Naming Our Demons

"There is no Jew or Greek, there is no slave or free, there is no male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

--Galatians 3: 28

"Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.  Then Jesus asked him 'What is your name?'  He said, 'Legion!'; for many demons had entered him...Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned."

--Luke 8:  29-30, 33

We Christians are a radical bunch.  We have the gumption to actually claim that all of the social constructs that humanity has built up around itself are, in fact, pointless.  None of it matters because of Jesus, because of the one who unites all humanity together into one family by his life, his death, and his resurrection.  To believe in Christ means that you're part of something bigger than yourself and your lot in life, bigger than the boxes that society puts people in.  In Christ there is no east or west, as that great spiritual says.

This is the great statement of the early Christians reflected in Paul's Letter to the Galatians. In the days before Nicea gave us a nice and (somewhat) neat definition of what it meant to be a Christian, the early Church stood in this hope that no matter where you came from, no matter what your standing in society, you had a place in this Church because Jesus loved you.  Radical stuff, right? 

Actually, society wasn't really that different back then.  Society expected men to have their roles and women to have theirs.  Those with the money or the birth rights were the big deals with all the power.  The poor were neglected, only called upon to fight the battles that the big deals waged with one another.  Society had a label, had a place, for everyone, and the social constructs erected were meant to keep people in their place, and by doing so made folks like Gentiles, slaves, and women less than human.  Then along comes Jesus,turns the whole thing on its head, and in Paul reminds the folks in Galatia that it is this Jesus who removes all of those social constructs.  In Christ, Paul writes there is no slave or free, there is no Jew or Greek, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  The old Jewish morning prayers that Paul knew so well called for a man to pray to God first thing in the morning and thank God for not making him a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.  So to make such a bold claim in his letter was the equivalent of Paul completely shattering this social construct.  Pretty radical for his time, right? Sadly, though, it' still pretty radical today. 

We hold up this great line of Scripture, and we sing hymns that claim in Christ there is no east, west, north, or south, and we tell everyone of Jesus as the great unifier.  Look at us Christians; we believe in a world without labels!  Unfortunately, when we look at the world we see labels, boxes, social constructs.  We see a world that doesn't want to push against such constructs. Last week reminded us that, in spite of our hopes for unity, we still have a long, long way to go.  Fifty people were killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando last Sunday.  Fifty beautiful children of God.  Some gay, some straight, some men, some women, some transgender, some Hispanic, some African Americans, some white, all children of God, gunned down.  They were in the nightclub, the place of sanctuary that welcomed and loved them when the world didn't.  They had pushed against the social constructs, demonized by the one who murdered them.  What's more, the one who killed them, again because of the social constructs of our time, has been demonized not for his actions but for his religion and the fact that his parents were immigrants.  

This is what social constructs, labels, and boxes do to people, they dehumanize and demonize them. That's an interesting word, isn't it?  Demonize.  What is a demon, anyway?  We have a tendency to think of demons as something personal.  An addiction is often seen as a demon.  A mental illness that we can't control without professional help is a demon.  Depression, anxiety, those things that seem to keep us from living into our true selves are all portrayed as personal demons.  Certainly we have all experienced some demons in our lives.  They are absolutely real!  But today I wonder if we might consider the larger, systemic demons that we deal with, namely the demons of the social constructs in with which we dwell.  These are the systems in place that have, for generations, sought to keep certain people in power while others are denied basic human rights.  They are all about maintaining order and the status quo, but Jesus?  Oh, Jesus was about anything but the status quo! And we're reminded of that in our gospel.

An icon of the healing of the demoniac called Legion.

We all know the story of the demoniac.  He is beset by demons, Jesus exorcises him, and he goes away telling everyone how great Jesus is for curing him.  But have you paid attention to the interaction between the man and Jesus?  He says that he is Legion because many demons had beset him.  This makes sense, but there is a reason why he is called Legion, and not Mob or Crowd.  That word, Legion, no doubt reminded the gospel audience of the Roman legion, which numbered about 6,0000 men.  The legion was a visible symbol of the oppressive occupancy of Rome and the complacency of the religious authorities to go along with them.  The legion embodied the many systemic demons that the Jewish people faced day after day, and it made sure that the status quo remained in tact. They robbed the poor for pocket change and mercilessly beat those who could not defend themselves.  So it is not just for poetic effect that the demon bears the name of Legion.

Yet the demon is exorcised  How?  The text says that Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to leave the man, but that doesn't seem to work.  So what does Jesus do next?  He gets the demon to say its name.  Even today in the exorcism rite, this is the first thing the priest does:  get the demon to say its name.  Because once you know someone' name, you can call them out, you can have a sense of control over them.  This is the reason we give names to pets, so that they'll come to us when we call them.  Jesus asks the demon its name, and only then is he able to send it out of the man.  This is how demons are exorcised, by naming them.

If we wish to exorcise the demons of our own social constructs, those systemic ills that have plagued our society for far too long, which reared their ugly heads yet again last week, then we must name them.  If we seek to just maintain the status quo, then these demons will continue to torment us, resulting in tragedy after tragedy after tragedy.  Nothing will change.  We must name the demons if we are ever to hope to exorcise them.  The demons are our time are named:

HOMOPHOBIA

RACISM

TRANSPHOBIA

SEXISM

ISLAMAPHOBIA

CLASSISM

ZENOPHOBIA

FEAR-MONGERING

AN OBSESSION WITH GUN VIOLENCE

Events like Orlando have been too common in our world, and they persist whenever we decide to just bury our heads in the sand, lie to ourselves and say there is nothing we can do, and just keep on maintaining the status quo.  Let's stop that trend!  Let's live our lives as if we actually believe Paul when he says that all are one in Christ Jesus!  Let's name the demons that have plagued our society, and let's exorcise them!  Let's stand together against violence, let's march together with our gay and lesbian and transgender brothers and sisters, let's call on elected officials to create legislation promoting equality, let's stop the narrative of fear, let's put away our crass jokes that poke fun at others (and aren't even actually funny to begin with), and let's put the dignity of every human being ahead of social constructs. and the status quo. 

Yes, our societal demons are many, and they can seem as overwhelming as a Roman legion.  Still, when we name our demons and have the courage and grace to stand with Jesus as our guide and guard, we can defeat them, as radical as that seems.  It CAN be done, but we have to make the choice to name them and work together to end them. After every act of violence like the one in Orlando I pray that this will be it, this will be the one that causes the scales to fall from our eyes and wakes us up.  That has been my prayer all week.  

Name the demons, brothers and sisters.  Name them, and exorcise them, and change the whole wide earth!