Loosing Demons

Luke 8:26-39

-and-

Psalm 42

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually,

“Where is your God?”

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:

how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God,

with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you 

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;

all your waves and your billows have gone over me.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, 

and at night his song is with me,

a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”

As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

The first time I ever sang the song Precious Lord, Take My Hand was at a funeral for one of the matriarchs of the church I grew up in. I was young, probably in middle school, and I remember thinking how incredibly sad this song is. Sad, and morbid. I barely even know the woman who had died, and yet as I sang the words of this hymn I was forced to choke back tears. Since then I have sung it many times, often at funerals, and my feelings towards it have changed, but only slightly. If you look at the top of the United Methodist hymnal you will see it is placed in the section titled, “Prayer, Trust, Hope”. This song is certainly those things: it is a prayer. It is a prayer that trusts that God will lead the singer through times of storm and darkness, it is a prayer of hope, that there is something better waiting for us on the other side of this life. It is a prayer of trust, it is a prayer of hope, it is a prayer of gut-wrenching lament.

Written by the famous gospel writer Thomas A. Dorsey, this song has been performed by many great artists and sung at thousands of funerals. But Dorsey did not write it for a funeral. Just as Horatio Spafford wrote the famous hymn It Is Well with My Soul following the tragic deaths of his family members, Dorsey bared his own soul as he penned these words following the death of his wife, Nettie Harper, who died giving birth to a son, a son who also died only two days later. In the midst of his despair, and in this time of inconsolable grief, Dorsey wrote: Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn; through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light: Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

A song -a psalm- of lament. A psalm of despair. A psalm of hope.

Similarly, the psalm that we read today is a psalm of lament and despair, as the psalmist cries out to the God who created them and called them good: Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully, as with a deadly wound in my body? Why is my soul disquieted, why is my soul cast down? My soul longs for God as a deer longs for flowing streams but instead of flowing streams the one who thirsts is overwhelmed by waves of chaos, the one who longs to once again sing praises to God can only choke on the tears that fall endlessly down their face for apparently no reason at all.

Sometimes language fails us in these moments of despair, and all we can do is cry. And we cry- or don’t- because we realize that sometimes the feeling of being alone, or of being in despair, or the feeling of drowning isn’t because we have lost someone we love, or because we’ve lost our job, or because we didn’t get into the school or career we wanted to badly- it’s because our spirits are sick. It’s because we are mentally ill.

Sometimes the tears come out of a sense of fear: a fear that things will get darker before they get brighter, a fear that things will continue to get worse. Have you ever sat and cried because you can’t feel happy, even though there is no reason for you to be sad but sad isn’t the right word anyway because you’re not sad you’re just... nothing? Have you watched as someone sat and cried because they managed to haul themselves out of bed only to sit with their arms wrapped around their knees and that is their big accomplishment for the day? And they don’t know if they’ll make it that far tomorrow?

Sometimes you don’t cry. Sometimes you are just numb. Or you feel so incredibly alive you feel like you are going to explode- and even though you are barely sleeping, or eating you are filled with exuberance and so much energy and everything is happening really really fast and isn’t it great how productive you are... and everyone can see, and they think it’s great because the energy and love is just radiating out of you... but they are also a little afraid. They are afraid because they know you can’t fly so close to the sun for very long without getting burned. They are afraid because, the higher you fly, the longer and harder the fall.

And then sometimes you cry because you’re surrounded by people and yet you feel completely and utterly alone?

And you get tired of trying to explain why you can’t just look on the bright side, and of trying to smile, trying to be “normal,” so you withdraw from those around you and, like the man we now call the Gerasene demoniac, live among the tombs, because sometimes its easier to live among the dead than the living. The dead don’t ask questions, the dead don’t give suggestions. The dead won’t tell you that you’re crazy.

When Jesus reaches the town of the Gerasenes, a Gentile town across the sea from Galilee, he is met not by crowds or even people going about their everyday business. He is met by a man who “had demons.” A man who was naked. A man who had withdrawn from society to live in the tombs after having broken free from the bonds and chains his people had used to restrain him. This man comes to Jesus, at first raving at the top of his voice: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me!” And Jesus, who I imagine looks him straight in the eyes, unlike his own people, who have not been able to meet his gaze for years, too uncomfortable to even look up from the ground, Jesus looks him in the eyes and asks, “What is your name?”

Like far too many people who struggle with mental illness, or any illness at all, their diagnosis becomes the primary identifier. I am bipolar. I am depressed. I am schizophrenic. “I am Legion.”

Why can’t we look at one another and see, instead of a label or diagnosis, what Christ sees? In my mind I see the man, dirty, naked, with unkempt hair, cowering before Christ, believing that he is nothing more than his illness, nothing more than the demons that have taken residence in his mind. “I am Legion,” he says, and Jesus shakes his head slightly. No, you’re not. You are my brother, you are my sister... and we are all beloved children of God.

In this story a miracle occurs: the demons leave the man. When the man is brave enough to name the thing that binds him- Legion- he can begin to heal. The story says that Jesus told the demons to leave the man, that they enter into the swine that keep the economy of the town afloat, and the swine run into the sea and drown. Legion goes under the water and comes out whole. As the psalmist feels that he is drowning under the waves and billows of the sea we are reminded that it was out of the waters of chaos that God created a new thing in the beginning. At the river we stand, praying God might guide our feet and hold our hands as we plunge into the river, trusting that when we emerge from its depths we will be made new.

It’s a terrifying thing, to give voice to the thing that binds us. It’s terrifying, because that means you can no longer be in denial. You have to accept, to some extent, that this is the way things are, even if it’s not the way things have to be. It is terrifying, because there are so many misconceptions about mental illness, and people are so afraid of what they don’t understand. It is terrifying, because you know the stigmas, and you know how people laugh about “the looney bin” and you worry that once you give name to the thing, whatever it is- that is the only thing people will see about you.

But I can’t stand up here and talk to you about mental illness, and how we need to break the stigmas, and how we are called to be Christ-like to those around us who are hurting, especially if we are the ones who are hurting, without giving voice to my own demons. And it terrifies me. 

I am Amanda. 

I have depression. 

Depression and anxiety runs in my family, and it runs through me. There have been dark nights that have stretched on for weeks and months, and there have been times when I have been afraid that the light will never shine through the darkness, even though I believe with all my heart that the words of the gospel are true, that: "the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it" (Jn 1:5). And the light always shines through. I go to a therapist almost every week, and I believe therapy is a wonderful thing. I take an antidepressant, and that helps to keep the darkness at bay. I am afraid to tell you these things, because in the back of my mind I am afraid that you will think I cannot be a good pastor, or teacher, or friend because of this illness. But I know that my fear is unfounded. I am Amanda, I do have depression, but I am so much more than that. At my core, I am a beloved child of God, just like you.

My sisters and brothers, sometimes we will be caught in an ocean of despair. Sometimes deep will call to deep and we will enter into a darkness that seems impenetrable. Sometimes we will have to watch as loved ones cry for no reason at all, and cannot be consoled. Sometimes the person we are speaking to may be anxious, or paranoid, or hear voices that we don’t hear. When this occurs we have a choice. We can, like the Gerasenes, avert our eyes, or try to chain what we do not understand, or drive out the ones who make us uncomfortable. We can let them believe that they are Legion. Or we can be like the psalmist, who gives voice to the pain and confusion and uncertainty, refusing to be silent about the despair that nobody wants to hear. We can be like Jesus, who asks, person to person, “What is your name?” and we can sit and listen, or sit and cry, or just sit and be with those who are struggling. We can remind them that they are a beloved child of God. We can remind ourselves that we are beloved children of God. We can continue to hope in the promise that we will once again praise the God who is our creator, who is our light, and who holds our hand.