In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. What are we doing here
today if not proclaiming, celebrating, confirming
the victory of God in us? that he is saving us.
I say that to begin a reflection on this gospel,
because this gospel accounts for us, it relates
for us, really the truly glorious, loving, wise,
powerful care, the compassion and care. that
Jesus has for everything. Absolutely everything.
We say in the Creed that we believe in one God,
the Father Almighty, and one Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God, begotten of the Father before all
ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten,
not made, by whom all things were made. This
reference is to Jesus, by whom and for whom all
things were made. The word gospel, I've told
my catechism class this a hundred times, I've
probably told you half that. The word gospel
means the good news of victory, the good news
of an enslavement to powers, principalities,
rulers of darkness. enslavement of all kinds
against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in
the heavenly places, as St. Paul says in Ephesians.
It ends destruction and death. That's what the
word gospel means. It's not a book. The gospel
book is the account of that victory, which we
are sharing now. And the proof of that to me
is this story, because that's not us. That man
living naked among the tombs. That's not us.
So we sing on Holy Saturday, don't we? Praise
you the Lord and supremely exalt him unto the
ages. And gloriously has he been glorified. We're
the body of Christ, brothers and sisters. It's
his body. He has changed us. So that united and
joined to him, we share in this victory over
death. We don't need to be afraid of that anymore.
Or the demons. The church is reminding us today
in this gospel, which we hear twice at least,
but sometimes three times in the year. Three
times you hear about this man who is possessed.
Archbishop Benjamin always used to make reference.
He says, we have cheese fair Sunday. We have
meat fair Sunday. And we have Swine Sunday. And
today is Swine Sunday. Today the church is reminding
us what great things God has done for us. And
so we're gathering for liturgy to thank him.
The word Eucharist means Thanksgiving. That's
why we're here to thank God. To proclaim the
good news to ourselves, to each other, and to
those outside that door about what As St. Luke
said at the end, quoting Jesus, what great things
God has done for us. If you were asked, can you
enumerate those things that God has done for
you? Those great things. Why you are here. We
say we're illumined at baptism. Can you give
thanks to God for that? Can you tell someone?
about that holy illumination, if you were asked
to give a witness, testimony for what Jesus has
done for us, illumined us, opened our eyes, first,
of course, not to everybody else's sins, but
to our own sins, and then to the cleansing and
the forgiveness and the light and the love of
his presence. We may not dwell in that joy all
the time, but we should be able to recount something
of it. I don't need to tell you the whole story
that we just heard. You just heard it, and as
I said, we hear it three times a year, most years,
mostly twice, I guess. This is a deliberate choice
by the church, by the way. This isn't just part
of... Well, we've got this gospel that just comes
around again, and oh gosh, do I have to preach
on those pigs again? No. This is deliberate.
The church gives us this account of this horrible,
horrible thing, which I hope nobody ever has
to see. But I want to say about, since I'm not
going to tell you the whole story, you just heard
it, but I do want to say this. When Jesus asks
the name of that man, and he's not asking because
he doesn't know. He's asking to show his disciples.
This is the creepiest moment. Halloween's got
nothing on this. What is your name? The man says,
Legion, because he had thousands of demons in
him. and he didn't know himself or his own name
anymore. What is your name, Legion? He's completely
stripped of reason and understanding, completely
stripped of freedom and personality by these
evil, evil spirits. It's embarrassing for many
Christians to admit that there is demonic power.
But it's true that there is such a thing. This
man is broken into a thousand pieces. He is the
image of what the devil seeks for each and every
one of us. Destruction. The destruction of this
world. He's an example of the culture of death
and violence. The desecration of the human being
made in the image of God. Jesus commands the
demons to go into the pigs. Actually, the demons
say, what have you to do with us, Jesus? Why
have you come so soon before the time? Are you
here to torment us? Because they know their ultimate
fate. And they ask Jesus, and he... lets them.
This is not a negotiation. He lets them go into
the pigs. St. Ephraim the Syrian writes this
very kind of humorous meditation on that. He
says, O wise pigs, they could not endure the
wickedness of the demons, whereas the demoniac
endured them, and the people of the Gadarenes
coexisted with them, and we ourselves tolerate
fallen passions. And we ourselves tolerate sins
within ourselves, which is our own sort of spiritual
craziness. We ought to be, says St. Ephraim,
more like the pigs and root out the evil within
us. After all, the kingdom of heaven is taken
by force and the violent bear it away. But we
have to say, brothers and sisters, As baptized,
chrismated, communing, confessing Orthodox Christians,
we have the Lord's victory, not as some historical
event, but within us. This is something that
dwells within us. His victory over death, the
cross, the tomb, the resurrection, the ascension
into heaven, the gift of Pentecost, the demon's
power over us in the church, says many, many
of the saints. May be great for those outside,
but for us, it's no more than a counterfeit $100
bill. It looks impressive, and it might be used
for terrible means, but it has no backing. I
had a rough draft of this sermon in which I started
a rant about society. Obviously... You don't
need to hear a politician's rant. You need to
hear the gospel. So I'm not going to let this
sermon become a tirade. Let's just ask ourselves,
what is the church? If the church gives us this
gospel three times, what does the church tell
me today, this very day, right now, practically
speaking, what I need to know? Yes? First, God's
power over evil and death. That incident there
in Gadara, the Lord would destroy all the power
of Satan on the cross and in the tomb and in
the grave and in his glorious resurrection. Why
else would we show a fresco with the locks and
the bars of Hades being broken apart if he didn't
do it? Number one. So yes, there's that to remind
ourselves. Yes, it's because he has concern and
love and care and compassion for each of his
creatures, every single creature, especially
the human, because we are in the image and likeness
of God. And this is where I think we have to
focus for a moment. The Lord's labor was to heal.
He was also humble in this story. He left the
people who didn't want him there. Who's worse
off, that man with the demons or those people
who don't want Jesus Christ in their life? It's
amazing how people reacted to the greatest miracle
they had ever seen. God created us so that we
would know him, but he will not force us to follow.
His commandments. He won't. He's gentle. He's
good. He weeps. He follows us. Sometimes he steps
in front of us. Sometimes he sends us difficulties
so we'll be reminded we are not eternal. He will
indeed leave us if we ask him. But it's here
in this kind of leaving sense that I want to
say just one thing. That we might get overshadowed.
We might think that counterfeit hundred dollar
bill is real. We might forget that we have been
clothed like that man in the story. What's it
say? Then they went out to see what had happened
and came to Jesus and found the man from whom
the demons had departed sitting at the feet of
Jesus clothed and in his right mind that's the
baptism image this is what we want for himself
now it may seem trivial but how do we how do
we let that goodness and that holiness and that
purity that right -mindedness and our baptismal
robe stay cleansed how do we do that sounds trivial
but i'll tell you i woke up this morning the
alarm went off And the thought went into my head,
Father Nicholas is going to be here today. You
can stay in bed. Don't worry about it. I got
up and I said, no, I'm going to church. Do you
find yourself doing that with prayer? Easy to
do. Put something in its place. To forget. That
God comes first in the day. To keep the commandments,
we have our own vision of what's going to make
us happy, what's going to be fulfilling for us,
what's going to be good, relationships and so
forth. But we put them before Jesus Christ, especially
when we're young. And we lose that moment when
if we hit when the iron's hot like that, the
love of God will just heat up within us. And
we will have joy. And the kind that St. Paul
says we can't even imagine because it hasn't
entered into our mind what joy and goodness God
has for us, for those who love him. Do we find
ourselves, again, these are all trivial things,
but they all lead to turning away from Jesus.
Do we find ourselves unable to take criticism
from somebody we love? And we get defensive?
Do we find ourselves, I think maybe this is the
worst thing of all, and I'm going to end with
this. We just went through two and a half years
of a very difficult season. Our country was gripped
with ideology. That is, the feeling, the thought
that we had to follow a certain way. Those people
are bad. Those people are on my side. and anger
and destruction seemed to grip such a big part
of our society. Do this, don't do that. There
was no love, or very little. Why? Because we
were in the power, not of our own mind, not clothed
in our right mind, but we were in the power of
an ideology. We had no freedom. There were thousands
of voices. Shut the TV news off if it's making
you angry. Go to your room and pray. Pray for
those that you feel you don't love, that don't
love you. Let your heart be at peace. The Lord
said, as the time comes towards the end, before
his glorious appearing to all of creation, the
love between people would grow cold. These are
his words. Let us gather in this small sacred
space, just us few, love each other as the liturgy
says. Let us love one another so that with one
mind, what? We can confess Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, the Trinity, one in essence, and apply
the remedy of love, Christ's healing. and cleansing
to be in our right mind and at his feet begging
trusting keeping his path and his destiny for
us amen