Galatians 2:16-20
Luke 8:26-39
We all know what it is means not to
feel like ourselves. We can become so
out of sorts for all kinds of reasons that we do not think or act like we
usually do. Sometimes we do not even
recognize our thoughts, words, or deeds as our own, and wonder where certain
impulses or behaviors come from. And we rightly fear what would happen if we
accepted those inclinations and let them shape our souls.
St. Paul recognized that human
beings do not become their true selves simply by trying to obey a code of conduct. The Old Testament law, about which he was an
expert as a Pharisee, made clear to him how far he was from holiness, for he
constantly fell short of it. But he found
a new identity in dying and rising with Christ.
He found his true self in God’s image and likeness, for “it is no longer
I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.”
Instead of being defined as one who inevitably fell short of the law and
was captive to sin, he became through faith one who participates in the
righteousness of Christ, one who has risen in Him from sin and death to the life
of holiness for which God created us in the first place. By faith in Jesus Christ, St. Paul became his
true self.
If that was a struggle for St. Paul,
imagine what an ordeal it was for the Gadarene demoniac, the man in today’s
gospel reading. He was so filled with
demons and consumed by evil that he called himself “Legion,” which meant a
division of the Roman army containing thousands of soldiers. His sense of personal identity had
disintegrated into a mass of a great many demons. Like Adam and Eve who stripped themselves of
the divine glory by their sin, he too was naked and without the dignity of a
child of God. He lived among the tombs, held
captive by corruption and cut off from everyone else. He was such a terror that
he broke the chains that bound him and fled alone into the desert. This poor man is an icon of our alienation
from ourselves, others, and life itself that evil so easily works in us. He was
very far from his true self. And even the best code of behavior would not have
helped him. He did not need just a bit
of instruction; no, he needed the healing and cleansing of his soul—the
restoration of his humanity. Like St.
Paul, he needed to die to sin and rise to a new life in Christ.
That is what the Lord gave him by
casting the demons into a herd of pigs, which then stampeded into the lake and
drowned. The locals were so astonished
by what had happened, and especially by seeing this fellow in his right mind,
that they were terrified to the point of asking Christ to leave their
region. Understandably, the man whom
Christ delivered wanted to go with Him, but the Lord told him to stay there and
proclaim all that He had done for him. He
was to do the difficult job of bearing witness to the good news among people
who knew him, and his horrible past, all too well.
Both St. Paul and the Gadarene
demoniac remind us that we must accept a
kind of death in order to become our true selves. It is a death, first, to our efforts at
self-justification, to our attempts to make ourselves perfect simply by our own
abilities. There is often no one more
anxious and depressed than a perfectionist, for we never reach that high goal. If that is our approach, then we will be like
St. Paul in gaining only slavery to a sense of imperfection and brokenness by obsessively trying to justify ourselves in doing everything right all the time. Though we may think that we are serving God
in this way, we are actually serving only ourselves by doing all that we can to
hide our sickness and corruption even from ourselves. At the root of our efforts at
self-justification is pride, which blinds us from seeing the truth about
ourselves, others, and God. We need to
die and rise with Christ, not simply a list of rules against which to judge
ourselves and others. Our justification is
in Him, not in our own attempts to master a code of conduct.
Like the demon-possessed man, we
must also die to accepting our distorted condition as normal, natural, or who
we truly are. There is some pain in
doing that, for we get used to living on our own terms, giving in to
temptations that are all too familiar, and excusing any behavior by saying we
are being true to ourselves. The problem
is that the self so comfortable with sin is not our true self, but a form of
“Legion”—of a distorted identity that we take on due to our acceptance of corruption
in our hearts and lives. The Gadarene
demoniac asked Christ not to torment him, and we may feel the same way when we
realize that we must do the hard work of repenting and reorienting our lives
according to God’s purposes for us. But
like him, we must do so in order to become our true selves in the image and
likeness of God. That is never a reward
for legalistic perfection, but a way of dying and rising with Christ as we
become more fully human in God’s image and likeness.
Our spiritual journeys will surely
not be as flamboyant or famous as those of St. Paul and the Gadarene demoniac,
but the challenges we face are very similar.
Too many have turned Christianity into a self-righteous system of legalism
in which it is all too easy for self-appointed judges to separate the sheep
from the goats, as though they were the Lord as the Last Judgment. Instead of a vocation to shine with heavenly
light and participate personally in God’s gracious Divine Energies, some water
the faith down to a simple list of “do’s” and “don’ts” that usually fits with popular
cultural notions about who is good and who is bad. Of course, there are paths that lead to
holiness and paths that do not; the Church provides many clear and steadfast resources
to guide us in the right direction. But the
difference between true and false paths is not mere legalism. The key factor, instead, is whether a path leads
to fuller participation in the life of Christ, which requires both faith and
faithfulness and forbids the self-righteous condemnation of others. Saul, the great persecutor of Christians,
became St. Paul by faith and repentance in response to the gracious calling of
the Risen Lord. St. Paul called himself
the chief of sinners and knew that he was made right with God by mercy, not his
own accomplishment. “It is no longer I
who live but Christ Who lives in me.” He
gave up all attempts at self-justification. That is how he became his true self
in God’s image and likeness.
On other hand, many others have turned
Christianity into a kind of spiritual self-indulgence that requires very little
of anyone. Some water the faith down to
acceptance of virtually any belief, behavior, or inclination in what amounts to
little more than religious sentimentality.
Remember, however, that Christ did not simply help the demon-possessed
man to feel better about himself and otherwise do as he pleased; no, he cast
evil out of him, gave him his life back, and commanded him to stay in that
region and bear witness to how God had delivered him. The Lord empowered him for a challenging life
of holiness and changed him in a way that astonished everyone who knew him. That fellow could then say with St. Paul, “It
is no longer I who live but Christ Who lives in me.” Like the Apostle, he surely knew that his
salvation was not somehow his own accomplishment or just a nice feeling, but
the gracious gift of a Lord “Who loved me and gave Himself for me” in ways that
infinitely surpassed what even the best legal code could ever achieve.
Like St. Paul and the Gadarene demoniac,
we will become our true selves in God’s image and likeness by participating in
the grace and mercy of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ. Like them, we must die both to self-righteous
legalism and to the sinful corruptions that have become second nature to us. We must have faith in Christ even as we pursue
a faithful life, turning away from all that distorts our beauty as the living
icons of our Lord. The more closely we
unite ourselves with Him, the more fully we become our true selves. For He made us to be neither Pharisees nor
“Legion,” but His beloved sons and daughters who become ever more like Him in
holiness. That is the calling of each and
every one of us; and through repentance, faith, and love, we may answer it to the
glory of God.
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