In the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, Chapter 16, there is a ritual prescribed for the atonement of sins. Two goats are presented to the Lord. One is offered as a sacrifice. The other goat is taken before the priest, who lays his hands on the head of the goat and recites the whole litany of the sins of the people. Once all the sins have been spoken and transferred onto the head of the goat, it is driven out into the wilderness, far away from the community. It is called the scapegoat.
Other ancient cultures had similar rituals. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, although we don’t think much of it now. Of course, the practice of scapegoating is still quite common, although not usually by conscious intention.
The herd of swine in this story from Luke sort of took the role of the scapegoat, didn’t it? In this outrageous story about a man tormented by demons, bound in chains by his community, crying out for help from Jesus. The demons that afflicted him are sent into the swine which then throw themselves into the lake. But the story makes me wonder who was the real scapegoat – the swine or the man?
It’s a crazy story. The episode comes at the end of a boat trip on a very stormy sea, Jesus and his disciples hit land in the country of the Gerasenes and are met at the shore by this local madman. He has been in this condition for a long time. They find him wild and naked, kept in chains for fear of what he might do. It isn’t really clear if they are trying to keep the community safe from this man or keep this man safe from himself. Perhaps it is both.
Then Jesus heals him of his affliction, casting out the legion of demons. The man suddenly becomes calm. The people of the city rush out to see what’s going on and they find him clothed, quiet and relaxed. He has been, at last, exorcised of the demons; he is once again himself. Although, to the Gerasenes, he seemed not at all himself – not the man they have known him to be. The scene they encounter is not what they expected, and they are afraid.
It seems a funny reaction to have, doesn’t it? But the truth is, in healing this man, Jesus has upset the careful equilibrium this community has come to rely on.
That’s the way systems work. Everyone has a role to play in a system – whether it’s a family, an office, a congregation. Some of these are official roles that everyone is aware of. But in other ways, we create unofficial, unspoken roles that just make the system work. Everyone fills their roles, strange as they may be, and the system runs like a well-oiled machine. Sometimes, it’s comical, the way it works.
There are a lot of funny movies about families coming together for the holidays and acting out all their flakiness. We laugh at them because there is something of ourselves that we recognize in their quirks. In every plot, we watch them draw close to the brink of disaster, then avoid going over the cliff, and all is well. They are still as flaky as ever, but it’s okay. It’s going to be okay, because every family, every group, every system has certain roles that just make things work, provide the necessary equilibrium.
Maybe you have seen this in your family. Maybe you have a bossy sister or a trouble-making brother, and somehow that never changes, no matter how old you get. When grown children come back home together, like in those silly Christmas movies, everyone is still expected to play the same role. No matter how much you might have changed since you were a child, when you all get together, the family still expects you to be that child, for the sake of the equilibrium.
Maybe you have seen this in the church. There are those people who can be counted on to bring deviled eggs to the potluck. There are the people who can be counted on to speak first in a small group. There are the ones who will notice if the scheduled ushers didn’t show up, and they will jump right in to fill the need. Everyone does their part, for the sake of the equilibrium. We expect them to.
Usually these expectations are pretty harmless. But not always. Sometimes one person is expected to carry far more than their fair share of the weight, for the sake of the equilibrium. And this is dysfunctional.
It may be helpful to say that the word dysfunction does not mean what you might think it means. When we say something is dysfunctional it might sound like we’re saying it is not functional. But, actually, dysfunctional means something is functioning through its brokenness, in pain.
Every group has some dysfunction in it. Some more, some less. But it happens sometimes that the way a group finds its equilibrium is when one individual carries the burden of the dysfunction. One person has to be sick.
The black sheep of the family. Or the one individual who seems to suffer lots of chronic illnesses. The one who is prone to uncontrollable anger. Or mental illness, or addiction. Sometimes, one person carries a burden for the whole group. In family psychology, this one person is called the identified patient.
And when a patient has been identified, the problem feels like it’s been contained. It feels like it can be managed. In a certain way, life becomes predictable, and even if it’s predictable in bad ways … that is good.
But if the identified patient refuses to carry the burden any longer and decides to get well, then anything can happen. We have lost our scapegoat and the real problems might be exposed.
This, I am suggesting, is what happened with the Gerasenes, when they found the man sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
They were afraid – this is a telling response. It reveals health and wholeness is not their highest priority. It reveals that there is still some sickness in this community that has been ignored for a long time. It might have looked like all the demons were drowned in the lake, but I suspect that there were still lots of demons in this place.
The nature of the sin-sickness of the world is that we resist becoming well. We find it easier to be sick. You might have doubts about this, but let me ask you this:
Why is it that we develop bad habits so much more easily than good habits? And why do we find good habits so easy to slough off, while bad habits are so hard to break? Individuals and systems resist wellness. To be well, healthy, whole, requires work. And in spite of the transformative promises that this work offers, it is work that we sometimes say no to.
Jesus brought the possibility of wellness to the Gerasenes. But they refused it. They didn’t want to have to figure out how to live in this new transformed reality.
It is interesting that the former demoniac seems to recognize this right away. He takes one look at the mob who has been seized with fear at the sight of him. Then he looks back at Jesus and he says, “Take me with you.” He does not want to be left here in a community that is afraid of his wellness.
But Jesus insists that he stay there. He is now made whole, he has been given new life. And his new life is to be a witness to his community. He now must take his new life into this old place.
“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you,” Jesus says to the man. He now has a new role to play. He is not the madman chained out by the tombs; he is the witness to new life. The community might put up a lot of resistance to his new role, but now it’s up to you, Jesus tells him. I’ve done my part, you do yours.
God intervenes in the world by bringing new life. But, like it or not, we are expected to be partners with God in this work of renewal. Here, in the land of the Gerasenes, Jesus set one person on a new course, and asked him to go and help his whole community get on course. It’s a tall order, but it’s the way things actually change – one person at a time. One person can have extraordinary effects. As he taught in his little parable of the yeast, when you change a tiny thing, it can permeate and change the whole in dramatic ways.
When I was younger, I read Dear Abby and Ann Landers columns every day, and there were so many letters from people who were suffering in hurtful relationships. They always said they tried to get their spouse or their children or their parents to go to counseling with them, but they refused. Abby and Ann would always tell them, “If they won’t go with you, you should go anyway.” There is wisdom in this, because if even one person in the system changes, that can start the whole system changing.
God does intervene to bring healing to a broken world. And then it is up to us, the ones who have experienced this healing, to share it with others, to be the light. The world will resist healing, but keep shining your light anyway. The world will want you to go back to your old ways, playing your part in a broken system, but keep shining your light anyway.
You do not need to try to change the whole world. But if you clothe yourself in this new life, the world will change.
