DAILY GRACE
July 1, 2020, Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Scripture: Matthew 8:28-34
When he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demoniacs coming out of the tombs met him. They were so fierce that no one could pass that way. Suddenly they shouted, ‘What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ Now a large herd of swine was feeding at some distance from them. The demons begged him, ‘If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.’ And he said to them, ‘Go!’ So they came out and entered the swine; and suddenly, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and perished in the water. The swineherds ran off, and on going into the town, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. Then the whole town came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Meditation
“. . . they begged him to leave their neighborhood.”
If you knew that Jesus was coming to town, would you rush out to see him? Or would you instead beg him to go away? In today’s Gospel, the Gadarenes want Jesus to leave their town. He has cured two men possessed of demons, and the demons rush into a herd of swine and drive them off a cliff. Do the townspeople fear that Jesus wants to destroy them? Do they look on him as some kind of magician who might trick them into something they don’t want to do? Or do they just not want to be bothered with changing their way of life?
We don’t know the answers to these questions and can only speculate about them. The incident with the swine may seem strange to us. But for Matthew’s Jewish audience, pigs were unclean animals. They would have laughed at the story of the pigs drowning. The pigs’ demise wouldn’t have bothered them any more than exterminating rats bothers us today. In the context in which Matthew sets this story, his focus is on showing the power of Jesus at work in his mighty deeds.
In yesterday’s Gospel Jesus calmed the storm, and in tomorrow’s we will see him healing a paralyzed man and forgiving sins. Yesterday, the disciples were amazed at Jesus’ power, and tomorrow, some will be blind to Jesus’ authority and accuse him of blasphemy. But today the townspeople just want to get rid of Jesus. They don’t know what to make of him, so they want him to just go away.
What about me? Do I want Jesus to go away so that I may not be bothered by his priorities and practices?
Or do I want to follow him, to really be his disciple, no matter what it costs?
Jesus warned that following him means taking up our cross every day. It might be hard right now. But if I imagine myself at the end of my life, looking back on how I lived it, I know that I will want it to say, like the old spiritual, “Give me Jesus.”
Prayer
Lord Jesus, don’t let my fears hold me back. Instead, help me to accept your power and provision unto freedom and life!
Contemplation
Give me Jesus.