June 20, 2010 – Sermon
St. Paul’s Cambria
Father Fred Heard
Gerasene demoniac is pronounced “JER-uh-seen de-MON-ee-ak”]
Prolonged depression is not usually a problem for me. However when I resigned as school principal before I started seminary…depression hit me in a big way, and I could not pull out of it. I had resigned from the profession I knew and loved. I was about to move to Berkeley to live in a dorm by myself. I was entering Clinical Pastoral Education which is one of the most intensive programs both spiritually and emotionally that we encounter in seminary. Additionally, I was assigned to work with the non liturgical fundamental church services and could not be a part of the Roman Catholic service where members of the Episcopal and other mainline churches were worshipping which would have been more familiar and satisfying to me.
I met with my Spiritual Director, and he suggested that I just slip into a nearby Roman Catholic Church during the week and take communion since I had to be at the State Hospital all day on Sunday. This I did and my state of mind improved almost immediately. Clinical Pastoral Education turned out to be, for me, one of the most beneficial experiences of my seminary years. That was my most prolonged bout of depression…but the results of that experience have helped me as a priest and a human being. I understand that you cannot just “shake it off.”
John Killinger, the noted author, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. He is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can't even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat. He is a powerful man usually and is the chairman of a large shipping company, but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life. He lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.
He has been fastidious, worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it is difficult for him to sleep and to eat. He worries and broods and agonizes about everything, his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he falls apart. He hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: "Life isn't worth living this way, I wish I were dead!"
What would God think if he heard him talking this way. Speaking aloud again he says, "God, it's a joke, isn't it? Life is nothing but a joke." Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he's talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this: "I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I heard a voice say, 'It doesn't have to be that way!”
And so when I experienced my bout of depression, my Spiritual Director told me to get to church as soon as I could and to pray. He told me to turn it over to God as quickly as possible.
I recall that 20 years ago, when I went into treatment for alcoholism, they admitted me to the treatment center and told me to pray. We learn in Alcoholics Anonymous that you pray to a Higher Power of your own understanding. For some people, that is God. For others, it might be a group or a collection of people. Still others might settle on a door knob or a water fall or a beautiful tree. The point is, we are identifying a power that is greater than the individual and that is what the man was finding in that Canadian hotel room.
The man went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: "Do you think it was God speaking to me?" The brother said: "Of course, because that is the message of God to you and everyone of us. God shows us that 'It doesn't have to be that way.' A few days later, the man called his brother and said, "You were right. It has really happened. I've done it. I've had a rebirth. I'm a new man. Christ has turned it around for me." And you see that door knob that the alcoholic might encounter isn’t going to talk back…but it is in this process that the addicted person usually encounters God as we understand God.
We will probably still be prone to anxiety. We still must work hard. But, now we have a source of strength. During the week, our depressed man often leaves his office and goes to a nearby church. He sits there and prays. He says: "It clears my head. It reminds me of who I am and whose I am. Each time as I sit there in the Sanctuary, I think back to the day in that hotel room in Canada and how depressed and lonely and lost I felt and I hear that voice saying: It doesn't have to be that way."
And that is precisely what this morning’s gospel is all about. Christ walks into the tormented life of the Gerasene demoniac, this madman, whose life is coming apart at the seams and He turns it around for him. He gives him a new beginning, a new start, a new birth. At the beginning of the narrative, it sounds like a horror-story. This wild-eyed, adrenalin-filled, madman comes running and shrieking out of the tomb. He is so unbalanced! He is convinced that he is being held captive by a whole legion of demons who are pulling and jerking him in every direction. This really is kind of a creepy story.
But in our lives, we are somewhat like a specialist. If we are middle or upper class, we can look at our wonderful lives that are filled with many comforts. Horror stories are only read about in the newspaper or viewed on television news. Perhaps we serve at an occasional soup kitchen or we deliver food boxes at Thanksgiving…but then we shut our doors and can see only our world. That is not criticism…it is the way things are in the world. Jesus, on the other hand, could see…like a tableau…the good and the bad. He certainly could see into those who were demonic.
In our gospel today, Jesus and His disciples have just come through a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It is nighttime and having survived that frightening storm they are thrilled to now set foot on solid ground. But, as they get out of the boat, they encounter a different kind of storm yet another scary experience. They hear strange sounds coming from the tombs - shrieks, growls, screams, moans, the rattling of chains. Then, suddenly, a horrifying sight. A madman with tattered clothes, bruised, dirty, bloody and battered with pieces of chains dangling from his arms and ankles, comes running and screaming directly toward them! This man was like the worst of the Halloween horrors…the worst of the monsters created in a horror movie…with one difference…it was real.
"What would you have done in that situation?" This was a perilous place, a bloodcurdling moment - a powerful, dangerous, berserk man, charging them. I think I would have run for my life... or jumped back into the boat! Jesus stood His ground and faced the madman. Undaunted, unafraid... Jesus dealt with this wild man. Jesus healed him. He brought peace to his troubled soul. He changed him. He cleansed him. He turned his life around, and He can do that for you. We do all have our demons…hopefully we are not consumed by them…but we only have to remember that we can turn it all over to Jesus.
Demons are not like a decision to go to school or to buy a house or what shall we have for dinner tonight. Demons are not questions about life…Mother Theresa referred to them as the “crisis of the spirit.” I learned as a seminarian that it doesn't have to be that way. The Gerasene demoniac, was at war with himself. He was hurting himself, bruising himself, injuring himself. How often we do that! As Pogo put it: "We have met the enemy and he is us!!"
One day a young father was shopping in a crowded super-market. His three-year old son was with him. The little boy was riding in the grocery cart... and he was misbehaving terribly and causing all kinds of problems. Every time the father would put something into the cart, the little boy would grab it and throw it back out. We have probably all experienced that. If the cart went close to the shelves, the three-year old boy would just rake stuff off onto the floor. At one point, the little boy in our story crawled out of the cart and ran down the aisle (knocking over every display he could get his hands on) with his father in hot pursuit.
People who were in the store at the time could hear the father saying out loud over and over, "Just be patient, Tommy. It won't be much longer Tommy. It'll be O.K., Tommy. Be calm, Tommy. Hang in there, Tommy." Finally, a distinguished looking woman came up to the man and she said: "I just want to compliment you. I've been watching you, and I want you to know that I admire you and the remarkable patience you have with little Tommy." "Oh, but Lady," the man said. "You don't understand." His name is Michael. I'm Tommy!!!" That is a smart man! He was right to start with himself. If we are going to set a problem right, we have to get ourselves set right first.
One of the first things that is taught in 12 Step programs is that we must learn to love ourselves…not like…love. We are taught that resentments will make us drink again, and often it is the resentment we hold against ourselves that is the most serious of all our resentments.
When you are at war with yourself, it smudges and distorts every relationship. On the other hand, when we feel good about ourselves, we are more loving, more patient, more thoughtful, more gracious... toward everyone we see.
Do you want to feel good about yourself? …Do you want to like yourself more? …Do you want to stop bruising and hurting yourself? …Do you want to be at peace within? …Then remember this: "You are special to God. He loves you! You are extremely valuable to Him! He claims you as His child!" You don't have to be at war with yourself.... It doesn't have to be that way. You are special to God and that makes you supremely valuable.
Second, You Don't Have To Be At War With Other People. It doesn't have to be that way. The mad man, was very much at war with other people. He had been cast out of society... chained, shackled, exiled to the tombs, constantly doing battle with other people; here in this story he runs out toward Jesus and His disciples looking for a fight. Isn't it amazing how crossways and estranged and hostile people can get? This is particularly true when people are hostile to the hostile person.
Once on 20/20 there was a program called "Neighbors at War", showing how next-door neighbors do battle with one another, fighting one another, fussing at one another, suing one another, sometimes even shooting at one another because of a barking dog, or a noisy power tool or a bouncing basketball. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn to befriend one another, to respect one another, to embrace the “greatest of the commandments” to love one another?
September 3, 1990, our friend Dear Abby ran a story about a young man who was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. The young man and his father had spent months looking at cars and the week before graduation they found the perfect car. Bill was certain that on graduation night that car would be his. After the graduation ceremonies, Bill's father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible! Bill was so furious that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never spoke again, never saw each other again. His parents tried to reach him, but Bill refused to speak to them or see them, or read their letters.
When his parents died, Bill came home. As he sat one night going through his father's possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him for graduation. Bill brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier's check dated the day of his graduation—in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together! You don't have to be at war with other people. It doesn't have to be that way!
Third and Finally, You Don't Have To Be At War With God. It doesn't have to be that way. That mad man, is also cut off from God. "What have you to do with me?... don't torment me," he says to Jesus. Jesus gave us the gift of looking into the eyes of our Father. When we look at Jesus, we see what God is like and what God wants of us. Jesus shows us the love, the compassion, the concern and the empathy in the Father's eyes... and that's the good news of our faith. Jesus reveals that God looks at us not with angry, vengeful, condemning eyes, but with the eyes of love. On this Father’s Day, that is what we strive for as fathers. We hope our children do not look into the eyes of an angry, vengeful, condemning parent. Rather, we hope we embody the essence of the Greatest Commandment: to love one another as He has loved us. We hope our children see the eyes of love and compassion and concern and empathy in their earthly fathers. We hope all God’s children hear their earthly fathers and grandfathers express their love for them.
No, we don't have to be at war with ourselves, we don't have to be at war with other people, we don't have to be at war with God. Jesus comes into our lives, just as He came into the mad man’s life, saying: "It doesn't have to be that way!"
AMEN
St. Paul’s Cambria
Father Fred Heard
Gerasene demoniac is pronounced “JER-uh-seen de-MON-ee-ak”]
Prolonged depression is not usually a problem for me. However when I resigned as school principal before I started seminary…depression hit me in a big way, and I could not pull out of it. I had resigned from the profession I knew and loved. I was about to move to Berkeley to live in a dorm by myself. I was entering Clinical Pastoral Education which is one of the most intensive programs both spiritually and emotionally that we encounter in seminary. Additionally, I was assigned to work with the non liturgical fundamental church services and could not be a part of the Roman Catholic service where members of the Episcopal and other mainline churches were worshipping which would have been more familiar and satisfying to me.
I met with my Spiritual Director, and he suggested that I just slip into a nearby Roman Catholic Church during the week and take communion since I had to be at the State Hospital all day on Sunday. This I did and my state of mind improved almost immediately. Clinical Pastoral Education turned out to be, for me, one of the most beneficial experiences of my seminary years. That was my most prolonged bout of depression…but the results of that experience have helped me as a priest and a human being. I understand that you cannot just “shake it off.”
John Killinger, the noted author, tells a powerful story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. He is in a state of deep depression. He is so depressed that he can't even bring himself to go downstairs to the restaurant to eat. He is a powerful man usually and is the chairman of a large shipping company, but at this moment, he is absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life. He lies there on a lonely hotel bed far from home wallowing in self-pity.
He has been fastidious, worrying about everything, anxious and fretful, always fussing and stewing over every detail. And now, at mid-life, his anxiety has gotten the best of him, even to the extent that it is difficult for him to sleep and to eat. He worries and broods and agonizes about everything, his business, his investments, his decisions, his family, his health, even, his dogs. Then, on this day in this Canadian hotel, he falls apart. He hits bottom. Filled with anxiety, completely immobilized, paralyzed by his emotional despair, unable to leave his room, lying on his bed, he moans out loud: "Life isn't worth living this way, I wish I were dead!"
What would God think if he heard him talking this way. Speaking aloud again he says, "God, it's a joke, isn't it? Life is nothing but a joke." Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he's talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then he begins to pray. He describes it like this: "I just talked out loud about what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I heard a voice say, 'It doesn't have to be that way!”
And so when I experienced my bout of depression, my Spiritual Director told me to get to church as soon as I could and to pray. He told me to turn it over to God as quickly as possible.
I recall that 20 years ago, when I went into treatment for alcoholism, they admitted me to the treatment center and told me to pray. We learn in Alcoholics Anonymous that you pray to a Higher Power of your own understanding. For some people, that is God. For others, it might be a group or a collection of people. Still others might settle on a door knob or a water fall or a beautiful tree. The point is, we are identifying a power that is greater than the individual and that is what the man was finding in that Canadian hotel room.
The man went home and talked to his wife about what happened. He talked to his brother who is a minister and asked him: "Do you think it was God speaking to me?" The brother said: "Of course, because that is the message of God to you and everyone of us. God shows us that 'It doesn't have to be that way.' A few days later, the man called his brother and said, "You were right. It has really happened. I've done it. I've had a rebirth. I'm a new man. Christ has turned it around for me." And you see that door knob that the alcoholic might encounter isn’t going to talk back…but it is in this process that the addicted person usually encounters God as we understand God.
We will probably still be prone to anxiety. We still must work hard. But, now we have a source of strength. During the week, our depressed man often leaves his office and goes to a nearby church. He sits there and prays. He says: "It clears my head. It reminds me of who I am and whose I am. Each time as I sit there in the Sanctuary, I think back to the day in that hotel room in Canada and how depressed and lonely and lost I felt and I hear that voice saying: It doesn't have to be that way."
And that is precisely what this morning’s gospel is all about. Christ walks into the tormented life of the Gerasene demoniac, this madman, whose life is coming apart at the seams and He turns it around for him. He gives him a new beginning, a new start, a new birth. At the beginning of the narrative, it sounds like a horror-story. This wild-eyed, adrenalin-filled, madman comes running and shrieking out of the tomb. He is so unbalanced! He is convinced that he is being held captive by a whole legion of demons who are pulling and jerking him in every direction. This really is kind of a creepy story.
But in our lives, we are somewhat like a specialist. If we are middle or upper class, we can look at our wonderful lives that are filled with many comforts. Horror stories are only read about in the newspaper or viewed on television news. Perhaps we serve at an occasional soup kitchen or we deliver food boxes at Thanksgiving…but then we shut our doors and can see only our world. That is not criticism…it is the way things are in the world. Jesus, on the other hand, could see…like a tableau…the good and the bad. He certainly could see into those who were demonic.
In our gospel today, Jesus and His disciples have just come through a storm on the Sea of Galilee. It is nighttime and having survived that frightening storm they are thrilled to now set foot on solid ground. But, as they get out of the boat, they encounter a different kind of storm yet another scary experience. They hear strange sounds coming from the tombs - shrieks, growls, screams, moans, the rattling of chains. Then, suddenly, a horrifying sight. A madman with tattered clothes, bruised, dirty, bloody and battered with pieces of chains dangling from his arms and ankles, comes running and screaming directly toward them! This man was like the worst of the Halloween horrors…the worst of the monsters created in a horror movie…with one difference…it was real.
"What would you have done in that situation?" This was a perilous place, a bloodcurdling moment - a powerful, dangerous, berserk man, charging them. I think I would have run for my life... or jumped back into the boat! Jesus stood His ground and faced the madman. Undaunted, unafraid... Jesus dealt with this wild man. Jesus healed him. He brought peace to his troubled soul. He changed him. He cleansed him. He turned his life around, and He can do that for you. We do all have our demons…hopefully we are not consumed by them…but we only have to remember that we can turn it all over to Jesus.
Demons are not like a decision to go to school or to buy a house or what shall we have for dinner tonight. Demons are not questions about life…Mother Theresa referred to them as the “crisis of the spirit.” I learned as a seminarian that it doesn't have to be that way. The Gerasene demoniac, was at war with himself. He was hurting himself, bruising himself, injuring himself. How often we do that! As Pogo put it: "We have met the enemy and he is us!!"
One day a young father was shopping in a crowded super-market. His three-year old son was with him. The little boy was riding in the grocery cart... and he was misbehaving terribly and causing all kinds of problems. Every time the father would put something into the cart, the little boy would grab it and throw it back out. We have probably all experienced that. If the cart went close to the shelves, the three-year old boy would just rake stuff off onto the floor. At one point, the little boy in our story crawled out of the cart and ran down the aisle (knocking over every display he could get his hands on) with his father in hot pursuit.
People who were in the store at the time could hear the father saying out loud over and over, "Just be patient, Tommy. It won't be much longer Tommy. It'll be O.K., Tommy. Be calm, Tommy. Hang in there, Tommy." Finally, a distinguished looking woman came up to the man and she said: "I just want to compliment you. I've been watching you, and I want you to know that I admire you and the remarkable patience you have with little Tommy." "Oh, but Lady," the man said. "You don't understand." His name is Michael. I'm Tommy!!!" That is a smart man! He was right to start with himself. If we are going to set a problem right, we have to get ourselves set right first.
One of the first things that is taught in 12 Step programs is that we must learn to love ourselves…not like…love. We are taught that resentments will make us drink again, and often it is the resentment we hold against ourselves that is the most serious of all our resentments.
When you are at war with yourself, it smudges and distorts every relationship. On the other hand, when we feel good about ourselves, we are more loving, more patient, more thoughtful, more gracious... toward everyone we see.
Do you want to feel good about yourself? …Do you want to like yourself more? …Do you want to stop bruising and hurting yourself? …Do you want to be at peace within? …Then remember this: "You are special to God. He loves you! You are extremely valuable to Him! He claims you as His child!" You don't have to be at war with yourself.... It doesn't have to be that way. You are special to God and that makes you supremely valuable.
Second, You Don't Have To Be At War With Other People. It doesn't have to be that way. The mad man, was very much at war with other people. He had been cast out of society... chained, shackled, exiled to the tombs, constantly doing battle with other people; here in this story he runs out toward Jesus and His disciples looking for a fight. Isn't it amazing how crossways and estranged and hostile people can get? This is particularly true when people are hostile to the hostile person.
Once on 20/20 there was a program called "Neighbors at War", showing how next-door neighbors do battle with one another, fighting one another, fussing at one another, suing one another, sometimes even shooting at one another because of a barking dog, or a noisy power tool or a bouncing basketball. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn to befriend one another, to respect one another, to embrace the “greatest of the commandments” to love one another?
September 3, 1990, our friend Dear Abby ran a story about a young man who was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. The young man and his father had spent months looking at cars and the week before graduation they found the perfect car. Bill was certain that on graduation night that car would be his. After the graduation ceremonies, Bill's father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible! Bill was so furious that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never spoke again, never saw each other again. His parents tried to reach him, but Bill refused to speak to them or see them, or read their letters.
When his parents died, Bill came home. As he sat one night going through his father's possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him for graduation. Bill brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier's check dated the day of his graduation—in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together! You don't have to be at war with other people. It doesn't have to be that way!
Third and Finally, You Don't Have To Be At War With God. It doesn't have to be that way. That mad man, is also cut off from God. "What have you to do with me?... don't torment me," he says to Jesus. Jesus gave us the gift of looking into the eyes of our Father. When we look at Jesus, we see what God is like and what God wants of us. Jesus shows us the love, the compassion, the concern and the empathy in the Father's eyes... and that's the good news of our faith. Jesus reveals that God looks at us not with angry, vengeful, condemning eyes, but with the eyes of love. On this Father’s Day, that is what we strive for as fathers. We hope our children do not look into the eyes of an angry, vengeful, condemning parent. Rather, we hope we embody the essence of the Greatest Commandment: to love one another as He has loved us. We hope our children see the eyes of love and compassion and concern and empathy in their earthly fathers. We hope all God’s children hear their earthly fathers and grandfathers express their love for them.
No, we don't have to be at war with ourselves, we don't have to be at war with other people, we don't have to be at war with God. Jesus comes into our lives, just as He came into the mad man’s life, saying: "It doesn't have to be that way!"
AMEN