Legion: All Sorts Of Demons

Poem and Reflection for 2nd Sunday After Pentecost               Thomas E Wilson. Guest Celebrant St Mary's Episcopal Church, Gatesville, NC                              June 19, 2022 

 LEGION: All Sorts of Demons 

 From the Gospel lesson for today: “Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear.” 

Why did the people ask Jesus to leave? Their neighbor was a man possessed with demons; so many demons that they were called “Legion”. A Roman Legion at that time had 6000 soldiers. Jesus healed him; isn't that a good thing? Except the cost of the man's demons leaving is that a whole herd of swine was destroyed. Maybe the cost of getting rid of demons is too high a cost to pay for one healing. Where would they be without their swine, or without their demons?

 It is not that they don't believe that Jesus can cast out demons, but there is always a cost to pay for freedom. In a letter that C. S. Lewis wrote to a minister; “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” 

 Legion; there are all sorts of demons. Today is the Holiday of Juneteeth, a commemoration of the end of slavery in Texas, the last Confederate state holding on to slavery. Slavery was the demon, but the allied demons of racial segregation, inequality and prejudice were untouched; finding refuge in swine, who continue to work to enslave this country over the next 160 years. Legion; there are all sorts of demons. 

There are the Gross demons of fairy tales, books and movies. Books and movies with lots of gross images, which usually make a lot of money. So, maybe we hold on to a suspension of disbelief because it helps the Gross National Product. An interesting thing about the word “Gross”: a word that can mean either quality or quantity, “disgusting” or/ and “a whole bunch of” National Product. But my definition of a demon is that which makes it difficult to see God's love of, or work for the care of God's creation, God's people and our neighbor. 

 Legion; there are all sorts of demons. There is a story by English author Stella Gibbons in 1932 and later made into a couple movies called “Cold Comfort Farm”. It is a comedy, like all life really is. The rural farm is like a send up of English rural setting life stories by the Brontes or Thomas Hardy. The family farm is in the shadow of a hill which never gets sunshine. This farm is ruled by Aunt Ada Doom who gets her way by reminding every one that as a young child she “saw something nasty in the woodshed”, She manipulates them to live in fear and darkness because they were afraid to face her and live without their demons. In the story, they are only freed when they face the demon of Aunt Ada Doom's manipulation, and speak the truth to each other. The family is now allowed to live in the light, rather than cower in the dark. 

Legion; there are all sorts of demons. Shakespeare in last years of his life writes King Lear, a tragedy, like much of life is feared to seem to be, of manipulation and deceit where the characters try to control each other, while pretending their goal is to please the other. They have no joy in life, just the burden of trying to keep existing. The author Jack London said: “ At the end of my life I want to be ashes not dust . . . The proper function of a human is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” One of the last lines of King Lear contains the warning to step out of the demons of manipulation: 

The weight of this sad time we must obey; 

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. 

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young 

Shall never see so much, nor live so long. 

 

Legion; there are all sorts of demons. One is a demon who keeps chanting, “How much is enough?” Let me start off with myself first. I am one of those who lives as if he was in a trap when enough is not enough. A contemporary of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, went from preaching to meddling when he wrote a poem about eating too much, which I am reminded when I try to get into pants I can still wear. It is called Hymn To The Belly which ends: 

Hail, hail, plump paunch! O the founder of taste, 

For fresh meats or powdered, or pickle or paste! 

Devourer of broiled, baked, roasted or sod! 

And emptier of cups, be they even or odd! 

All which have now made thee so wide i' the waist, 

As scarce with no pudding thou art to be laced; 

But eating and drinking until thou dost nod, 

Thou break'st all thy girdles and break'st forth a god. 

 

Legion; there are all sorts of demons that “break'st forth a god”. Not THE GOD, but gods we would't mind living with; the kind of demons that stays inside a person when an evil has been done to one of us, a spirit of resentment. The usual answer we clergy types say is that forgiveness is way to get rid of that demon. The usual answer I hear from parishioners a lot is that the perpetrator doesn't deserve forgiveness because it hurt the victim so much. So they hold on to the hurt, in the vain hope to teach the formerly trusted person, through the magical mechanism of resentment, a lesson. As the saying goes, “It is like taking poison in the hope the other person dies.” 

Legion, there are all sorts of demons, but one thing they have in common; Demons want to just exist while robbing us of full life. What is the price to pay to get rid of that demon who is taking the joy out of our life? The price is to stop exercising the demon but rather exorcise the demon of resentment. I know the other person doesn't deserve it, but Grace is given freely, not based on reward. The process of forgiveness is three fold: 

1) Hurt; either psychological, social or physical; it had to be real. If there is no hurt except your feelings - then get over it; the world does not revolve on your feeling. Was it was caused either through malice or inattention by the other party? If it was a true accident outside anyone's control, then get over it; accidents happen.

 2 ) Hate: What was done was unacceptable, inexcusable and important. You need to be honest with yourself that you hate what was done. If it is safe, you need to confront the other person and tell them you hate what was done. One way or another you need to deal with the hate. The refusal to deal with or acknowledge the hate means that you stuff things down, those unhealed hurts, those hate filled hurts, year after year, decade after decade, they are pushed deeper until we get a belly full of hurts. I am an old person and like all old people and I have had a lifetime of hurts and dealt with other I know that if they are not dealt with until they reach a point when hate, like the belly in Jonson's poem, “break'st forth a god” of the demons of hate. Four days ago, on Thursday night at a Potluck Supper for Boomers, people my age, at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Birmingham Alabama; someone decided to bring a pot luck gun to the supper, killing three people. A man my age, old, was able to restrain the killer until the police arrived. 

3) Heal; you ask God to heal you of your hate. Again, the poison reminder. You ask God to lead you into what kind of relationship you may have together. This may take time. You may have to limit your connections to the other person, your relationship may have to change if trust is not available, but your healing comes first to get rid of any demons. Forgiveness is the price we pay to get rid of those demons.

 Legion; there are all sorts of demons. Right now our economic system is undergoing tremendous inflation, the highest inflation rate in 40 years. The fear that we will not have enough petroleum products is driven by the fear of changing the kind of life we have led where we are dependent on them because we have a fear of not having enough.. The petroleum products companies are posting windfall profits as prices go even higher. Corporate Profits are up 25% with the highest corporate profits in 50 years.The fear is further complicated by the fear a world leader had that he did not have enough control over his neighbors and wanted to go back in time, to a delusion that never was. So he invades his neighbor, which also begins a shortage of wheat to feed the hungry of the world, which drives up the cost of food. People are starving and yet the obesity level is also high as we throw away food. Even without a war, we want to keep buying as if we cannot get them soon enough, we are willing to spend more because there is a fear there will never be enough. With this understanding, the point of our existence is to have more than enough stuff. 

Legion; there are all sorts of demons. There is the fear of our neighbor with the understanding that we must defend ourselves from our neighbors who want what we want. There is a fear of letting go of ways of defending ourselves especially in the use of military grade weapons/guns/ammunition, weapons of slaughter. The 18th century writers of the US Constitution imagine the right to bear arms as the right to have a flintlock rifle for protection of the community. In their wildest imagination they could not envision the weapons of mass slaughter to tear little children to shreds on the market today as helping the Gross National Product in the 21st century. We have more mass shootings this year than we have had days. We fear people who might be isolated and angry, so in our fear, we isolate ourselves, we speak in echo chambers, only listening to those with whom we agree. Learning how to hate our neighbor more and holding on to the hate; again the poison metaphor. Apparently we are willing to lower our flags half mast for all those who died because we want to be safe to live in fear of not having what we want. 

Legion, there are many sorts of demons and we often want to keep them close to our hearts. Getting rid of those demons begins with asking a higher power to help us get rid of these demons in our hearts. Instead of asking Jesus to leave us alone; ask him to stay for awhile. If you keep him there, the demons will ask to be given a better host, some swine somewhere. It is the truth of God's love that sets us free. 

Legion; All Sorts of Demons  

How easy to have demons for us to cuddle up with, 

who'll teach us to really hate this person or that, 

because if we're fearful we won't risk time for a chat; 

time, that should be easier to cuddle up with a fifth. 

If we'd just numb ourselves with viewpoint echoes, 

of how we deserve this, or that we are denied else, 

so that opportunity to take on responsibility melts, 

into fetid puddles, where once love, to drown goes. 

Demons sing we should end our race with stuff, 

and convince ourselves we must avoid decisions, 

carefully fudging the call to take brave positions, 

not at all hindered by having spines of cream puff. 

Yet scripture reminds, if push come to shove, thine 

will; will demons reject in order to entertain swine.