Where does Jesus take us?

During the week, I was listening to someone having a little rant. That happens from time to time. On this occasion, they were ranting about the English language, or more accurately the way the English language sometimes gets used. And their particular gripe was to do with the word “journey”. “Everyone’s been on a ‘journey’,” they complained. “These reality programmes like MasterChef, the people always say they’ve been on a journey. ‘Oh, it’s been an amazing journey,’ they say. But they haven’t been on a journey! They’ve been stuck for weeks on a television set. They haven’t been anywhere.”

Now, while I have some sympathy for my ranting friend, at the same time I understand what those folk are saying. When we experience something which is life-changing, something profound, something which takes us beyond what we have known to someplace new, we often use the language of “journey”. “Journey” is the metaphor for change.

Now while we’re discussing language issues and journeys, let’s consider this morning’s gospel reading. Here we have two journeys: one which is entirely physical – a real, bodily journey – and another which is altogether more metaphysical – a journey of the heart.

We begin with the real journey: Jesus and the disciples travel by boat from Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes. And as we’re interested in language matters, we should note that the NIV which Rhyllis read from says it thus:

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,

which is across the lake from Galilee.

But, if we compare it with the NRSV translation we find:

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes,

which is opposite Galilee.

“Across the lake from Galilee”?

Or “opposite Galilee”?

The Greek word is antiperan – and we recognise that prefix: anti. Anti, meaning against, opposing.

There are a number of occasions in the gospels where we hear about Jesus being opposite some place or other. In Mark 12, we’re told,

“And he sat down opposite the treasury” (Mk 12.41)

Hmmm… Jesus “opposite” the treasury?

And a few verses later we’re told,

“he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple” (Mk 13.3)

I’m sure the gospel writers were very careful in their selection of “anti” words to describe where Jesus sat, because this is not just about physical location, but also about spiritual location as well: opposite the treasury, opposite the temple.

Now this morning it is not Jesus who is “opposite”. It is the country of the Gerasenes which is opposite Galilee. It is the Gerasenes who oppose, it is they who reject the Jews of Galilee, and it is to this people that Jesus takes his disciples.

When we hear the “opposite” word, we should prepare ourselves for something which is going to be uncomfortable.

Now we don’t know a lot about the Gerasenes. We do know, though, that – like their Galilean neighbours – they were under Roman rule. Their country, too, had fallen to the foreigners and had to support their soldiers (legions of them) and to pay the burden of taxes to a Roman lord they will never meet or know. But here comes another Lord, a different Lord.

And what is the first thing that Jesus and his disciples encounter in this foreign place? A man “who had demons”; a man who was naked; a man who lived amongst the dead; a man possessed with fearsome strength.

This man embodies everything which the disciples may well have feared about the country of the Gerasenes. This man is “difference” made flesh.

And Jesus heals him.

Now there is a whole lot that could be said at this point about this healing. But this morning I just want to say this: Jesus heals the man.

Now the man is taken on a journey. This is life-changing. This is something so profound that the man will never, ever be the same again. Yes, this is a physical thing – from naked to clothed, from the tombs to the town – but this is far more than that. This is a journey from isolation and rejection to community and acceptance; from fear and loathing to faith and loving; this is the healing of a life not just a body.

Is it any wonder then that the man wants to go with Jesus? Surely a significant part of what has changed this man’s life must be the realisation that someone has come to him who does not want to chain him up, but who comes to set him free. And that man is a Galilean. Someone he is supposed to be “opposite”.

And Jesus is “opposite”: he is the opposite of everything we expect.

No wonder the healed man wants to go with this Jesus. But he doesn’t. Jesus tells him to stay in his own country, and there to speak of what God has done for him, what Jesus has done for him.

No physical journey, but a metaphysical journey.

What do we find in the reading from Galatians? I believe that we find the language to help us understand what has happened in the gospel story. Paul tells us:

There is no longer Jew or Greek,

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female;

for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.   (Gal 3:28)

Here we have a summary of every possible way there is of being different, both in Paul’s world and in ours.

In Paul’s world, everyone was either Jew or Greek; either you were a worshipper of the Jewish God or you weren’t and you were gathered under the name of Greek. And this is not just a religious way of dividing the world, of being different; it was also pretty much a political statement, an ethnic statement: you were either Jewish or you weren’t.

In exactly the same way, everyone in the world could be divided into either slave or free. This is the economic way of dividing people; and the social mechanism of difference: freedom to move, freedom to associate with others, freedom to determine your own life. You’re either slave or free.

And equally male and female is another way of splitting apart Paul’s world. This is far more than just a gender division; this is also about education, the public or private sphere, the whole cultural divide between two halves of society.

And Paul says, “In Jesus Christ, these divisions no longer exist. These barriers no longer matter. These are no longer the ways the world will be divided.”

In the gospel story, we see that this is true. These barriers no longer matter. Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus crosses from Jew to other;

he crosses from those who are free to one who is a slave.

And he takes his disciples with him.

Following Jesus means being taken across all those carefully erected barriers and boundaries to encounter those we used to think of as “different”, but whom we now recognise as being like us.

Yesterday, I went to a Winter Market. Do you know what the best bit of that was for me?

The thing that was most profound for me yesterday was to spend time with foreigners. To meet people whom I have never met before. People who don’t normally come to this place, who I might callously label as different because they’re not like me. But for a little while yesterday, in this place there were no Jews or Greeks or slaves or free or males and females.

Yesterday, it was just people. People created in the image and likeness of God, whether we know it or not.

Jesus Christ breaks into our lives, and takes us on a journey. Most often, like the healed man, it’s not a physical journey to a new location, but it’s a spiritual journey, a journey of the heart and soul.

Christ breaks into our lives, and we can do nothing other than respond to this Lord who comes to meet us and know us. Like the healed man, we must respond. We must go.

And where does Jesus take us? Across the sea, to the land of those who are different, to the land of those “opposite”. Jesus takes us to discover that:

There is no longer Jew or Greek,

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female;

for all of [us] are one in Christ Jesus.   (Gal 3:28)