Each week, Moravians across the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean share a common message through their Sunday bulletins.
This month, we share insights which expound on Luke 8:26-39. Thanks to writers past and present for their contributions to the Moravian bulletin series.
Luke 8:26-39 (NRSVUE)
Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
How Do We Tell Our Stories?
Desna Henry Goulbourne, pastor, United Moravian Church, New York, NY • June 22, 2025
This story has two elements: Jesus’ liberation of a man held captive by demons, and the response of the villagers to this liberation.
Jesus and his disciples have left their regular stomping grounds and moved to the east of the Sea of Galilee, into Gentile lands. Jesus steps ashore and meets this man held in terrifying demonic captivity. Jesus grants the demons’ request to be evicted into the herd of swine instead of being sent into the “abyss,” to likely be punished. The herd drowns upon stampeding down a steep bank into the lake.
The peculiar thing is the villagers’ response to what Jesus has done. They were “seized with great fear” (Luke 8:37 NRSVue), becoming a new set of captives in this story. Out of fear, they asked Jesus to leave their region. Ever gracious, Jesus left, but not before another encounter with the man whom he had liberated, who now wanted to go with Jesus. But Jesus encouraged him to return home and share the good news of what God had done for him.
We are not sure what caused the fearful response of the villagers. Some days, I believe that they had serious concerns about their financial and dietary loss without the pigs. Most days, I believe it is connected to how the story was relayed to them by the swineherds. Their choice of words and accompanying gestures may very well have generated fear in their listeners.
The villagers chose fear over faith that day. The liberated man had a different response. In Jesus, he found someone whose power transformed his situation. So he told his story with joy.
What stories are we telling our neighbors, and how are we telling these stories? We, the people of God, who bear in our spirits and lives the evidence of God’s transformative work, are also called to share our stories. This calling may feel even more urgent with Juneteenth still fresh in our minds. How do we tell the story so that our neighbors may choose faith over fear, sparking an even greater transformative event in every corner of our global village?
An Exorcism Opposite Galilee
Derek French, pastor, Nazareth Moravian Church, Nazareth, Pa. • June 19, 2022
I don’t associate pigs with ritual defilement, with opposition to God’s law, or with foreign practices; I tend to think of pigs as potential food—as bacon or “the other white meat.” I think this way because I am a twenty-first-century Gentile Christian rather than a first-century Jew like Jesus and his disciples. However, for those familiar with Jewish tradition, every detail of Luke’s account of Jesus’ healing of the demoniac highlights the fact that the country of the Gerasenes was a land “opposite Galilee,” not only in terms of geography but also in terms of its beliefs and practices.
Among the Gerasenes, a region also known as the Decapolis, God’s holy law (Torah) was not observed. Here, pigs, whose carcasses were to be avoided (Deuteronomy 14:8) and whose flesh was forbidden as food (Leviticus 11:7), were part of the local diet. Here could be found persons living among tombs, which Jews considered ritually impure. Rather than worshiping God, the Gerasenes had submitted to the culture and power structure of Rome, as evidenced by the name the demons provided to Jesus. “Legion” was also the designation of the principle unit of the Roman army.
From the perspective of Luke’s Jewish readers, the Gerasenes’ way of life may have seemed literal madness. How easily one could lose oneself in the cities of the Decapolis and drown in a sea of beliefs and practices incompatible with the reign of God.
Yet it is to this place that Jesus comes to rescue a man who had lost his mind, his health, and his sense of self. Reflecting upon Luke’s story of the Gerasene demoniac, we might ask ourselves what impure practices or thoughts from today’s society have possessed us. What “Legion” would we ask Christ to cast out of us, so that we might be freed of self-destructive tendencies and in joy go forth to share all that God has done for us.
Why change?
Ginny Hege Tobiassen, associate pastor, Home Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, N.C. • June 23, 2013
What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God?” Doesn’t it sound as if the speaker would rather Jesus had nothing to “do with” him? Especially when his next words are, “I beg you, do not torment me.” Yet he cries out his question as soon as he sees Jesus. Why does he call attention to himself if he wants Jesus to leave him alone?
Why do people behave the way they do? Because their behavior is working for them. When do people change? When it no longer works. The questions and answers are simple, but change is not. Change hurts. But the man in this story had reached a point where he would risk hurt, if it opened a space for healing.
What about the crowd? They came looking for a commotion; what they saw was a man they knew to be mentally ill, now healed and sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus. Instead of rejoicing, they “asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear.” What were they afraid of? Maybe they were wondering what Jesus might have to do with them. What change might Jesus effect in their lives? Would it hurt?
Jesus departed at their request, leaving the man he healed to proclaim the greatness of God. Did the crowd hear the man and weep, having missed their chance for healing? Or did they feel relief, knowing they could stay in their familiar patterns?
Perhaps it is only when we realize that our arrangements of life and self are just not working that we summon the courage to cry: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God?”
