Mark 5:1-20:  5 They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes.  2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ 8 For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ 9 Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake. 14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighbourhood. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

If you were here last week, you might remember that the sermon topic was a question, “Who is Jesus?” – a paraphrase of the question asked by the disciples, “who is this?” after Jesus calmed the storm on the sea. Today we look at another question, “What do you have to do with us, Son of the Most High? – this one asked by the Gerasene demoniac. These two stories are connected by these questions – “who are you” and “what do you have to do with me” - both of which are fixated on Jesus’ identity

Who is Jesus? Jesus is God. He is God who came to earth, who gets in the boat with us and has the power to calm the storms in our lives. He is God in our midst.

The second question is interesting because this is not the first time Jesus has been screamed at and asked, “What have you to do with me?” In the first chapter of Mark Jesus is confronted by a man with an unclean spirit at the synagogue in Capernaum (Mark 1:21-28). As Jesus was teaching in the synagogue a man shouted out “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are the Holy One of God.” A man who has come to worship, a faithful man who knows who Jesus is, is filled with an unclean spirit and is healed by Jesus’ authority and power right there at the synagogue in Capernaum.

The second time Jesus is asked, “what have you to do with us?” he is not at the synagogue, he is in the land of the Gerasenes, a foreign land, on the “other side” of the lake. He steps out of the boat and is met by a man who has been staying among the tombs. This land is a graveyard; the man was bruised and dirty from his wild thrashing among the tombs and stones; this man is a mess. The people here raise pigs – an unclean animal in an unclean land. This place is nothing like the synagogue.

In both places, the synagogue and the land of the Gerasenes, Jesus brings compassionate healing, because in both places compassionate healing is what is desperately needed.

There are God-fearing, church-going people who desperately need to be healed of their demons, just as there are crazed, addicted, destructive, murderous people – “on the other side” – who desperately need Jesus’ healing.

In the first story we hear someone shout, “What do you have to do with us, Jesus?” Is that the church shouting at Jesus as if we don’t require his healing, as if we’re saying “save it for the hopeless cases, Jesus, we’re just fine, we’ve got it all under control – no demons here!”

In the second story we hear someone shout, “What do you have to do with us, Jesus?” Is that the “other side” shouting at Jesus as if to say, “we’re hopeless, we don’t want your do-good favors, besides, we’re not worth it, we’re just like animals who get put in chains and are told to behave and pushed out of community when we don’t.”

Two different men: One a faithful Jew who attends synagogue; the other a crazed, dirty maniac who is considered a danger to society. Both are overcome by unclean spirits, both ask the same question, and both get the same response: healing and transformation.

This is a question for each of us to ask Jesus, “what do you have to do with me?” “What are my demons? I know who you are; you are the Son of the Most High. You calm storms. Calm my storms.”

-René Johnson

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