Peace in the Face of Legion

[A reflection on the Gospel for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2025. The readings for today's Mass may be found at https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/proper-7c/]

We recently were adopted (not the other way around) by a young stray neutered tomcat who was dehydrated and starving, whom we nursed back to health and then integrated in our household with three neutered female cats. To say that we had unleashed pandemonium, or at least the Legion mentioned in today's Gospel, seems to be an understatement.

It does seem to be the hallmark of the Adversary and his allies to unleash and promote as much chaos as possible. While they were afflicting the Gerasene gentleman, this particular batch who styled themselves as "Legion" made this man's life total chaos, particularly within his mind to the point he could no longer maintain a sane or functional relationship with others or his environment. When Our Lord delivered the man and "Legion" entered the herd of swine, the poor animals in frenzy and madness made a chaotic rush to get away from their torment, drowning themselves eventually in the Sea of Galilee. The locals were totally aghast and did not know what frightened them more, that their pork supply suddenly dwindled to nothing, or that someone they had written off as irredeemable was suddenly in his right mind and no longer a rolling ball of chaos.

It seems that we have been inured to chaos so long that when calm and order are restored we do not know how to deal with it. So often we seek out more noise, business, chaos just to stay busy, to avoid the calm and the quiet where one may just be. Perhaps that is the issue, we no longer know how to just be. There are some, however, who have been delivered from that chaos and find that peace and revel in it, like the gentleman from Gerasa, who wish to remain in that peace always, but have been sent out to proclaim it, to tell the world that it is achievable, that peace does not have to be scary.

Our Lord told this gentleman to share with his neighbours (one may assume at this point he had no friends...raving lunacy isn't a fertile ground for friendship) the marvel of his deliverance from the forces of chaos and his finding peace at the hands of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. There is joy in peace, there is rest in peace, and there is stability in that peace of the soul offered by Our Lord that stands in sharp contrast to the chaos all about. Do we, like the former demoniac, seek out that peace and rejoice in it when we find it, or do we, like his neighbours, find ourselves unable to adapt to the peace that Our Lord offers and run in the other direction, afraid perhaps of what we will find inside us when the noise dies down?

Perhaps we should let the noise die down, and let the Lord of all show us what good is in us that we can foster, and the evil inside that we must cast out. Our Lord may not offer a herd of pigs to help clear our souls of the noise, but He will if we ask deliver us from the chaos about us.