A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. As Jesus approached the Gagarin, now they are non Jewish. As he approached their boundary, the boundary of the Gagarin, he encountered two men coming out of the tombs. These men were possessed by demons and were so savage that no one would travel along that road for fear of them. With a sudden shriek when they saw Jesus, they cried out, why meddle with us, son of god?
May you come and torture us before our appointed time? Now some distance away, a large herd of swine, pigs, were feeding. The demons kept appealing to Jesus, if you expel us, send us into that herd of swine. Now this was near the lake. Jesus answered, out with you.
At that, the demons came forth and entered the swine. The whole herd went rushing down the flock into the sea and was drowned. The swineherds took to their heels in fright, and upon their arrival in the town, told everybody everything that had happened, including the story about the two possessed men. The upshot of it was that the entire town came out to meet Jesus. When they caught sight of him, they begged him to leave the neighborhood.
This is the gospel of the lord. Lord. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit, amen. This is a most furious incident from our lord's life. It happened across the Jordan, or across the lake, which of course would be across the Jordan, in non Jewish territory, or at least they were not they were they were Jews.
They had given up their Jewish culture, their Jewish adherence, and abandoning the proscription against pork. They loved their pigs. Now of all the things that might be said about this incident, and there are so many, for example, what intrigues me to end is this demon business. Just what in the world are we dealing with there? Well, we'll skip it for this morning because I really don't have a good answer to it in one thing.
I have a lot of questions. Let's go back and come back to the end of this story. Now here are two notorious men, whatever be the facts of the case. They were notorious and savage and were so brutal that they were a threat to people using the road near the tombs. They weren't even allowed in the city or the town.
They had to go out and spend their lives with the dead. They were treated as lepers, and in return they hated everybody else. Now, whatever it was, they were changed, these men. And part of that change was a change in the pigs. So from being a good, God fearing, satisfied herd of pigs feeding gratefully on what they could find.
Here, they become possessed with the demons, corpse overtold, and rush into the sea, and each little pig is drowned. And each little pig represented money, food, resources, even maybe reputation, even prestige. Because in these days, a man's wealth wasn't recognized his bank account. There weren't many banks along the way highways of Israel. What wealth was measured in was in herds of cattle.
And here you have a whole herd, which may have been jointly owned by many people in the village. Lost, total loss, and all you have to show for it are these two men who are changed. We're not told how they were changed. This is a story about demons and pigs, and it's a story about the reaction of the villagers. Now notice the reaction of the villagers.
They beg Jesus. First of all, they all come out to see Jesus and they beg him to leave. Why? Because they lost their pigs. Now, I am not being sarcastic about that.
You take yourself if you I can remember where I we were on our way to Danbury one winter right after the Christmas holiday to an ordination, and we were going to Hartford, and we were up near Danbury. We had a snowstorm in late well, was early evening. Snow was coming down, it was cold, and we hit a curb and a car truck came at us, went out of control, and slammed into us and disappeared. We spun around and so forth. Well, none of us was hurt, but we couldn't find the truck when the police came.
Finally, we discovered it down in the ravine with a man in it. We got the man out, got him up on the road, and the first car that came along, he was awfully bloody, was a beautiful new car. So the police asked the people, this was a few years ago, it wouldn't happen today I don't think, for certain reasons, which are money reasons. The police stopped the car and asked them to take the man to the hospital. They said, We're not taking him here and ruin our upholstery.
And they wouldn't touch him. Now you'll say, They were cold blooded. They were cruel. Well, you read your insurance policy, then you'll see that you're covered for a thing like that. Many policies do.
Well, maybe they were, maybe they weren't. I don't know. We finally got a truck loaded with Holly Reed's and loaded him on top of the Holly Reed's. That's the way they took him to the hospital. But the point I'm making, let's be realistic.
These people lost maybe their their food for the winter or the summer or whatever you have. That was a real loss, and they hadn't done anything wrong. Why should they bear the the brunt of the and the expense? And so they begged Jesus to leave. Now, what did they see in Jesus?
Well, they certainly saw, as much as we have heard, at least that much, and they probably saw and heard a lot more. But they knew as much as we know from the reading, which means we don't know as much as they did. And remember, accepting Jesus Christ is not an easy thing. All that Christ ever promised you for accepting him was his cross. Just remember that.
This is no one can deny that. I don't care how much you're going in all this modern stuff of finding your salvation in human beings and social activism and all that kind of business. I only say that Christ said the only way you can follow him is to take up your cross, and in return, all he promised you was that you would find his light and his burden sweet. That's all he ever promised you. After all, when when the mother of Peter and James came to Jesus and said, Lord, when you when you establish your kingdom, please remember my sons.
You know, they're good boys. They're fine guys. You know how mother would talk. More power to her. That's being a mother.
She's looking out for her boys. What did Christ say? Nix. He wasn't promising anything to anybody. When somebody said, Lord, I'll follow you.
All Christ said, Look, I don't have a place to put my head. So you see, being a Christian isn't all fun and games, folks. I've been reading a book by Monsignor George Kelly on The Struggle, The Battle for the American American church. Kelly And it's well documented, and it's just amazing what you see in there being proposed and being influentially proposed. In the name of the Catholic church by so called Catholics, nuns, priests especially.
For example, the interpretation they give of the vows of poverty and chastity and obedience, it's ridiculous. Chastity, it means availability. Can you imagine a young lady coming up to the altar promising God to be available? To whom and to what? The interpretation of poverty.
Well, these are the facts of life. When Saint Thomas More accepted Jesus Christ, it wound up by his losing everything, even his hair shirt that he wore under his chancellor's robes. He did that. That beautiful picture you see of Thomas More with his magnificent robes and his chain of office. Remember, he was the first layman who was Lord High Chancellor of England.
Under that, he had a hair shirt. But Moore knew what it was to be a Christian. He knew what it was to be a follower of Christ. He knew what it was to stand up and be counted when almost everybody of any prestige in England sided with Henry VIII. Just remember this, only one or two bishops in the whole hierarchy failed to side with more in support of the papacy.
Or put it the other way, all the hierarchy, with one or two exceptions, went along with Henry VIII. Practically everybody who was anybody sided with Henry But Thomas More, he couldn't see it. Even his dear wife begged him to open his eyes and to be sensible, not to go not to be so stubborn. And then she started telling everything it would cost her and his children, And that was hitting Moore where it hurt because Moore had a lot, and Henry VIII did not confiscate his goods. They every every persuasion was used upon Moore to make him change his mind, but he was a stubborn man.
Stubborn. He stuck with Peter, and he was almost alone. John Fisher, and of course the monks. They were almost alone in all of England as far as we know. It's a very mysterious picture.
And so let us get it out of our heads that being the follower of Christ is a call to fun and games, to tranquil living, to peaceful existence, to making this a nice comfortable world. Mark promised you that, you know. Christ never promised you that. Never in this world will you read a word in that. And those in the fold who are talking about this liberation theology, they are talking about a revelation apart entirely from the scriptures.
Don't forget it. All the scripture I know is what I have guaranteed by the living voice of Christ Church, and that brings me Christ. And it is sacrificed to be a follower of Jesus. It's bound to be. And if it isn't, then we need to look at ourselves and say, what's wrong with me?
Not with Jesus. And so when we take this story of the the owners, the villagers who saw their very food disappearing into the lake through no fault of their own without any having done anything wrong with perfect innocence. Here they are made the victims of these two guys that they didn't know at all, who had bad reputations, who were really savages, it doesn't seem fair. Where's the justice? Where's the equity in this thing?
Don't we ask the same question? We are asked it all the time. Why me, Lord? Why does this happen to me? I've been good to you.
Oh, yeah. We tell him how good we've been, you know, as if he didn't know. This is the book of Job again. You can't escape Job. So let's come back.
We're there. And let us be human. Let us let us admit it with what we are. We do have resentments. We do see what seems to be injustices all around us.
We do see the good being kicked around. We see people who are living vile lives, prospering. So what? What do you make of that? Well, what do you make?
What did these good people make of their loss of their food? Maybe of their wealth, maybe of their resources. Maybe they saw in the disappearance of the herd almost starvation for a period of time. This is I'm not exaggerating this. So can you blame them for asking Jesus to me?
The point of difference between them and us is they didn't know Jesus, and we do. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of Holy Spirit. Amen.