I recently read a short novel written by Pamela Porter called, The Crazy Man.
It is a novel written in free verse and it’s really meant for children,
but the novel has much to teach adults as well.
If the name Pamela Porter sounds somewhat familiar, there’s good reason.
She is the daughter in law of Jim and Jean Porter.
Her book won the 2005 Governor General’s Literary Award
in the category of Children’s Literature.
The Crazy Man deals with a young girl named Emaline Bitterman,
whose world is changed after a farm accident which mangles her leg.
Her beloved dog Prince runs after a hare
and Emaline chases her dog into the path of the farm tractor
and her leg is accidentally run over,
leaving her with a long convalescence and a permanent disability.
Her father blames her dog and shoots him,
then in a fit of guilt leaves Emaline and her mother and the farm, never to return. Emaline’s mother, out of desperation, hires Angus,
a patient from the local mental hospital to help around the farm.
Set in rural Saskatchewan in the 1960’s,
The Crazy Man examines issues of prejudice, disability and fear,
especially fear of those who are different from the majority,
whether they be immigrants, the disabled or the mentally ill, like Angus.
Through her relationship with Angus,
Emaline is able to come to terms with her accident and her father’s desertion.
The book is in our library at the church.
I would recommend it as reading for our young people,
and even for those who are somewhat more advance in years.

One of the major events in the novel
concerns the disappearance of a young boy during a snow storm.
Many suspect that Angus has something to do with the disappearance,
but it turns out that Angus is the one who saves the boy from freezing to death.
Though there was little reason to believe
that Angus had anything to do with the disappearance,
because he was the Crazy Man, people just assumed that he was to blame.
There are people who fit the role of scapegoat all too well
and many of us are quite happy not to challenge our easy conventions.
Its easier when the local drug dealer looks the part
and not like the middle aged neighbour next door.
Tattoos and body piercings can only mean trouble.
You may have heard about the postal carrier
who was attacked by two dogs this past week.
The dog’s owner was interviewed by a local television station the next day.
She was disheveled looking and blamed the postal carrier for the attack,
saying that her dogs had been with her for years and they have never caused trouble. When asked why her dogs had never been licensed, she stormed off.
As I watched the interview I found myself thinking, well it figures.
She just looked the part.
As I was preparing for this sermon,
I realized how easy it is to fall into the trap of stereotyping people
because of how they look, how they speak, where they live.

Our text this morning from Luke’s gospel account takes us to the region of the Gerasenes, a Gentile region across the lake from Galilee.
As he arrived there, Jesus was met by a demon possessed man from the town.
This man had lived away from the town for many years,
not wearing clothes or living in a house.
He lived in the tombs, where the dead were buried.
The demons that possessed this man were so many, they were called Legion.
Jesus cast out the demons from the man and the demons entered a herd of pigs,
which rushed down a steep bank into the lake and drowned.
When the townspeople heard what had happened
they rushed to the place where Jesus was.
What they found there troubled them
at least as much as being told that their herd had been lost.
They found the man from whom the demons had gone out,
sitting at the feet of Jesus, dressed and in his right mind.
And they were afraid.

I find that a very interesting phrase.
They were afraid.
What were they afraid of?
Here was a man whom they had known was possessed
and now he sat before them healed and in his right mind.
Shouldn’t they have rejoiced?
Shouldn’t they have been overcome with joyfulness and gratitude
that one of their own had been restored?
But instead of any of these things, they were afraid.
They were fearful.
Why?

Because like Angus, this man was the Crazy Man.
He was an easy target, a convenient scapegoat.
As long as he was the way he was,
at least the rest of the townsfolk could feel better about themselves.
Maybe they weren’t all that successful,
all that happy or all that intelligent,
but at least they weren’t the crazy man living among the tombs.
As long as they had the demon possessed man,
they had someone to blame,
someone who was not as good as them.
But now Jesus had come and shaken everything up.
No longer was the demon possessed man different from them,
he was just like them.
Who could they feel superior to now?

I understand that they may have been fearful
that Jesus would cause further damage to the local economy,
just as he did when he allowed the pigs to drown themselves in the lake.
And I suppose that the townsfolk may have been afraid
that they would all lose their jobs and their livelihood.
The theologian Fred Craddock writes,
It remains the case to this day that a community becomes very much involved
when the impact of Jesus Christ affects the economy.
And the gospel does stir the economy,
because healings, conversions, and the embrace of Christian ethics
radically influence getting and spending.
The Gerasene people aren’t praising God that a man is healed,
but are counting the cost and find it too much.
(Fred Craddock, Interpretation – Luke)

But I think there’s more to it than just economics.
For if Jesus could overcome the forces of the world that oppress and bind,
if Jesus could heal somebody like the long suffering man in the text,
destroying a herd of pigs in the process,
what might he do next?
Who is safe from such a power?
And what if we don’t want to see our lives upset
but prefer to remain in our comfortable, familiar patterns of living?
(James T. Moor, Day 1, When Jesus comes to visit)

The fear of the Gerasenses is rooted
in what Jesus might do to their sense of control.
And so it is with us as well.
We welcome Jesus when Jesus meets our expectations,
but find it much harder to do when the expectations are reversed.
We embrace Jesus when Jesus affirms our preconceptions of what is right and wrong, who is acceptable and who is unacceptable.
We are quick to point to Jesus
when it seems that Jesus agrees with our societal conventions,
but when Jesus threatens our economic comfort,
when Jesus turns our preconceptions upside down,
when Jesus upsets our long held societal conventions,
like the Gerasenes, we find Jesus troubling, and we ask him to leave.
And in our day and age,
denied a physical Jesus to kick out of town,
we just ignore what he stands for,
we feign ignorance,
we surround ourselves with other options,
other claims of truth, different gospels to live by.

It boils down to fear.
When we ignore Jesus or just make Jesus one choice among many,
its because we are afraid of what the costs of following Jesus might be.
Its because we are afraid of what Jesus might do to our carefully structured lives,
which many of us have spent a lifetime cultivating.
We don’t want Jesus challenging our judgments,
we don’t want to be second guessed by a conscience that won’t leave us alone.
“Better the devil you know, then the devil you don’t,” an old adage has it.
You’d think people would rather have no devils around at all.
But alas, some would rather keep their old demons than change their whole lives.
(This Week at the Centre for Excellence in Preaching)
Its hard to follow Jesus.
There’s all sorts of reasons.
He asks too much of us, he is too radical for us.
His claim of exclusivity is difficult to embrace in a pluralistic world.
The uncertainty in terms of economic and social stability is too much to overcome.
We are afraid.
And you know what, Jesus understands.
When the people of the country of the Gerasenes told Jesus to leave,
Jesus didn’t argue with them,
he didn’t even condemn them.
The text says that Jesus got into the boat and returned.
He knew they were afraid.
He knew that for many of them it was too sudden, too much too soon.
It would take a while for some to understand.
And my friends, the good news is that same patience and grace
that Jesus showed to the Gerasene people,
he shows to us.
Its hard to follow, but Jesus continues to invite us and he is patient with us.
And thanks be to God, some do, you do.

But you know what’s even harder than following Jesus?
What’s even harder than following Jesus
is proclaiming Jesus and what Jesus stands for
when everyone else has told him to leave town.
The man whom Jesus had healed,
he begged to follow Jesus, to go with him.
And why wouldn’t he?
His life had been given back to him,
but there was little life in that land for him to go back to.
But Jesus sent him away, saying,
Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
And so he went away,
proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Even harder than following Jesus is proclaiming Jesus and what Jesus stands for
when everyone else has kicked Jesus out of town.
And yet that’s what Jesus would have us do.
In a world which is often all too comfortable with easy conventions and stereotypes,
in a society which finds scapegoats handy to have around
and in a culture where economic and social position means everything,
Jesus sends us, his disciples,
to challenge the injustices and the self serving conclusions that we too often embrace. Whether it be fighting the prejudices of racism or sexism,
standing for the rights of the mentally ill or handicapped,
advocating for those who are unable to speak for themselves,
helping the poor and hungry and homeless,
just as Jesus sent the healed man,
so he send us.

My friends, if Jesus has changed our lives,
won’t we be like the man Jesus healed,
willing to go where Jesus sends us,
willing to do what Jesus commands us,
willing to stay and live where we are,
praising Jesus and sharing his good news?
I pray that God would grant us the strength and the joy
to be his church and his people,
to be his hands and his feet,
his voice and his heart,
blooming where we are planted,
to the glory and praise of God always.