A Sermon by Kate Lord, 23rd June, 2013

Sermon for 23rd June, 2013, the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Galations 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

In the name of our Trinitarian God. Amen.
Last Sunday afternoon, eleven members of this faith community visited West Heidelberg Mosque. We attended their afternoon prayers, had an opportunity to ask questions, and were treated to an afternoon tea and fellowship. I had never been to a mosque, and was intrigued to observe the way they prayed, and delighted to hear the inclusive theology of this quite liberal Muslim faith community.
During the afternoon tea, I had an opportunity to speak with Nadia, the wife of the imam. She has four adult sons, the youngest of whom was in attendance. She was very keen to engage me in conversation, and to make sure I had plenty to eat and drink.
I hope that that visit has helped those of us who attended to see that Muslims are just the same as us. They are old men who struggle to kneel, and young men whose mobile phones ring during prayers. They are young women with noisy children, and old women caring for their faith community. Once we get to know ‘the other’ as human – created in the image of God, just as we are – it is hard to continue to demonise whole sections of society.
I believe that today’s gospel reading addresses this issue: the way we, as a society, demonise people. It speaks of a man who has been cast out of society because whatever demons he carries around with him make it difficult for the rest of the townsfolk to live with him. It is not just that he does not live in the town, in the company of his fellow human beings. He abides in the place of the dead, denied contact with the living. He has been stripped of his clothes and his dignity. He has been dehumanised.
When Jesus confronts the man and asks the name of the demon, we are told it is “Legion”. It is important that this original name is preserved, and not translated “lots” or “mob” as it is in some Bibles, as the name does not simply refer to the numerical size of the demons oppressing the man.
It is a statement about the nature of the forces oppressing him. They were related to the political climate of the day, one that cared less for the individual than for the state, less for the health of the many than for the wealth of the few – probably not unlike our society today. Whatever the exact issues were, they had dehumanised this man, leaving him naked and vulnerable, without hope for life or love, in the realm of the dead.
But once these forces are named, they can be dealt with. This is a common understanding throughout Scripture – once another’s name is known, power may be exercised over them. Legion is named, and Jesus casts out the many demons. Once he has been set free from the oppression that binds him, the man is found clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. The people of the town, the society that had excluded him from among their number, are afraid now; afraid that the oppression has been named, that a man has been freed, and that ‘Legion’ no longer has power to keep one man down.
How like the people of this town are we in our society?! The ways in which we dehumanise people are many. They are beginning to be named, and it is causing uproar and outrage in public and political spheres.
Misogyny – the dehumanisation of women by demeaning references to their bodies, illegal videos, highly inappropriate questions and statements by high profile figures, and the nomination of men who assault women to political parties.
Racism – including the dehumanisation of asylum seekers by those who would call them ‘illegals’ and insist that our borders need protecting from potential terrorists.
Homophobia – the dehumanisation of gay and lesbian people by churches who use toxic theology to exclude them, denial of the right to marry their life partners by politicians who are can see only as far as the next poll, and a lack of gumption on the part of society to address the soaring rate of youth suicide among young LBGTI people.
Marginalisation – the dehumanisation of those with mental illness, disabled people, children, the elderly, the homeless, Muslims, criminals, and all those who challenge the comfortable status quo and stretch our understanding of ‘neighbour’.
Consumerism – the desire to spend more money to acquire more stuff, without pausing to think what our greed is doing to factory workers in developing countries or to our environment.
These are just some of the demons that possess our society, and which we fear to name. And it is easy to despair that we have any power to change these forces that dehumanise those at whom each one is aimed. So let us turn back to the story of the Gerasene Demoniac and see what the gospel writer has to say to us.
If we understand, as John Dominic Crossan suggests, that the gospels contain, not only parables by Jesus, but also parables about Jesus, then maybe we are meant to hear this story and search for ourselves in it, to ‘have ears to listen’ for the message for us. Let us begin by asking, “Who are we in this story?”
Are we the person who has been excluded from society and dehumanised? Many of us, born in Australia, white, male, educated, and employed, are likely to have not experienced dehumanisation to any great extent. Having spent seven years in the Navy in my youth, I have experienced some degree of victimisation for my gender. It was my own classmates who discussed the girls in our class by saying, “They are not female, they are non-male”, to which the reply came, “They are not even non-male, they are just a Defence Force policy”. And while that was mild compared to other treatment, it hurt deeply because I had thought the female members of my class were respected by our male colleagues.
Are we the society involved in the process of dehumanisation? I suggest that we are. We may not actively discriminate by gender, but we may chuckle at sexist jokes, shrug them off as the boys having a bit of a laugh, or overlook derogatory humour because it would cause a scene to name and confront it?
I have been quite taken this past week by the words of the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General David Morrison, who told his personnel that, “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept”, and that if they become aware of any individual degrading another they are to “show moral courage and take a stand against it”. Each of us is capable of combatting the forces of dehumanisation by taking a stand against victimisation whenever and wherever we see it.
What choices do we make with our Australian dollars about the way workers in developing countries are treated, and about the treatment of our earth? Do we save ourselves money by buying the cheapest clothes around, made in sweat-shops under inhumane conditions? Do we question the makers of our brand-label clothing about the origin of the fabric and the working conditions of those who make each item? Do we read the ingredients on the food we purchase to look for the presence of palm oil? Do we question the manufacturer of our food products about the environmental practices of those producing the palm oil and the ethical treatment of workers picking our coffee and cocoa beans? As a society, we in Australia perpetuate many ills on our planet and its peoples by our insatiable appetite for spending money on the proliferation of stuff available to us.
But we, as Christians, are called to be Christ-like. Like Jesus in this parable, we are called to name the dehumanisation we see around us. Sexism. Misogyny. Racism. Age-ism. Consumerism. Discriminatory political policies. Unethical business practices. Unsustainable manufacturing procedures. Environmentally-damaging energy generation. We who pray each week, “Your kingdom come”; we who wait for the renewal of creation; we who acknowledge that every person is created in the image of God – need to be working with God to make these things a reality with every word we say and every dollar we spend.
Maybe we are also the person with our own humanity restored, asking to follow Jesus. Listen, then, to Jesus’ words to us: “Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you”. Do we do this with any earnestness?
Do we sit with our families and talk about how lucky we are to have been born in Australia? Or to have been born in another country with the means to travel to and live in Australia with the blessing of both countries? Have we imagined what it would be like to be born in a country where our political opinion or our religion put our life and that of every member of your family at risk? Or where lack of clean water and sanitation means the constant threat of disease? Or where civil war and drought combine to bring ongoing famine? Do we declare how much God has done for us?
Do we acknowledge the privilege we have in being educated and employed? Have we considered how different our lives would be if we had been born into a family with multi-generational unemployment, where education was not valued? Or with serious illness or disability that consumed most of the family’s finances? Or where multiple or extended periods of time in the prison system erode our chances of a lucky break? Do we declare how much God has done for us?
I believe that this is a first step towards regaining our own humanity – to acknowledge how precarious is our hold on the health and wealth that we have, and to be grateful for them. When we acknowledge how little control we really have in most areas of life, and how much God has done for us, we take one step closer to becoming fully human.
This is not a difficult task. We can pause before each meal we eat and acknowledge the work of many hands that have contributed to its presentation before us. As we tuck our children or grand-children or ourselves into bed at night, we can say aloud, “Thank you, God, for a comfortable bed in a warm dry house on a cold night”.
Once we develop a habit of gratitude, we are more likely to find ourselves feeling compassion for those who are less fortunate. Once we acknowledge that our position in life is due largely to factors beyond our control, and let go of the pride that insists that we are self-made success stories, we may find that we see other people’s lives through a softer lens.
It is not much of a leap from that space to finding that we actually want to support others who do not have the privilege and the voice to stand up against the world for their own rights. All of us are called to name the forces that dehumanise both ourselves and others. Remember that society will not appreciate this, and may fear the implications. The people of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave the area once he had named and exorcised the Legion of forces that dehumanised one man there.
But called we are, nonetheless, to follow the example of Jesus, knowing that it may lead to our (metaphorical if not literal) death, trusting that death will always lead to new life. In so doing, may we bring about a world in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor any discrimination by nationality or religion; neither slave nor free, nor any exploitation of person, plant, animal or earth; neither male nor female, but mutual respect for the image of God we see in each other, a valuing and sharing of the gifts God gives each of us for the common good, and the raising up of our voices as one for the equal dignity of all humanity.
The Lord be with you.