Beyond Belief: The Call to Follow Christ
Sermon preached by Dimitri Newman on Sunday, July 28, 2024
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God, Amen!
Christ is in our midst!
In today’s Gospel we hear of Christ encountering two demoniacs in the country of the Gergesenes. When the demons encounter Christ, they instantly recognize Him, calling Him “Son of God.” When St. Luke recounts this miracle they fell down before Christ and in the Gospel according to St. Mark, he uses the term προσεκύνησεν, fell down in worship. In every account of this miracle the demons beg not to be tormented before their time and ask to be sent into a herd of swine.
Now these demons were powerful entities; they drove the men they possessed to live in the tombs which would have lined the streets outside of the city gates, terrorizing anyone who would venture there, to the point that St. Matthew tells us that “no one would pass that way” and in the other accounts when the people of the city tried to bind them in chains, they would break them. And then when they see Christ they instantly fall before Him; they know who Christ is and are bound to his authority. As St. James tells us “Even the demons believe—and tremble! “
In fact the demons might well believe more than we. In his recent lecture at the Telos Center Fr. John Behr shared this question that he used to ask his students at seminary: “If you were around Galilee around the time of Christ would you have recognized Him as the Son of God?” If they answered “yes” he would tell them, they were likely demon-possessed, because in the synoptic Gospels, it is only the demons who recognize Christ as the Son of God. When the people of the city hear of this miracle they are not convinced of the divinity of Christ, as the demons were, but are blinded by their fear of Christ and are not able to recognize Him. They are afraid of Christ because he was able to show such power over the demons; the demons that had overpowered all the means that the people of the city came up with to deal with them. To the people of the city, which was more than likely a gentile city (due to the presence of a herd of swine, which was unlawful for the Jewish people) the demon-possessed would have been seen as touched by the gods and granted these powers. Demons themselves were not necessarily seen as evil by the gentiles, even Socrates was said to have been possessed by a demon who would whisper to him warnings of mistakes. Because Christ proved to have power over what these gentiles would have seen as gods they feared Christ and demanded that he leave the region immediately.
Now we do not live in 1st Century Galilee or Judea so how can we possibly miss recognizing Christ. In Genesis 1:27 “God made man: in the image of God He made him” and in Matthew 25:40 in the parable of the Goats and Sheep Christ says “‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” All people are icons of Christ and Christ dwells in each of us, even if the image has been obscured. Like the people of the city, when we are guided by fear rather than love, we risk overlooking the image of Christ in others.
It seems like we are living through a period of great fear. As we get closer and closer to the election, it seems that the fear on each side has reached a boiling point. We have divisions everywhere: in our country, in our schools, in the workplace, in our churches. There is a great lack of trust in others, people assume ill intent, miscommunication and misinformation is shared with little concern for accuracy. This reminds me of an interaction I recently had with a friend, let’s call her Jane. She had recently discovered that a long-time friend of hers belonged to a particular political party. Up until this point they had never discussed politics. Jane expressed concern to me over this realization, unsure of what to think of her friend in this new light. Though it might not seem like it, in the current climate, it is possible to disagree concerning politics, but continue to love and respect our friends who might disagree with us; not if we allow fear to continue to divide us, however. I recognize that this can be a very difficult thing to do. It is only through Christ himself that we can overcome this type of fear and come to recognize Christ in other people. St. Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, reminds us that “We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.” We start to do this by gathering in community, where we are right now in Liturgy and when we gather downstairs for fellowship hour. In Matthew 18:20 Christ says “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” and at every liturgy Father Antony says “Christ is in midst” and Christ is truly present with us. When we overcome our fear of others and gather with them, that's when we will see Christ.
So then if we have at least the same belief as demons to recognize Christ, in our case to recognize Christ in other people, even people we are conditioned to be afraid of and hate, should we not do more than merely recognize? Is it enough to simply not fear or hate my neighbor because I recognize Christ in him? Then are we much better than demons? When St. James tells us that the demons believe in God and tremble, he also tells us that “faith without works is dead” Then if we wish to be better than demons, we must care for our neighbors, get to know them, comfort them, befriend them, serve them. When we know the people in our community, we learn best how to serve them. Through more intentional interactions within our communities we not only learn to recognize Christ in others, but also work towards faithfulness to Christ by positively impacting our communities. In this way we might be better than the demons, which I think is a pretty good goal.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen!