks up the story (Luke 8:26-39). Perhaps they are still reeling from the storm, still feeling a little nauseous and thinking they have had a narrow escape. They are met by a human whirlwind, whom we have come to know over the years as Legion. This is not turning out to be an easy day! The picture is painted graphically for us. He doesn’t wear clothes and he lives among the dead in tombs. Who in their right mind would hang out in churchyards - a question a French woman posed to us the other day when observing the young people hanging out in our cemetery in the evening. What are we to make of this strange encounter? There are three ways I want to look at this story this morning.

Firstly we have the human psychological storm of a complex personality disorder affecting the man we know as Legion. We don’t know what his condition was but it seems to have been disturbing to say the least. Mental illness can be frightening because some of the resulting behaviour can lack the boundaries we draw security from. It unnerves us and we need to be confident of who we are to stand calm in the face of the storm. To speak words of peace and ‘be still’ amidst a complex disorder is not easy on a human level. ‘Will he turn violent? He might after all he breaks his chains sometimes but runs into the wilds, so perhaps he is more frightened than a threat.’ Putting him in chains shows the cruelty our fear sometimes inflicts on the mentally ill and equally of the need sometimes for restraint and containment for the good of everyone, though other means can be found to shackles and degrading chains.

So we can look at this story from the angle of mental illness.

I don’t share the gospel writer’s world view that mental illness is caused by demons. There is another way we can look at the language of demons and that is to see it as talking about a spiritual disorder, where the demons personify the condition we want to examine. Through this angle we can see a lifestyle that is so wandering and routeless that it becomes disturbed and shows signs of disturbance from the many spiritual cul-de-sacs it has tried.

There are elements in the new age movements that leave people in this kind of state. If you walk round somewhere like Glastonbury it becomes evident from the shop names selling all sorts of shallow imitations of true spirituality. We can find it nearer to home in the great searching there is for spirituality which takes many people in all sorts of directions, believing in magic crystals, going for tarot readings and contacting mediums. These lead to a spiritual disorder that can be akin to ‘living among the tombs’ and being ‘driven out into the wilds’.

Sometimes it is not obvious or clear why the church is and has been so opposed to the occult and some elements of the new age spiritualities. One side of it is the disorder and the jumbling up of themes which begin to throw us off course and lead to a disjointed spirituality. Just like you can put your hip out you can dislocate your spirituality too and some of the more esoteric sides of the new age movements can have this affect.

We can admire the Jesus who stands before such spiritual storms and is able to speak the words of peace and ‘be still’, just as he spoke to the storm that rocked the boat on the way over the lake. When we encounter such people we need to be clear where we stand and rise above the waves that would wash us away or unnerve us. To continue the analogy we need to be like John Smeaton’s lighthouse, firmly set on the rock that gives us the confidence not to be thrown by them. The dislocations and disorder come in many different levels but all of them will run us ragged if we are not firmly rooted and built on sure spiritual foundations.

Which takes us on to the third way of looking at this story. We have seen it as reflecting a complex personality disorder. We have looked at it as an analogy of spiritual dislocation and disorder. The third angle looks at the end of the story, at the healed man’s declaration of faith. It comes subtly and we could almost miss it if we are distracted in our listening or reading.

Jesus tells the man to go and tell everyone how much God has done for him. He is to speak words of gratitude and praise for the wonderful liberating love of God that has set him free from that which held him captive - be it a psychological disorder or a spiritual dislocation. The declaration comes as he goes about proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him. The subtle change is to substitute Jesus for God. What God does, he does in Jesus and when we look at Jesus we see God in action - this is the deeper meaning of this passage.

We have the answer to the question the disciples asked on that boat trip - just before where our gospel passage began this morning. After Jesus has stilled the storm they ask ‘who is this that even the winds and the water obey him’ (Luke 8:25). It takes the man newly liberated from his psychological illness, the man who has found spiritual order where he was previously in disarray, to provide the answer. He is the very presence of God among us; he is the one who stands above all that disrupts our psychological and spiritual health; the one who proclaims salvation from all that would oppress and bind us in chains. He is the sure rock that we need in order to stand firm from the storms of psychological and spiritual disorder.

The difference is seen in the pigs, those poor swine minding their own business on the hillside. As the fruit of Jesus’ healing is to liberate the man and give him an exuberant gratitude, the true nature of the disruptive ailments is to drive the pigs into the sea. Healed or released from the disorder the man was fine. The spiritually disruptive on the other hand, what is described in terms of demons, immediately has an alarming effect on their new hosts as they are propelled into the sea.

The story of Legion and the calming of the storm that comes before it have a number of layers to them, but all of them speak of the salvation that comes through Christ Jesus. By building our lives on this firm foundation we can find healing and peace; we can hear the words ‘be still’ spoken to whatever threatens to overwhelm us - psychologically or spiritually; and we can find what we need to counteract all that would spiritually dislocate us.

© Ian Black 2004

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