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Sermon for Sunday, November 25, 2007

“Called to Stay Home”
Mark 5:1-20

There is probably not an odder, stranger, spookier story in all of scripture than the one told in Mark 5. It is a story that has all the trimmings of the Halloween season. It is the story of Jesus and his encounter with a man by the name of Legion who possessed by a horde of demons. It really does have all the elements of a horror tale: a cemetery, evil spirits, a man in chains screaming at the top of his lungs and demons that have taken up resident in pigs and they fall to their death in a lake. A bizarre tale.

It may be a familiar passage to you. Indeed once you have read it, how in the world can you forget it? But it is the end of the story that we often overlook and yet it is the end of the story that really tells the story.

Let’s recap what’s going on. Jesus has just gotten out of a boat when a man who was completely out of control confronts him. We would say that the man was insane and needed to be in an institution. Mark says the man lived in a cemetery and no one could subdue him. Night and day he would roam the cemetery screaming and crying and cutting himself with stones. He was a man out of control.

If you have ever felt your own life spinning out of control, you at least have a clue as to what Legion might have been feeling. There are times, no doubt, when all of us have felt somewhat out of control. Maybe you have or are dealing with those demons that is causing your life to spin in every which way — drugs, alcohol, fear, grief, depression. . .something. and the scary part about it is that you feel powerless to do anything about it.

Even the people who were aware of him could do nothing with him. No one was strong enough to subdue him. I don’t know about you but if I was confronted by someone like Legion I would run. Jesus did not. I would have broken the world record for the 100 yard dash if Legion had come toward me. Or maybe at best I would have called mental health authorities. And at the very least I would have told people not to go anywhere near the cemetery. Not Jesus. And this is not the first for him. Throughout the gospel story, Jesus has the wonderful capacity to be with people even when they were unlovely, troubled, out of control. . .you name it, he didn’t run.

Jesus asked his name, and the man replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” What happened next is just as hard to comprehend and even harder to explain. Jesus sent the many demons in Legion into a herd of pigs, which promptly sent the pigs, all 2,000 of them into a near by lake and I am sure they all drowned. One of my seminary professors, William Hull, says that this is the first account of deviled ham we have! I don’t why or how Jesus did it, but Mark says he did.

After all those events, the people of the community went out to check out things out and Mark says: “They came up to Jesus and saw the madman sitting there wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man. Those who had seen it told the others what had happened to the demon possessed man and the pigs. At first they were in awe, and then they were upset over the drowned pigs. They demanded that Jesus leave and not come back.” (Message Bible)

Isn’t that so much like human nature? When they saw this once crazy man dressed and in his right mind, they weren’t grateful or curious, they were afraid. They didn’t go to Jesus and ask that he stick around and make more people sane but rather they asked him to leave. Maybe they were hit in the pocketbook when the pigs went into the water and were angry. John Oxenham wrote a poem about this scripture that says it well: “Rabbi, be gone! And take this fool of thine! You love his soul; we prefer swine.”

But it is the end of this bizarre encounter that I want you to notice. Legion had been healed. We can only imagine how he felt. His life had been restored. Surely he felt gratitude, excitement, hope and every other imaginable feeling. He experienced his own kind of resurrection and what a story he had to tell to the world.

He went to Jesus and begged to become one of Jesus’ traveling band. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who was demon possessed, Legion, Madman, begged him to let him go with him. That doesn’t surprise me. I would want to go also. You can think of a lot of reasons why it would have been a good idea.

It would have helped Legion. He could have been trained and discipled by Jesus and grown in his faith.
It would have helped people. Think of the impact Legion could have had on the road. He could have been an inspiration to all who heard his story.
It would have helped Jesus. Legion would have given Jesus instant credibility. There were those there who had witnessed what had happened. They could verify the events. The “resurrection” of Legion would have been a dramatic example of the power Jesus possessed. It appears to me that it would have been a good move on Jesus’ part.

It didn’t happen that way. Jesus would not agree to let him go with him and his traveling team. He told him to go back home and tell what the Lord had done for him and how he has had mercy on you. (5:19) Most of the time we think of Jesus as one who tells us to “go,” but here Jesus says ‘stay.’ He was suppose to stay home with his family and tell them how much Jesus had blessed him and how much grace he had received.

The reason we need to notice the end of this story is that it reminds us of our own calling. I think most of us get the same calling that Legion got from Jesus. Some people get unusual calls from God and they go to the ends of the world to declare what Jesus has done for them, and how much grace they have received. But then there is the rest of us. The vast majority of us are called to stay home with our families and in our communities and do our ministry there.

Doesn’t sound real exotic or intriguing, does it? On the road with Jesus. Now that is exciting. The United States Army had a phrase, “join the army, see the world.” Get on the road with Jesus, see the world, see what wonderful, life changing things that will happen. When we read of evangelists and missionaries preaching boldly and sometimes risking life and limb to share the gospel, we find that thrilling and inspiring. We know that God is doing special things with and through them.

But what about those of us who are staying at home? Our stories do not seem thrilling or inspiring. Cooking breakfast for the family; getting children ready for school; trudging off to work every day; teaching the same faces Sunday after Sunday, year after year. Paying the bills month after month. There’s not a whole lot of glamour in any of that. We just ‘plain’ folks often look in awe at those people who are really called by God and who really get to be “ambassadors for Christ.” We just ‘plain’ folks stay at home while the battle is being fought somewhere else.

But let’s stop just a minute. I want you to know that your ministry to the faces at your table is just as important as the ministry of an evangelist who preaches to thousands or to the missionary who carries the gospel to Thailand or any other place around the world. Your ministry to your family can be as powerful and as significant as one who serves all the way around the world.

Your ministry to those faces that you see Sunday by Sunday in bible study makes a difference. The witness you share by the life you live at home, in the workplace, on a golf course is a testimony to what God is doing in a life. You are God’s strategic person in your situation.

Remember that there may be some person, family, friend, even acquaintance that may not fully experience the love of God without you.

You may never make headlines for what you do. You may never hear the applause of people. No one will write a biography on your Christian witness.

But I know the kingdom of God rises and falls on people like you. How well we do our personal, often anonymous ministries will determine whether or not the love of Jesus gets injected into society. Most of us are called to do the quiet, invisible things that are indispensable to the work of Christ in the world. What we share helps others to see Jesus is King and Lord of our lives.

My hunch is that Legion was disappointed when Jesus told him to go home. He probably really did want to go on the road with Jesus. Staying at home with his family, friends and those who knew what had happened and telling them how much the Lord had done for him must have seemed anti climatic. And besides people can be skeptical of changes in a person’s life who may have known that one for a long time.

But in calling him to stay at home and make a difference there, Jesus taught him the essential truth for anyone in Christian service; to make a difference for Christ in this world. . .you may have to stay at home.

— Robert Thompson
Pastor
First Baptist Church, Ashland

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