Jesus demonstrates his power over the forces of the world that oppress and bind. Sounds good, right? But it leads to several questions. If Jesus can heal someone like the longsuffering man in the text, destroying a hog farm in the process, what’s he going to do next? Who is going to be safe from such a power? And hey, what if we just don't want to see our lives turned upside down? What if we prefer to remain in our comfortable, familiar patterns of living,, even when it’s clear that those old patterns are not life-giving. Can't Jesus just leave us alone…and yet be on-call for when we get sick or in trouble? For the Gerasenes, it's just too much to risk. So, they ask Jesus to go away. Will we?
