The Shadows

The Gospel reading on Sunday was Matthew 8:28-9:1. It's the story of Jesus healing two demoniacs, giving permission to the expelled demons to enter a herd of swine, and the swine running into the sea and drowning. That's all pretty dramatic, but the primary drama takes place right after this, when the people of the Gergesenes ask Jesus to leave. Every time this reading comes up in the lectionary, our priest underscores this tragedy. That is, the tragedy of these people asking Christ to leave. That's a new emphasis for me. Especially before becoming Orthodox, I always focused on the swine killing themselves. I thought this was some sort of vivid illustration of the chaos and destruction brought about by demons. Maybe there is an element of truth in that, but this morning I began to see something a little more diabolic. Perhaps the demons simply wanted to enter the swine and destroy them in order to cause financial suffering for their owners. Perhaps it goes even further than this. Perhaps their real motive was to overshadow the healing of two demoniacs by creating a financial crisis which coincided with the healing. By so doing, they could implicate Jesus in the financial disaster and sour the locals on Him. That feels very familiar to me. It's like there's this invisible, spiritual battle going on that casts visible shadows in the material world. We have to be really careful of the conclusions we draw based on the shadows we can see, because shadows lack dimension and detail. Even the story preceding this one in Matthew's Gospel is on the same theme. The disciples climb into a boat with Jesus, and what happens? A raging storm blows up and threatens to capsize them. Where's Jesus? Sleeping soundly. I read this today and almost laughed. How many times I've accused God of "sleeping" while my life goes to hell in a handbasket. . .and here it is in black and white! But I noticed something today. The reaction of His disciples was very different from the reaction of the people of the Gergesenes. Instead of asking Him to leave, or throwing Him overboard like Jonah to the whale. . .they awoke Him and asked Him to save them. They couldn't see into the spiritual realm any better than the people of the Gergesenes, and yet they reacted to "the shadows" in a good way. Perhaps the difference is they knew Jesus and had come to love and trust Him. The people of the Gergesenes, on the other hand, didn't know or love Him and were therefore much more susceptible to misinterpreting "the shadows". I think it's going to prove useful to me to keep these two stories side by side in my mind. When disaster strikes, am I going to ask Jesus to save me or to leave me alone? I suppose it will all depend on whether or not I love and trust Him.