Matthew 8:24-38
The Daily Office
What catches my attention in this story of Jesus’s power is the reaction of the local Gadarenes. “And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.” Their reaction caught Matthew’s attention as well. The word, “behold,” translates an emphatic Greek word meaning, “Look!” This verse could be paraphrased as follows: “Look! Can you believe that when the Gaderenes saw Jesus and his power that they begged him to leave?!”
The Gadarenes were Gentiles, thus they had no problem working with pigs, which the Jews considered unclean. By sending the demons into the pigs, Jesus had not exactly padded their owners’ bottom lines. But their neighbors, their friends, had been healed. And the townspeople could not travel out of the town in safety again. But these benefits were apparently not enough to override the concern for their economic losses, and perhaps even more, their fear of such power and the demands this power might make of them.
It’s amazing the dysfunction that human beings can manage to live with because, at least, it’s the dysfunction they know. And what one knows is often more comfortable than the unknown. So, what powers or forces in your life are you willing to compromise with for the sake of security? What chains are you bearing in your life? Have those chains become comfortable enough that you would rather wear them then be free of them? Would you also beg the one who would free you to leave?
No comments:
Post a Comment