…they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
(Luke 8:35-39, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)
I’ve left out the first half of this story, but if you’ve read the gospels you probably recognize “the man from whom the demons had gone.” After Jesus had cast the legion of demons out of this man, you’ll recall, they entered the bodies of a nearby herd of swine. In their panic, the demons drove the pigs into a nearby lake, where they drowned.
We can look at this story many different ways.
I could talk about the man’s demons as a first-century understanding of mental illness. We could remember that the man “did not live in a house but in the tombs” (Luke 8:27) and reflect upon the plight of the unhoused and our responsibilities toward those less fortunate than ourselves. I could dive into the political implications people in Roman-occupied lands would have found in a “legion” of demons afflicting a man. For that matter, the sudden death of a large herd of pigs (2,000, in Mark’s version) would have serious economic ramifications.
Maybe that explains the “great fear” the people of Gerasa felt. Maybe, instead of a healed man, an outcast brought back into the fold, they saw their local economy totally upended. Or maybe they just didn’t feel comfortable seeing a formerly unhoused person in their neighborhood. Maybe they worried Jesus would bring more people like this man into the community. Who knew if their cure would stick, after all? What if they relapsed? What did Jesus expect the respectable members of society to do then?
So the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave. They showed greater restraint than a lot of other communities had—when Jesus had returned to Nazareth to preach, after all, his former neighbors dragged him out of the synagogue intent on killing him. Here, one can imagine a small group of Gerasa’s community leaders approaching Jesus after the public sermon, quietly suggesting he and his disciples consider moving on to another town. However it happened, Jesus seems to have taken it in stride, booking the next boat across the Sea of Galilee, back the way he came.
And the man he had just saved wanted desperately to go with him.
I can understand why he begged. Jesus had found him out by the tombs because he’d fled to the outskirts of town after breaking out of the chains and shackles his neighbors had used to restrain him. Perhaps he thought that if Jesus left, the local authorities would use any excuse available to lock him back up. Perhaps he worried that without Jesus to keep him steady, he would relapse, succumbing to his demons once again, giving the Gerasenes their opportunity.
Jesus had faith in the man, though—or, rather, he had faith in the man’s faith. He charged the man with an assignment: “Declare how much God has done for you.” If the man could do that, he wouldn’t need to rely on Jesus’s physical presence to maintain his recovery. He would always have the source of that recovery in the forefront of his mind, where he could continually draw strength from it.
Maybe the man didn’t worry about relapsing, though. Maybe wandering around Judea and Galilee with Jesus just seemed more exciting than sticking around Gerasa and trying to fit in. It happens elsewhere in the gospels: Bartimaeus has his sight restored and immediately joins Jesus’s entourage. But Jesus had something else in mind for this man. By sharing his story with others, he’d make it possible for them to open their hearts and minds to the possibilities of God’s power.
Quakers might see the end of this story as a template for Spirit-led witness.
Simply put, Jesus gave the man a leading, a leading that contradicted the man’s ambitions for his life. And what did the man do? He set those ambitions aside to do what Jesus desired for him. Some Friends today might want to see something other than Jesus behind their leadings. Few of us, however, dispute the underlying reality of a mission from God, even if we may not have received ours yet. (Don’t get hung up on the “mission from God” language. If you want to think of it as a philosophical mandate, or a pragmatic conclusion that you came up with on your own, go ahead.)
In this case, I believe Jesus decided to break the great fear in the Gerasenes by leaving the man behind to become a positive presence in his community. He would tell his story, sure, but ultimately his life would become his testimony. You don’t get much more Quakerly than that.
Mental health is an invisible illness that many fear—even among the most faithful believers. Too often, the unspoken message is to be quiet, to disappear. The phrase “you’re too emotional” becomes a code for dismissal. Yet Jesus embraced the full range of human emotion and offered a listening ear without judgment.
In my experience, even within the Quaker community, there can be a tendency to dismiss spiritual experiences—particularly those grounded in biblical vision—out of concern for straying from core principles. In my region of the Northeast, I’ve felt a subtle pressure to suppress my faith expressions. There’s a strong desire to be seen as welcoming—to open the closet doors for others—but when someone speaks from a place of biblical revelation, those same doors often close. Instead of fostering understanding, fingers are pointed at other religions as the root of spiritual or societal issues.
It feels as if a wall is being built—not for protection, but out of fear. Fear of biblical depth, fear of spiritual vulnerability, fear of dialogue. But if we truly seek the Spirit, we must be open not only to the teachings of Jesus but also to the varied and valid experiences of others. We must ask ourselves: what message are we sending to those who walk a different path, yet long for the same Light?