What Possesses Us?

When we are asked to name where our loyalties lie, most of us will have to say “Legion, for they are many.” Not long ago as the universe measures it a man possessed by the demon Legion fell at Jesus’ feet desperate to get free. Jesus disposed of the demonic oppressors and sent the man to tell everyone of his deliverance. The local authorities asked Jesus to leave. Get the whole classic story in Mark 5:1-20.

The possessions today continue to be Legion.

The more possessions we claim to own, the more they possess us. Our way is to adopt something to clarify who we are: occupation, position, degrees, clothes, houses, cars, whatever gives us a persona which opens the way in society for us to get more. And eventually we grow to depend on those things. They can gain power over us and possess us whether we are aware of or deny it.

Multiplied by billions of actors, the complexity of this condition is indeed Legion.

Whenever someone recognizes they are possessed – it does happen – they often look for help to get free. The push back comes from others who are possessed and must control the network of possession by fear. Fear of what? Of losing whatever we are addicted to – more than drugs, sex and alcohol. For many it is fear of losing a comfortable, exclusive, privileged life, usually without realizing these things have been attained at the expense of other possessed people.

Well, if Jesus would just show up, we might fall at his feet for the cure. Where is he?

Getting Free

Many have continually tried to push it all back on Jesus, to hold onto Jesus as the miracle worker, the magic word misappropriated to give us religious power. Jesus commissioned the man delivered of Legion not to join his entourage but to go into all the Decapolis (ten cities) and testify of God’s presence to deliver, to show the great things God had done. This would be the disarming of those who use possession to control others by fear.

Many today, both religious and secular, are exerting fear on others, thumbing their noses at truth and righteousness. They are discarding the Jesus we know and replacing him with performers of their own invention who fire workers from services needed in society, withhold funding necessary to care for our world, and send us off to unknown prisons. We know they are fake Jesus by their words and deeds: hoarding instead of abundantly supplying, implementing hate and division instead of unifying in Love, lying with misinformation and cover-up instead of exploring Truth that reveals, heals and frees.

Jesus In Our Day

But Jesus intended to be multiplied. He continually commissioned, taught, and demonstrated for others to become like him. Many since Jesus’ day have been and still are naming and rebuking the demons of their day. May the voices naming our demons be supported and strengthened to exorcise even those in power who cultivate the demons in the world.

It remains for the possessed to choose deliverance or go on doing the will of the demons, serving whoever oppresses them. A few of us will be restored to our right minds and turn to renounce the cult that binds so many. Let us declare how we have been delivered from the demons of this age.

In his wilderness experience at the beginning of his ministry Jesus had confronted and rejected offers of self-serving power and so had the integrity to expose and cast out Legion. We each must confront our demons tempting us into possession and deny them access to our psyche. We must choose to believe there is better for the world than the misleading claims of the demon mongers. We can be free of the demons of our day by daily renouncing them and re-aligning with God’s freedom, optimism, generosity, and empowerment of Life.

We can decide not to be “conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.” (Romans 12:1-2)