Ordinary Time 18: The Exorcism of the Gerasene Demoniac

As Mandy taught that Luke’s story of the Gerasene demoniac is full of political and military language, she asked us to consider that this story might be more political commentary, along the lines of a satirical political cartoon, than we may realize.

What’s it like for you to consider this story that way? What’s it like for you to think about any content of the Bible through this lens?

If it brings up resistance for you, share about it. If there’s something about the idea that resonates or makes sense, share about that too. What, in your own personal experience of reading and studying the Bible, might quietly underlie and shape initial responses to this idea?

Mandy shared a quote from theologian Dr. Paul Hollenbach: “Demon possession [in the Bible] is often a reflection of class antagonisms rooted in economic exploitation, or a socially acceptable form of protest against, or escape from, oppression.”

For many of us, this turns what we may have learned in the past about the idea of “demon possession” on its head. What does this framing stir up for you? What thoughts, questions, or emotions arise as you consider that there may be a different - and perhaps better contextualized - way to understand the Biblical stories about demon-possessed people?

Regardless of how you’ve understood those stories about the possessed, spend a little time thinking about who in today’s context might be a rough equivalent of the Gerasene man in the Luke passage from today. Who would they be? What about them makes them possible candidates for this potential label?

Assuming that demon possession isn't your go-to, what might be? And how do those conditions & circumstances (as you understand them) hold up within the framework presented by Dr. Hollenbach?

As she closed her sermon, Mandy summed up one of her themes with this simple sentence: “healing is so disruptive.”

What do you think about that statement? On its face, is it something that feels more true than false? Or vice versa? Why?

What examples do you have from your own personal or communal life of healing that has disrupted the status quo? In what ways is individual healing different from social healing? In what ways is it the same?