"Come Quickly, Lord Jesus!"

Our lesson boldly proclaims that Jesus is God. And His mighty works are plainly to be seen by all. Moreover, the man declaring Jesus' Divinity "went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city."

We do not know his name. We do not know his family background. We do not know which sins laid open his mind and soul to an infestation of demons. If we did know these things, he would have been glorified as a saint long ago. He would have appeared on our Calendar with St. Photini. He would have been deemed an "Equal-to-the-Apostles."

The parallel with St Photini is obvious:

Surely, the man of Gad attested by St. Luke is among the first of the evangelists. Like the myrrh-bearing women, he was devoted to Jesus begging that to be accepted as a disciple, kneeling at Jesus' knee. But Jesus sends him away to preach to his own house, his own tribe.

The basic premise of the Incarnation is that God has come to gather the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel. As we have considered many times, of the Twelve Disciples Jesus has chosen, eleven are Hebrew, not Jewish, men. They descend from the tribes outside of Judah, which did not participate in the Exile to Babylon.

Those who were not carried off to Babylon were labeled "outsiders." They were not be considered among the People of God. According to the Ezra-Nehemiah tradition, only the exiles had passed through the "Second Exodus". (Cf. Han Georg Wunch, "'Dismiss Foreign Wives!'" OTE 34/3 (2021): 873ff.) And this Second Exodus would be the litmus test for who was authentic and who was not. "And those wives you've married," Ezra declared, "they are outsiders too" .... though very likely they were simply Hebrew women from non-Judean tribes.

Two-thirds of the Judean population were not exiled to Babylon nor were any from the non-Judean tribes. The people left behind continued to be faithful to the religion of the Patriarchs. And this would come to be a thorn in Judah's side, tormenting the Jerusalemite soul. For the implication was clear: the people who come to be known as "the Jews" were the false ones, as St. John the Theolgian avers (sixty-six times). The faithful Hebrews knew nothing about Babylon. And it is no coincidence that St. John locates Babylon as being the archenemy of God's people in his Book of Revelation. So many commentators have come up with far-fetched, allegorical identifications for Babylon in Revelation. But it turns out, Babylon is Babylon.

We get a glimpse of the widespread mockery leveled against the Jews in Jesus' Parable of the Good Samaritan. The narrative almost reads like a modern joke, "A Levite and a Priest were walking down the Jericho Road one day .... ". The punchline is that they will not come to the aid of wounded, bleeding man, leaving him perhaps to die. For touching blood would render them unclean for their pointless rituals on Mt. Zion. So who will come to the aid of this bleeding man, this image of life-and-death need? It will be a Hebrew man, a man who continues to practice the true religion, the religion of the Patriarchs, the religion practiced by the Essenes and by Jesus and His followers, whose object is virtue and personal transformation. For he is from Samaria, the site of the anciet Temple on Mt. Gerizim and the capital of the Kingdom of Israel.

Continually vexed by the presence of authentic religion in the historical Northern Kingdom, the kings of Judah sought to destroy the altars of the Patriarchs and the high places and the sacred groves, waving them off as places where idolatry was practiced. So agonized were the Judeans, that while pressing the claims of their hybrid religion, they ventured into Samaria destroying the cultic center of Hebrew religion, the Temple on Mt. Gerizim. For its very existence overshadowed their pseudo-temple on Mt. Zion, a building constructed with Persian money and supervised by Persian engineers and designers.

We cannot be sure from which tribes the eleven descended, but we do see that they were united in their antipathies against Judah, as were many of the diverse Hebrew groups of the Levant.

Here is the historical entry-point of God into human history. Following a long history of foreign invasions, both Northern and Southern Kingdoms suffered social and cultural disintegration whence comes the catch phrase "Lost Tribes of Israel." And now the Zion Temple with its religious cultus had become a hostage of Mesopotamian overlords. By the first century B.C., the Mesopotamian influence threatened to bury Hebrew religion throughout the Levant with indoctrination centers (called synagogues) being built from Arabia to Rome. Certainly, Rome favored the civil religion of Deuternonomy which regulated the social life of Palestine with an iron rod.

But the view from Heaven was not so sanguine. For the lifeworld of the Patriarchs was being erased, and the souls of God's people were becoming lost. From the reign of Josiah, to the Babylonian Captivity, to the Return, and through to the revival of Jewish (vs. Hebrew) religion in the first century B.C., God's people were falling away from God. The religion of the Fathers was being destroyed. Notions like angels, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Bosom of Abraham, and a return to Eden were banished from Judah and from all territories Judah could reach through its network of synagogues.

No longer might God be deemed the Intimate and Guide of His people. As we considered last week in our reflection on the Bosom of Abraham, the simple people, like the beggar Lazarus, continued in the religion of Abraham. But as Abraham archly says to the rich man suffering in flames, did you not have Moses (i.e., Deuteronomy)? Could Moses not save you?

Today our lesson goes to ground level revealing an up-close look at lost life in the first-century Levant. But first let us ask a more general question: what is life, in any century in any place when God has been dropped out of one's culture and thoughtworld? Do we have to look very far in the twenty-first century for our answer? The scene we encounter in Gad makes our blood run cold. For godless life is plainly depicted. It is a life lived in cold and rusting chains. Without the soaring skies of God's Heaven above, we become earthbound, more akin to our inner animal with its urges than to our angel soul with Heavenly aspirations. We are mired in the culture of disease leading to death, dwelling amongst tombs, covered in sores and filth, and no longer able to direct our own thoughts and actions. We and our entire lifeworld feed on garbage — cultivating garbage and eating garbage and, before long, becoming garbage. This is the point made by St. Luke: finally, there is no difference between the pigs being herded and the Gadarenes themselves, for the demons are equally at home in either.

The demons Jesus encounters are called "Legion" for they are many. How exactly does one become the habitation of 6,000 demons (the size of a Roman legion)? This is done by practicing a mindless open-mindedness. For without discernment, without exercising judgment, without scruples, without a moral compass, daily life devolves into a free-for-all. How many days are in a year? How many years are in a lifetime? It turns out that the number 6,000 corresponds to the so-called "prime of life" — the span from age 18 to age 40. Open yourself to single-minded pleasure each day, and surely you will reach 6,000 demons. Perhaps this math is the basis for one legion of demons. And the culture of death, of rampant, incurable disease, even of demon possession can never be far behind.

Do we hear the term "demon possession" today as being quaint? Then consider its symptoms. You are no longer in control. You decline into self-destructive behavior. You go through life as if in a trance. You are no longer "behind the wheel" but instead you are being "driven." Your daily habit is to do things that disgust you only moments after you do them, but you do them anyway. One of my penitents years ago told me, "Father, I don't even enjoy it anymore, but still I do it. It is a habit I cannot break." Here is pleasure-seeking without pleasure! Yes, here is a Divine soul wrestling helplessly with 6,000 demons. And you recall what is says over the Gates of Hell: "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here."

Are these symptoms not familiar in our own culture, our own setting, indeed, in our own lives? Are these not the symptoms of what we call in "medical-speak" addiction? Make no mistake about it, we in the twenty-first century do not understand addiction. In that sense, it is an effect, not a settled theory (to state the case in scientific terms). All we know comes through direct clinical observation of the addict, neural imaging, and data collected over decades. That is, we are no closer to understanding so-called "addiction" than humans were two thousand years ago.

We do not understand it, and we cannot cure it. The present state of so-called remission is about seven percent, whether the compulsion be drugs or compulsive sex or whatever excites our dopamine. For any culture, whether it be Gad or the secular West, the rejection of God in favor of the pursuit of pleasure is the path to destruction. As I write this, I read that syphilis in the U.S. has increased 1000% in the ten years. If that number had been 10%, we should be alarmed. One thousand percent. Our best studies of human sexual behavior indicate that men having sex with men is roughly 2-1/2% of the U.S. population. And this tiny group is responisible for forty-nine percent of all these cases of syphilis. Talk about demonic possession! Here are people who have traded in purity and freedom and godliness in exchange for filth, disfigurement, and death. Are we who are swept up in such mania not naked, in chains, and dwelling amongst tombs which signify an eternity divorced from God?

From a Scriptural perspective, these things are beyond tragic. They are the setting for God coming into the world and declaring His people to be lost. This is the historical context for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ coming into the world.

Many of these lost souls hear Him as He announces the Kingdom of Heaven. They are stirred as He extends to them the hand of new life. They hear the truth of His exhortation: be transformed in body and mind and soul, Metanoeite!. Many drop what they are doing and follow Him (Jn 12:10). On the other hand, many are threatened and spit insolently before Him. The people of Gad drive Him back to His ship. Do you know the old proverb, "My flesh got me into trouble, but my pride won't let me out"?

The Judeans instinctively lash out at the last vestiges of true religion. They attempt to bury the remaining artifacts of the Patriarchs. And they explode into a seething rage at the approach of God committing themselves to annihilate even the Truth Himself.

God entered human history at such a point as this. But look around you. Do you not see the Lost Tribe of Gad? Have we in the West not all become Gaderenes? Which family has not suffered the murder of their unborn grandchildren? Which parents have not been touched by the addictions of their children? Which medicine cabinet has never seen opioids? Which computer has never visted a porn site? And which mother and father can say that their children are safe from demonic filth? Indeed, which country remaining on earth can truly be called "faithful to God"?

I steer clear of conspiracy theories, for humans cannot manage to cooperate in the plain light of day. And I do not desecrate Scripture by mining it for predictions of the end of the world looking for a date. But I do read and reflect on the canonical prophets of our Christian tradition. I trust them to be a guide for life past, present, and always. Surely, the Lord will return. And if He should return tomorrow, who would say that they would be surprised?