Wednesday, April 3, 2019

My Name is Legion - Reimagining Mark 5:1-20

Several weeks ago at our church's morning prayer service we read the story of Jesus casting out the demons from the man at the tombs into the pigs and the story caught my imagination.  There was so much going on in this little story that it seemed almost impossible to capture it all.  How did the man end up living among the tombs?  How did he as a Jew end up living in a gentile town?  Where were his family members?  How did he become so mentally deranged?  Symbolically what would it have meant for the demons to be described as a Roman military unit?  Why were the townsmen, who didn't really seem to care about him, trying to chain him?  Certainly not to help him.  What were the pigs doing there?  What was Jesus doing there?  How would it have felt?  I figured there was a chance in real life that if someone was in such desperate circumstances it was because the support groups that could have lifted him up chose to throw him down instead.  I decided to write a fiction short story trying to capture the way this story moved in my imagination, and this is what came out.

My Name is Legion

"And never come back!"  The scream echoes in your mind as you walk away.  The noises, the screams... They were always so overwhelming.  Unfortunately dad knew just how overwhelming and liked to do it on purpose as if to prove that that made him better than his mentally crippled son.  Not that anyone else really cared.  You've never gotten the story, but it seems as if you remind mom of someone unpleasant and she's always taken it out on you as well.  The beatings, the screaming, the horrible fear of never being certain anyone would really care if you died.  The laughter and scorn the times you got hurt...  The odd and terrified way you act when people look at you or when loud noises startle you make everyone pretend you’re possessed.  It's even become a public sport, scaring the "demon kid".  Maybe in the next town there will be someone who will be safe.  Stupid thing to hope for, it's not as if that isn't a lie you've told yourself thousands of times with other people in the town you came from, not as if they ever cared.  But the desperate sense of hope just won't quite go away.

The next town, unfortunately, is no better.  You show up, starving and bedraggled, begging for food.  The way you flinch away from their eyes fearing and attack at any moment is hard to disguise.  You try to hold still, not moving in ways that seem "odd" or "demon possessed" as your your family and neighbors back home always called it.  The people of this town belong to a different religion, so perhaps things will be different.  But it's hard to hide and ask for food at the same time, and next thing you know, you've been driven out of town.  The old cemetery is the only place they don't try to run you off, since they figure a demon kid, yes the name followed you, belongs there hanging out with the ghouls in the cemetery.  Everything that goes bump in the night terrifies you, worrying that the ghouls might really be there.  Perhaps this is a fitting place to end, the demon kid devoured by demons in the cemetery where only the unclean would go willingly, scavenging unclean food offerings left for the dead in unholy ceremonies.

Of course that is the one sure way of pissing off the local priests and Mystics who lead the ceremonies where the offerings are left, or who wander through the cemetery boosting their reputation by performing exorcisms of the cemetery grounds.  Since you've been declared to be the most visible demon of the cemetery grounds, these exorcisms turn into being chased around the grounds and along the cliff side while the holy men whip up crowds to chase you around with chains, claiming that their dead won't rest until the living demon returns to the underworld, preferably by leaving you tied up to starve to death.  Mostly the local swineherds join in, since watching their filthy charges apparently leaves them with too much time on their hands.  So far you've been lucky, the black out rage and fear that comes when they gang up on you is simply too terrifying for them to gather enough townsfolk to be able to catch you.  Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't happen soon.  Every sound leaves you cowering in fear, running from place to place trying to find enough food to simply survive before they catch you.  Because someday, they will catch you...  Maybe it would be a fitting end, everyone in your life has seemed to agree on this point, everything they hate in the world seems to reside in you.

Today there was a new mystic wandering through town.  He is a Jew and so isn’t going to try to sic the local pig boys on you, not that that is much comfort, given that your own people have essentially thrown you out.  What exactly he is doing here… well its unclear, but they leave food behind which is all that you care about.

Eventually you get brave enough to try to see what he is doing.  Its as if he and his followers are having a picnic.  The mystic sees you and waves you over.  You panic and run.  You have no illusions about your smell or the state of your clothes which are little more than rags at this point.  Hiding from a safe place further away, you are shocked to see one of his followers gather up some food, walk half way to you, and leave it on the ground just like the piles of food that have been left every time they visit.  They’ve been leaving it for you on purpose!  Maybe you were wrong to run.  Terrified, you inch over to the food.  They smile at you encouragingly when you begin to eat and motion that they have more.  Slowly, you walk over and sit at the very edge of the group.  This must be the craziest Jewish mystic you’ve ever heard of, hanging out near pagan cemeteries to have picnics and intentionally feeding crazy demon beggars like yourself.  It’s as if he’s proving how many ways he can be unclean at once, eating food near a cursed place and sharing table with like you whose been living among the tombs. 

As you finish eating, he asks “What’s been ailing you, I mean aside from being starving?”. 

“I’m demonically possessed,” you reply, “or at least everybody always has said so and they’ve got to be right.  So what’s it to you, you’re just an ordinary person like anybody else, other than that you’re crazy enough to be near me.” 

The mystic, looking saddened, answers “What’s your name?” 

You start to shout back “I don’t have a name, all I have is a legion of demons occupying my soul just as sure as the Roman legion controls this country, and coming to a place like this you’re probably too unclean to cast them out anyways so what is it to you?  There’s no more chance of me being free than of the Roman’s being driven away”. 

The shouting was a mistake. The local pig boys have heard and come running, driving their pigs before them, shouting that they’ve got you now and you’ll pay for desecrating their cemetery.  The mystic flies into a rage and starts shouting as well, leaving you cowering in a ball.  After a few moments without being attacked, you calm just enough to understand what is being said.  He isn’t shouting at you.  He’s demanding to know why you deserve to die for desecrating a cemetery, when if the town would feed you and take care of you, instead of driving you to the edge of town you wouldn’t disturb their offerings in the first place.  And that their hatred of you is what desecrates the cemetery, and not as if he cares because cemeteries are full of the unclean bodies of the dead anyways as far as he is concerned and the least they can do is to not attempt murder of a sick man on top of their ancestors’ bones. 

You’re in shock.  No one has defended you since… well you aren’t sure.  Whoever did it last must have been just as crazy as this mystic.  A hand touches your shoulder, one of his followers trying to soothe your terror.  You get up just in time to see the pigs, terrified at their keepers’ distress, run right off the side of the cliff.  The pig boys are running in terror back to the city.  This won’t be good tomorrow, but for now you start crying and laughing hysterically with relief.  At least today, you won’t die.  As you calm down, they offer you more food and some of their spare clothes.  With relief you start explaining how you were driven from your home by your family that hates you, how no one in your home town would even feed you, how you ran away to this Godforsaken place and have been living on the edge between life and death in this place of death.  “Please please, let me come with you,” you beg.  This is the first time you’ve felt safe in years and the fog is lifted from your mind just being around him. 

Meanwhile, representatives of the town arrive, demanding to know what right this stranger has to drive their pigs off the cliff.  Seeing you looking calm and dressed well, they look at you in shock, demanding to know if the demons were cast out of you into the pigs.  Which, as far as you are concerned, is just about true and you grin at the townsmen, knowing what will happen if they try to attack you again.  This smile and your direct gaze unnerves them and they start to beg the mystic, Jesus, to leave before more ill omens arrive to terrorize the town.  Looking at them directly is still hard, but now that you feel safe, it doesn’t seem to matter as much, especially since they’re the ones squirming instead of you for once.  Jesus, apparently deciding this town has had enough of him, agrees to leave.  You ask again if you can come with them.  Instead, he tells you that God is love and God loves everyone including you, just as Jesus has loved you in feeding and clothing you, saving you from this place of death.  He challenges you to tell your family and friends what God has done for you, inviting them to the Love of God instead of the hate that they’ve been living on for all this years.  A sly grin comes over your face, imagining casting the hatred out of their hearts just like the pigs leaped over the cliff in fear of love.  Maybe nobody will believe you about God being love, but a story about a mad mystic who channels the love of God so passionately that its as if God himself as touched you when he does and loves with such power that pigs go jumping off cliffs…  Everyone will want to hear about this.  With fresh clothes on your back and food in your stomach, you head back to Decapolis to face the demons that have been driven from your heart by this act of love, but still reside in your family…  Probably they won’t listen and will scream out more abuse to drive you off.  That’s a terrifying thought, loud sounds are always hard.  But your family, well… its worth a try…  If pigs can jump off cliffs maybe their demons might run away too.