Swine-Fever
Sermon for 1st Sunday after Trinity – 22 June 2025
All Saints Kesgrave and All Saints Little Bealings
Text: The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8v38-39)
God give you peace my Sisters and Brothers.
Anyone else think that pigs and swine get a really bad deal in the Scriptures? Being born in the fenland town of March I grew up loving pigs. Besides the employment brought to the town by Whitemoor Marshalling Yards, March had one other jewel in its crown. The weekly Pig Market (now replaced by a Residential Home) was one of my favourite outings with Grandad. Mind you the pigs, though interesting, weren’t my chief delight. Grandad always manged to find a few pennies to buy me a 1/4 lb bag of Sherbert Lemons from Pocklington’s Sweetie van on the market place afterwards….
I need to remember that God does not have a particular dislike of pigs and swine but, if you live in a hot Middle Eastern Country where there is no refrigeration, having Pork on your diet can be a hot-bed of disease and pestilence.
Yes, swine are the original recycling plants, which is one of the reasons why every fenland farm and my parents own small-holding in Port Elizabeth, kept one. But, unlike beef it cannot be dried and goes rotten quickly.
Little wonder that faiths that had their genesis in the Middle East, see swine and pigs as unclean. It was one way of keeping the faithful alive and prosperous.
This led to what I call Swine-Fever, a prohibition and fear of all and anything associated with pigs, witness Luke’s account of the story of lost things later in his gospel. Being around swine meant you were unclean and outside the faith.
Here are some lessons we can learn from today’s encounter with a herd of swine:
Can our uncleanness be cleansed?
It is not by mistake that the demoniac has only a herd of swine for company. He has Swine-Fever. The demons have driven him to the edges of society and he no longer belongs. Just as surely as the swine are unclean he has become ‘unclean’ to his home and family and can’t find a way out of his isolation.
So too with us, when life separates us from others, be it by sickness, circumstance or good old-fashioned sin (have a look at the different ways things and people become ‘lost’ in Luke Chapter 15), we find ourselves making our homes amongst the dead and the pigs and there seems to be no help for us
What can we do?
Our friendless friend finds himself in a conundrum. He cries out to Jeus for help yet at the same time seems to not want any assistance.
“What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!”
As the apostle Paul found later in his struggles with his own demons;
Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7v21-25)
Do you ever find yourself in a similar place? I desperately want to get rid of my wilfulness, to throw off the shackles of the demons that haunt my life, but I can’t do it by myself. I’ve tried and I have failed. All that I can do, all that we can do, is to cry out:
Thanks be to God, who delivers [us] through Jesus Christ our Lord!
And, wonderfully, marvellously, as we admit to our helplessness we find help from on high.
What do we do now?
This is the hard bit of the story. Wouldn’t it be lovely to go and follow the One who heals us and, living in the presence of God, know that we will never wander away again.
It brings to mind of words from the hymn My Song is Love Unknown (which cemented my faith but that is a story for another day)
Here might I stay and sing–
no story so divine!
Never was love, dear King,
never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
But no, having had the demoniac run towards him Jesus now sends him away with a new mission. No longer is he to be the one of whom his friends and family are frightened and perhaps even ashamed, but instead he is to:
Return home and tell how much God has done for you.
And this for me, is perhaps the most difficult part of the story.
With all my book learning and studying.
With all the years and years of preparing and preaching sermons,
With all the time I have spent counselling and praying with others,
I still find it difficult to tell [people] how much God has done for [me].
Anyone else feel the same?
There are many ways to help us ‘tell the tale of Jesus and his love’ some of which you can find in previous words of mine[1].
In the end though it is not the words we speak to others that will prove the Good News but the life we live in front of them that will show that our;
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
has forgiven our foolish ways!
has reclothed us in our rightful mind;
has called us to lives of purer service
and on the way we have found a deep, deep life of reverent praise.
[This blog ‘Swine-Fever’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2025 and may be reproduced free of charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.]
oooOOOooo
Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man
26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. 27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.
30 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”
“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. 31 And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.
32 A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. 33 When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34 When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, 35 and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. 37 Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8v26-39)
[1] https://suffolkvicarhomes.com/2019/02/22/a-card-carrying-evangelical/
Suffolk Vicar 