I was honored that my uncle, now of blessed memory, had invited me to attend his thirty-year celebration of sobriety. There, among his immediate family and fifty or so grateful people who had been touched by his kindness and support, I was momentarily taken aback. As story after emotional story was shared about how much this man had helped them through their recovery, I developed a whole new appreciation for my uncle. I had grown up knowing about his "problem," about how his family had been hurt by his drinking. And then he got sober.
We know that when one person changes, it affects the entire family system. Even positive changes, such as sobriety, can really rock the boat.
Not being directly affected by his disease, my uncle and I grew close, sharing a common interest in spirituality.
Let's be real; none of us is a stranger to addiction or family dysfunction. The Bible is chock-full of it!
The ancient Israelites decide that what they really need is a king. As we all know, one of the problems with kings and large institutions in general is the abuse of power. Despite God's advice to the contrary, Samuel anoints the very tall, good-looking, somewhat reluctant King Saul.
King after king after king, and one violent conflict after another, not to mention rampant marginalization and disenfranchisement of the vulnerable, it's the same sad, repetitive story. It's the same sad, repetitive story. It's the same sad... You get the idea.
Nothing changes if nothing changes…
Our stories can paralyze us, holding us captive if we don't bring them above the line into conscious awareness, as Joseph Campbell was known to say. If we're not careful, our stories can paralyze entire cultures.
As he'd done so many times during those horrible years at the height of the AIDS crisis, the hospice chaplain sat with yet another young gay man, a practicing Buddhist named Matthew, who, like many others, had been ostracized and demonized and abandoned to die alone and afraid. Frustrated that nothing he said or did seemed to comfort Matthew in his final painful, feverish hours of life, the exhausted chaplain prayed for guidance. Around 2:00 a.m., a woman bustles into the hospital room, mop and bucket in hand. As she cleans, she notices the small plastic figurine of Jesus, surrounded by lambs and little children, that the desperate chaplain had placed on Matthew's windowsill as a gesture of last resort. In a thick accent, the woman exclaims, "Merciful Jesus! If His kindness is here, then everything is going to be alright!" At that moment, a peaceful smile spread across Matthew's face as he turned his gaze toward the woman and Jesus.
Throughout the long arc of Biblical history, God works in and through the unlikeliest of people, reorienting us again and again toward justice, compassion, and the healing power of love, to the impossible kind of world only a tiny, helpless immigrant baby born to an unwed teenage mother could begin to help us imagine.
As it was in the beginning…following Jesus is still the ultimate act of resistance. To follow Jesus is to claim, as Paul writes, that we are "all one" – male, female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. This aspirational vision of Christian community sets aside binaries, boundaries, borders, and boxes that pigeonhole us into seemingly inescapable and limiting categories. One commentator writes: "For Paul, this trans-binary practice of in-Christness is the litmus test of the new creation."
All too often, though, we, the institutional church, forget who we are; the institutional church being something of a necessary evil that, paradoxically, holds the dream of God and, at the same time, rejects it, writes theologian Verna Dosier. [1]
The Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all tell the story of a demoniac, a man so broken, so disenfranchised that he lives naked among the dead. He's an outcast, utterly disposable, invisible, save for some unruly public outbursts.
It's not difficult to find parallels in today's world.
Jesus and the disciples have crossed the Sea of Galilee to the opposite shore—the land of the Gerasenes, Gentile territory. It's been a bit of a rough boat ride, but Jesus has a way of calming stormy seas.
When he encounters the crazed man, it's the demons with whom Jesus has a chat. Jesus asks for a name, which in Greek translates more like, "Who are you? Who are you really?" No match for the Son of God, the demons beg for mercy. Jesus permits the "legions" (a Roman military reference, perhaps?) to enter into a nearby herd of pigs.
Sidenote: According to Pigpedia.com, the Ancient Romans thought pigs to be symbols of intelligence and prosperity. According to this (questionable but entertaining) source, they revered the animal so much that Roman soldiers would carry small pig figurines into battle for luck.
Theologically, this story is rich: it encompasses ancient purity culture, Jewish dietary restrictions, the waters of creation, eschatology—the study of endings (sorry, pigs!) —and perhaps even a suggestion of baptism. We could unpack this passage for days.
What I'm curious about is how the man was received by his community after his healing. What old stories did his community cling to? What Christian values are at stake here? Compassion, hospitality, humility, forgiveness? Respect for human dignity, integrity, and moral courage? These are values that many institutions eschew in favor of more worldly values, such as money and power.
This Gospel story should raise questions for any community of faith. Who are we really? How are we called to be church in this moment?
What values are we committed to? What changes might come about through the practice of a fearless moral inventory?
Does that sound familiar? It should. It's the fourth step of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the fifth, we admit our shortcomings to God, ourselves, and one another. We name our demons. (Remember, demons are goners in the presence of Christ.) And miracles happen in the presence of a healthy Community of Love.
After that, according to the twelve steps, we're ready to have our demons exorcised, ready to work together toward a new and improved version of ourselves, rebuilt on a solid foundation of loving kindness. And as anyone in recovery knows, the work never ends.
[1] Verna J. Dozier, The Dream of God: A Call to Return (New York, N.Y.: Church Pub., 2006), 91.
[2] Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith, 1st ed. (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), 14.
