On Not Throwing Stones
(2 Sam 15:13 – 16:13; Ps 3; Mk 5:1-200
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A vain king who lived in a glass palace and loved hording, kept on buying more and more thrones and storing them in his attic. Finally, one day they all came crashing down. The moral of the story is that “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t stow thrones!”
The readings today invite us to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, come to him for forgiveness and healing, and forgive others instead of throwing stones at them.
To get the most out of these readings, it is good to remember that Jesus came with a two-fold mission as the Messiah: to redeem and to sanctify – to forgive and to heal. We see that mission unfolding in the readings.
The first reading focuses on Jesus’ mission to forgive. We know that King David sinned grievously (lust, adultery and arranging a murder), but when confronted by the prophet Nathan, repented and experienced God’s unconditional love and mercy as forgiveness. That experience transformed David into the only true King Israel ever had, and a forerunner of Jesus, who thereby was referred to as Son of David, born in the city of David, of the lineage of David.
In today’s passage, however, we see in the person of Shemei, the all too familiar phenomena of hard-hearted, self-righteous people who refuse to forgive those who have done wrong even though they have changed their lives. Shemei ignores David’s repentance and transformation, thinks only of what he has done wrong, curses him, calls him a murderer and scoundrel, and throws stones at him.
Unfortunately, that tendency persists to this day. Angie Mihalicz used to ask her students in Christian Ethics class in Beauval, when discussing the story of the prodigal son, to write out a time when they were prodigal sons or daughters. They had no problem writing about when they had messed up, but to a person stopped when it came to the part about the forgiving father who lavished love on his repentant son. The reason they gave is, that was not how it was – they were always remembered for what they had done wrong. So, they never really felt truly forgiven.
I know of two men, one with a colored past, the other from a failed marriage, who both want to become priests. Both are prevented from doing so by unforgiving persons who won’t let go of their own agenda and anger, who ignore the sincere change on the part of these men, and who put up obstacles to the process of their moving forward. I know of another young recovering addict and ex-convict who has repented, received forgiveness, changed his life completely, is doing amazing work helping others, but is prevented from participating in a service organization because someone in that organization, for some reason, perhaps jealousy, has objected to his past. Unforgiveness is a blight on the life of the church.
So, we see that the forgiveness portion of the mission of Jesus itself is two-fold: we need to come to him for forgiveness, but we also need to forgive those who have hurt us, and do what we can to help them move on with their lives, or we are not really following Jesus, nor are we living the “Our Father” prayer.
The gospel focuses us on the healing dimension of Jesus’ mission, and indirectly, our need for healing. While there seems to be a great injustice to the owner of the pigs that all drowned, we have to remember that this is a story that Mark is recounting to teach an important lesson, and not to be taken literally – it is highly doubtful that a poor Geresene farmer had two thousand pigs grazing in a field somewhere!
Healing of the Gerasene demoniac
The lesson is that we all have unclean spirits within us that Jesus wants to deliver us from. Those unclean spirits may be defects of character and negative attitudes like false pride, unforgiveness, selfishness, stubbornness, tendency to judge others, a superior attitude, self-righteousness, etc. Or they may addictions in our lives.
The fact that two thousand pigs rushed to the sea and drowned is teaching us that Jesus wants to deliver us and heal us of all our character defects, not just a few. We cannot drag into heaven any negativity at all – no sinfulness, painful emotion, defect of character or addiction. Our shortcomings, all two thousand of them, must drown, be destroyed, or we cannot really fully experience the kingdom of heaven right here and right now, which Jesus came to inaugurate and share with us.
Step six and seven of the A.A. program make precisely the same point: “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character,” and “Humbly asked God to remove all shortcomings.” We need to take our cue from these steps as followers of Jesus.
There are other significant details in this gospel account. First, there is no “messianic secret” because Jesus is in gentile territory where there is no false concept of a warrior Messiah nor any danger of anyone trying to make him king, so Jesus feels free to tell the healed man to proclaim what God has done for him.
Second, while the Jewish people refused to believe in Jesus as the Messiah; the Geresenes actually asked Jesus to leave their area, unable to see how a healing far surpasses economic concerns; and the people in the Decapolis were just “amazed,” it is the demons who recognized Jesus as Son of the Most High God. Certainly, there is a divine irony here that invites us to wholeheartedly believe in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God.
The Eucharist is for us today, especially in the light of these readings, an experience of forgiveness and healing, and also a mandate to go out and forgive anyone who has ever hurt us.
May our celebration deepen our faith in Jesus as Messiah, open us up to receive healing of our shortcomings, and empower us to stop throwing stones at others and forgive them from the heart instead.
