Our gospel reading is Mark 5: 1-14.
They came to the other side of the sea, to the
country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat,
immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He
lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him anymore, even with a
chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the
chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had
the strength to subdue him.
Night and day among the tombs and on the
mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he
saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he
shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of
the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For Jesus had
said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus asked
him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are
many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the
country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was
feeding; and the unclean spirits begged Jesus, “Send us into the swine;
let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits
came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand,
rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.
The swineherds ran off and told it in the city
and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had
happened. They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed
and in his right mind.
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Sermon
The 2017 Oscar
nominated documentary Heroin(e) on Netflix, follows three women, a fire chief, a
judge, and a street minister as they battle the opioid epidemic in Huntington,
West Virginia, which has been called the overdose capital of the United States.
The street minister is single mother and real-estate agent Necia Freeman, who,
when she read that a young prostitute and drug addict was murdered in her town, decided to try
to do something to help. So she drove
down to where the girls work, took them food and hygiene kits, talked to and
listened to them. Then made it her mission to help them get off and stay off drugs,
which also meant they could get out of this very dangerous occupation. We see
Necia well into her ministry with the girls on the street. For those that have relapsed, she finds space
in treatment centers. Girls who have gotten clean go with her to give hope to those
who are still being controlled by their addiction. She loves these girls. She
never shames them when they relapse. She encourages
them to try again, saying to one, “You were clean for 7 months. I know you can
do it again.”
Judge Patricia
Keller started and runs the county drug court, an alternative to jail.
giving them
structure and direction so that they can focus on their recovery. And she never
gives up on them. She holds graduations from drug court where graduates bring
their mothers and their children to witness what they have achieved and hear
them speak with gratitude and hope for their lives.
The
documentary spends the most time following Jan Rader, deputy chief of the Fire
Department. A Huntington native who worked her way up through the ranks, Jan
cares about her town and especially about those who lives are being destroyed
by heroin addiction. She talks about West Virginia being a blue collar state where
people work hard for a living doing physical labor. There are a lot of
injuries, and many get hooked on the opioids described by their doctors. When
they can’t get any more pills, they turn to heroin, which is readily available.
She says, “Add to that unemployment, a lack of education, and a sense of hopelessness,
and you have a recipe for disaster.” We follow Jan as she goes from overdose to
overdose, administering Naloxone, brand name Narcan, which reverses the
respiratory distress that an overdose of opioids produces.
Huntington has
5-7 overdoses a day. And Jan admits that too many first responders
treat drug
addicts like they are subhuman. She is trying to change that. She personally delivers
Narcan to her firefighters and instructs them on when and how to use it to save lives.
Jan treats victims of overdose like she would her own children, asking them, “Have
you tried to get clean, honey?” Do you have anyone who can help you get into
recovery?” Experience has taught her that addiction is a demon with
overwhelming power. It has nothing to do with a flaw in character or lack of
willpower.
Her response
to a question in a community meeting reveals the belief system that has led to
her commitment to do everything she can to help. The question asked was: “Alot
of people believe that by having Narcan available, that it’s just empowering
the addicts. How do you respond to that?” Her answer: “The only qualification
for getting into long-term recovery is to be alive. I don’t care if I have to
save somebody 50 times, that’s 50
chances to get into long term recovery. Death is final. So, how can I judge
somebody and say, ‘No, you've had enough Narcan, and you don't deserve anymore?’
I can't even fathom that.” In an interview after the documentary
came out, she added, “We don’t treat people poorly for eating
a whole cake, and having a diabetic emergency because of it, so why are we
treating people poorly who relapsed and overdosed? It just doesn’t make sense.
We as a society need to change the way we look at this. We need to lift people
up. Kindness has fallen by the wayside.”
Our gospel lesson is about someone with a demon that
overpowered and controlled him, and the attitude and actions of the town folks,
who treated him like a wild animal, who shackled and chained him and banished him to live
among the tombs alone, constantly tormented. But Jesus treated him with
kindness. And when the man was finally rid of the demon, he was able to return
to his community and once again become a productive citizen.
Chief Jan Rader, Judge Keller, and Necia Freeman exemplify
Jesus in their treatment of
those whose lives are controlled by the demon of drug addiction.
They are loving and kind. They believe in them and lift them up. They help them
to heal, instead of punishing them or leaving them to die an agonizing death.
In the United States, there are over 100 deaths per day
from opioids. Parents are losing their children and children are losing their
parents. The commitment of all those trying to help addicts, saving their lives
and getting them into long-term recovery, again and again if that is what it
takes, is a noble one. And that commitment comes from their belief that every
person is worthy and deserving of help. As
followers of the way of Jesus, that is our belief too. May we make the
commitment to do all that we can to bring freedom to everyone who is in bondage
to this demon. Amen.
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