Luke 8:26–39
For many years I have been disturbed by the story of the Gerasene demoniac. Certainly it’s good that Jesus was able to heal a dangerous man, I thought, but why did he have to send a herd of pigs to destruction? The pigs hadn’t done anything, and besides, didn’t they represent the livelihood of the owner and the swineherds who watched them? Why was there so much collateral damage?
Not uncommon questions, perhaps, but no less disturbing than the story. Why did I think about the man that way? Why was I not concerned that he had been bound with chains, that he was left to wander among the dead, alone and naked? Why was I not equally concerned that the response of all the villagers to seeing him whole again was fear and the request for Jesus to leave?
It is easier to put away people who are disruptive or frightening for any reason, and it is natural, maybe, to bristle at the wiping out of what seems a normal and necessary part of life. But if the story is put in its starkest terms, as my wife phrased it, it is about the Son of God destroying economic utility in favor of the restoration of someone that no one else cared about.
The economic argument, that something shouldn’t be touched because it provides jobs, is a load-bearing one for many businesses that are obviously destructive to human beings: coal mining, industrial animal farming, garment dye and production, sweatshops, and prisons. It is no accident that these operations run in rural areas, both here and in other countries, where there is more need for work and fewer people with enough money or power to complain. Jobs come with the degradation of the environment and the physical and spiritual health of the workers. It is not good to wield power-over and maintain imprisonment for other human beings, even if it’s what gets you a paycheck. And rural prisons keep frightening people far away from population centers—including their families, spouses and parents and siblings and children… that is, anyone who might care about them.
The economic benefit of prisons to rural areas was much-touted; how much they provide in the end is debatable. But Jesus’ healing of the demon-possessed man even at the cost of an entire herd of animals says that it doesn’t matter. The pigs were being raised to make money. Under ordinary circumstances, they would be sold for slaughter, for the gustatory pleasure of people rich enough to buy the meat and the enrichment of the owner of the herd. They were a piece of the economy. The story teaches that this economic activity, the jobs, the passing of money from hand to hand, is absolutely subordinate to the wellness of one human being, even one who had been removed from his community because of his condition, even one the village was not straightforwardly happy to get back. Economic benefit does not outweigh human wellness and restoration. That’s that.
Bailey Pickens is a Presbyterian pastor who lives with her wife and dog in Nashville, TN.