Homily for the 5th Sunday of Pentecost

Matthew 8:28-34, 9:1 (Two demoniacs and the swine)

I Corinthians 12:27-13:8 (Gifts of the Spirit and Love defined)

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit:

In the wisdom of the Church, the gospel for today and the Epistle are a  compelling combination. In the Gospel we heard of people in their worst
state, inhabited by demons, whereas in the Epistle we heard how to avoid this terrible situation through Love. Let's start with the unfortunate
demon-possessed swine herders.

Firstly, we should note that the people who owned the swine were disobeying Jewish Law. The Jews were not to eat pork or deal with swine. This prohibition was handed down to them from Old Testament Law. The Jews who lived in this region were therefore disobeying their own Law. Upon seeing Christ sending the demons into their swine and fearing the loss of their livelihood they were blinded to the reality of Christ, the Messiah, in their midst! The swine herders and their neighbors 'besought' Christ to leave their area, virtually chasing the Son of God away. One cannot help thinking that the disobedience of these people helps explains why at least two of them had become demon possessed in the first place.

Here we are reminded that disobeying God leads to misfortune. God doesn't desire us to be hurt or suffer needlessly, but as we make choices and act upon our own desires the result of those choices can bring troubling and often severe consequences. Our choices are truly ours to make, and as we make them prayerfully, according to God's guidance, we move toward our salvation. As we choose away from God's guidance we also move away from God's protection and our salvation.

Can our selfish choices be redeemed through God's love and mercy? Certainly.
As we repent and turn toward Him, our poor choices can be negated by His love. Can we choose away from God and suffer the fate of the swine herders?
The answer here is Yes, again. If we were to continue to choose away from God's will and His guidance a process would begin that could undermine our path to salvation and erode our faith in God. According to the Gospel, here's how it may have happened in the case of the swine herders.

Firstly, the Gospel makes it clear that demons do exist and that they can
possess men. There are people who call themselves Christians, but in their attempt to be reasonable and scientific maintain that demons do not exist and that they most certainly couldn't enter into people. This gospel reading should help to dispel the idea that these men were simply "ill" or emotionally disturbed. Matthew makes it clear four chapters earlier that they knew the difference between epileptics, paralytics and demoniacs. Christ doesn't choose to deal with these men as simply ill people at all. He deals directly with the demons possessing them. Only after the demons are expelled does He speak to the men previously possessed.

Here, we can begin to see for ourselves this phenomenon of demon possession.
The Fathers of the Church, some of whom we commemorate today, tell us that that we cannot simply become possessed overnight. Possession is the ultimate stage in a subtle and sinful process of habitually choosing away from God.

The first stage of that process is when we begin to surrender our free will
and we begin to habitually 'entertain' demonic thoughts; thoughts contrary to God's Word and His will. The second stage is when demons come to hound and obsess us with more and more appealing ideas of how we could get more out of life if we just made more choices in our self-interest; then, in time, we become less and less able to fight against this demonic influence over us. As God's light and love is displaced, fear creeps into the void.
Fear of others, fear of losing what we have, fear of change.

Demonic thoughts can stalk us, becoming a real, moment to moment obsession, replacing our humble dependence upon God with prideful dependence upon our own plans and desires. Anyone who questions our motives is held in suspicion.

The third stage in this process of possession, demons actually come to fill the spiritual void we have created and live inside us, attempting to own or possess us as their agents or property. This is when a person has totally surrendered their free will to resist temptation. The demoniacs were in this stage of possession and it became apparent because they had no love left in them. They had become fierce and unapproachable. In this gospel we learn that the Devil and demonic possession are realities. Satan would have us think this idea silly and ignorant. In this Gospel passage, Christ demonstrates the seriousness of this situation and treats demonic possession as a real and serious thing.

In this short but dynamic Gospel reading, we should take notice three
characteristics of the demons. First of all, they dwell in tombs. They live
in tombs because they are spiritually dead. The demons are violent, alien to peace, and as the Gospel says, 'exceedingly fierce, so that no man might pass by that way'.

Finally, the demons are also believers. This should not surprise us. For
demons are bodiless, spiritual beings, fallen angels. Here we should
remember that there are many sorts of spirituality, one of which is the dark spirituality of the demons. Unlike ourselves, who often have a hard times seeing past the physical world, the demons see reality as it is, they see the spiritual basis of all things. This is why they waste no time in
confessing Christ as He really is: as the 'Son of God'. They have no
illusions that Christ may only be some man, albeit a prophet, or simply a gifted person of great intelligence and holiness. No, the demons recognize immediately that he is the Son of God. The demons know spiritual reality. According to one Father of the Church, St Simeon the New Theologian, the devils lack only one thing: Love. They traded it for pride. Indeed, according to St. Simeon: 'theology without love is the theology of the demons'.

Therefore we learn that Love is the abiding characteristic of God. And this brings us to the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. In contrast to the possession of the demoniacs, St. Paul talks in the Epistle of our
belonging. We are members of Christ's body, both individually and
corporately. We have been given gifts to minister to one another. Still, as
St. Paul warns, gifts and talents, however great, without love are nothing.
As one old saying goes, "the world is full of talented derelicts".

When we belong to Christ, we are infused with His love, filled with it, if
we choose to accept it. This filling of love prevents a dangerous void or
vacuum in our spirit that could provide an invitation to demons.
Mysteriously, God is both Love itself and the source of all love, and He
freely gives us this gift of His love until we overflow. This overflowing
love forces out all this is not of God, especially our tendency toward
pride. We must humbly cling to Christ to keep belonging. We must strive, without fear or anxiety, to accept His overflowing gift of love,
moment-by-moment, and share our gifts and talents with one another for the health of the whole body of Christ. This love of God's is perfect. Perfect love casts out all fear. The demon legions of the Enemy are without love and fueled by fear. Full of love and emptied of fear, they are no threat to us, except as God permits for our perfection. In His love, all their efforts become tools for our salvation rather than weapons to attack it.

But,
"Shhhhhhh...The demons, blinded by fear and pride don't know this."

As we live in the love of God, we are under no threat of falling victim to
demon possession. Follow the admonition of St. Paul. Be filled with God's love, and give it away with your gifts and talents whenever possible. His love will keep flowing into you in the same measure as you share it. St. Paul gives us the most excellent way of love in the 13th chapter of this Corinthian letter. Read it often, pray over it, immerse yourselves in it and live a fearless life of real love. The demons will avoid you and God will keep you close. God's love conquers all! Life is short, love hard!

In the name of the Father...