What Have You To Do With Me, Jesus?

Sermon-4 Pentecost-Proper 7-June 20, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Everyone has heard this story, right? Everyone is familiar with it? Jesus leaves Israel and goes across the Sea of Galilee to a foreign land-the land of the Gerasenes. And when he arrives he meets a man filled with demons. The man lives naked, alone, in the cemetery with the dead, like a wild animal. When Jesus arrives the man screams out, "What have you to do with me, Jesus….?” And Jesus sends the demons into a herd of wild pigs who then jump into the lake and die. So everyone knows this story, right?
The most popular series out right now for teens is a story about vampires. Movies about werewolves and vampires seem to dominate. I get asked about this gospel all the time because people are attracted to stories about evil, and demons, and wil pigs committing suicide and people living without clothes.
Do you remember the verse I preached on last week? “Simon, do you see that woman?” The verse that grabbed me from today’s gospel isn’t the one about demons or pigs-it’s about the man named Legion, who, when he sees Jesus yells, "What have you to do with me, Jesus….?”
All week I felt like the answer to this question was just out of my sight, just beyond what I could reach-til I had a dream about an old book I loved, A Dresser of Sycamore Trees by Garret Keizer. Finally I remembered it. The opening chapter quotes this verse from Psalm 118: “I called to the LORD in my distress; the LORD answered by setting me free.”
Today’s story is about a man who cannot live with people. Cannot live with himself. So he lives among the dead. He is so miserable, so wretched that he cannot even wear clothes. The townspeople try to keep him in chains but nothing will hold him. And then he meets Jesus. "What have you to do with me, Jesus….?” To meet Jesus is not easy for this desolate man. The second thing he says is, “I beg you, do not torment me"—what an odd thing for this man to say. He is a man who is living a demon filled life and he begs Jesus not to torment him?
So Jesus heals this man, gets rid of his demons, this wild animal of a man, and we see him sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening, clothed. And all he wants to do is-what?
“The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with Jesus;”
This poor man asked two things of Jesus-and both times Jesus said “no” The first time he asked Jesus to leave him alone. But Jesus wouldn’t. The second time, after Jesus healed him, he asked that he might follow Jesus-and again, Jesus said no. How odd-isn’t this how most gospel stories end-with the person who is transformed following after Jesus?
“I called to the LORD in my distress; the LORD answered by setting me free.”
We are always trying to figure out what to do with our lives. It’s graduation season so I’m spending a lot of time with 18 year olds asking, “what are you going to do next with your life?” And it’s wedding season so I’m asking a lot of brides and grooms, “so why do you want to spend the rest your life with this person?” Deborah and I just attended a retirement conference and the question at the heart of the conference was, “What else are you going to do with your life?” We spend a lot of time thinking/talking about this question-What am I going to do with my life? Don’t we? We may not come up with very good answers, but we sure ask the question a lot. You know what I have discovered, you never stop asking it, never stop wondering, “what am I supposed to be doing with my life?
Today’s gospel is about a man who had no clue what to do with his life. He was weighed down with so much he couldn’t even bear the heaviness of clothes. And then Jesus healed him. And THEN he knew what he wanted to do-to simply follow Jesus. And Jesus wouldn’t even let him do that. "What have you to do with me, Jesus….?” And Jesus set him free. And the first thing the man wanted to do, was go from being bound to demons, to being yoked to Jesus.
We want to know what to do, we want to know where to go, our direction, our destiny. We all want to have a plan, a goal for our lives. Don’t we? It would be so much easier if God/Jesus just told us what to do. We would probably gripe about it, but at least we would be going somewhere. But Jesus sends this poor man back home. "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." That’s his job, that’s his destiny. Poor Legion, all he wanted was to be left alone, or to have someone else run his life, but instead “I called to the LORD in my distress; the LORD answered by setting me free.” God has other plans. Sometimes, our destiny is to simply return home and declare what God is doing in our lives. That doesn’t sound very fulfilling, does it? That isn’t nearly challenging or exciting enough. We want to have more direction than that. But for the man named Legion, he had to learn what it was to live with those who once feared him, he had to go back and be with people who once wanted to keep him in chains and shackles living with the dead, he had to discover what it was to be free. And he had to share with others that a powerful God was a God of healing, hope, and freedom. That was a terrible destiny, a horrifying future for him.
We all want to know what to do with our lives-no matter how old we are, or what our circumstances. I have just as much trouble at 60 knowing what I want to do with my life, as I did at 18. "What have you to do with me, Jesus….?” Is the question that challenges not just Legion, but all of us. And the answer is very frustrating, “I called to the LORD in my distress; the LORD answered by setting me free.” I think what Jesus was telling Legion was, it’s not so important what you do with your life-but who you are. It’s about who you are going to be-now what you are going to do.
I think this is a story about letting this man be free-not telling him what he has to do. And like all great gospel stories, and I think it’s a story about us, too. "What have you to do with me, Jesus ?” “I called to the LORD in my distress; the LORD answered by setting me free.”