Sermon on Sunday the 23rd after Pentecost [2011]

Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,

in today’s Gospel [Luke 8, 26-39], we have to do with demons…And not with demons of Hollywood, which are fictions…but with a man effectively demonized (v. 27), from „the country of the Gerasene” [acc. GNT…or „the Gadarenes”, acc. KJV].

For that the Lord went in this land…and a man of the city, demonized, met Him. And the 27th verse says us, in subsidiary, that only he sought something good, only he, the demonized, in that land…

And the Lord does something for that one that comes in the meeting of Him!

Although the demonized looked terrible, since at long time he did not wear garment, but he stands in graves [v. 27], our Lord does not make the careless.

For that the Lord saw how many demons are in male…but and what faith lay in him. He knew, alike, the man’s suffering and potencies.

And we should to do the same: to see the deep well of people…beyond their clothes or their social position. Because only thus we can, in effective mode, to help someone.

For that the aid should receive the one who needs it.

The demons knew who is Jesus: the Son of God the Most High [v. 28]. And all from here, we learn that the demons know is worthy of torment.

Thus standing the things, demons are not „good guys” but, contrariwise, they are unhappy beings, because they find pleasure in evil and not in good.

The evil builds not but destroys!

And the demonized, about whom we’re talking, was a destroyed man, an unsocial, a marginal.

The demons drew him from society…made him to go naked, without clothing…and live in tombs… because demons do not love beautiful, quiet, life together, in harmony.

And our postmodernity has just these characteristics: is the world of furious individualism, of indecency without curtain and of the existential ugly.

We want pleasure, money, life just for us…we are not interested how many bodies we pass over…and we adulate us, the faces and our lives, no matter how ugly or disgusting they are.

Because we like to be nothing, to live without value.

But when the Lord begin to command the unclean spirit „to go out from the man” [v. 29, acc. GNT]…and demons said that they are legion (v. 30), ie about 5000-6000 demons in one man, we understand that the exorcisory of a man, in the Church, is a spiritual and medical problem in the same time.

For that you can not be exorcised at hospital…and demons do not leave the man through medication.

Only at Church, the priest, through the grace of God, can command the demons to leave the man.

The grace of the priesthood, on the one hand…and the desire of demonized to heal, on the other side.

And if in the films with exorcists…everything seems easy, even „a play”…in real life, an exorcism means to stand face to face with evil beings, perverse and cruel…and with a man or a woman exhausted, knocked down, de-structured interior.

It means hours, days, years of struggle, pain…and powerlessness…Because it is not just the getting out of demon…but and the healing of man of catastrophic consequences of this experience.

Crowd of demons…and they require not „to depart into boundless/ bottomless” [v. 31, cf. GNT]…in greek being: „into abyss” [eivj th.n a;busson, acc. Ibidem].

Demons do not want to go in Hell…fact for that, with the permission of the Lord [v. 32], they enter into pigs and drowned the herd in the lake [v. 33].

But, with all what they had done to the man, we see at here that the Lord did not allow them to kill the man.

For that therefore they were so angry: because they could not lead their evil to the end!

But those who were growing pigs do not enjoy at the healing of who was demonized [v. 35]…but, right reward, they banished the Lord [v. 37].

And we’re not very handy this example today, when we do not know how to thank? When we no longer know how to praise God, for all the blessings in our lives?

The lack of gratitude is a real curse, because it takes us the joy of life and the spiritual reconciliation.

And when you do not feel the good in yourself … you do not feel good anywhere.

The former demonized but, proved full of gratitude to the Lord. He preached in the whole city, as an Apostle, „as great as to do himself Jesus” [v. 39, acc. GNT].

Because the gratitude is just the permanentness of the good in us. And when we are in the good of the grace of God, then we can rejoice spiritually.

In conclusion, the demons exist, demonization is spiritual not mental illness, only priests could exorcise people and the sequels are numerous…and they need time to heal.

To deny the demonization or ironized it does not give a helping hand to those who are harmed by demons. But the prayers for them, their understanding, bringing them to Church means to help them.

For that the Lord requires of all a continuous change of our lives. A change through virtue.

And without a life in purity and holiness we can not escape the passions, even if we are not demonized in the last stage.

Because our struggle with passions should make us realize the suffering of those demonized and we should want to come in rescue. Amen!

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