Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.  (Luke 8:26)

One of the oddest scientific discoveries of the revolutionary early decades of the last century was that of antimatter. It turns out that along with matter - the stuff that makes up everything around us - there’s this other stuff that’s kind of the opposite of matter. So along with the tiny particles of matter - things like electrons - there are ‘anti-electrons’ that are kind of the opposite to them. The thing is, when an electron meets an ant-electron they completely annihilate each other. Imagine that, eh? Things annihilating each other just because they are different from each other. What if people did that?

Look back over history and the differences between people have led to such bloodshed. Whether people have talked about tribes, or races, or nations, being even a little different from each other let alone in any sense the opposite has so often been an excuse for distrust, for antipathy, even hatred. Communities have divided from each other over the differences within them. A few years Sue and I visited Belfast and were struck by the ‘peace walls’ - walls between Protestant and Catholic areas of the cities with gates that could be shut to keep those groups away from each other if riots broke out.

Protestant and Catholic. When I was an atheist I thought that the way people who were in so many ways like each other, all Christians, could feel such hatred for each other was one of the biggest arguments against religion. In many ways I still do. But since becoming a Christian and coming to understand more about the essence of the faith that has Christ at its heart I’ve found another, more beautiful side to the Christian faith and it’s here in our text this morning.

Luke describes the land of the Gerasenes as being “opposite” Galilee and it is and not just geographically. The Gerasenes are not Jews, they are Gentiles. These are people who keep and, I assume, eat pigs - virtually the symbol of the distinction between Jews and Gentiles. More than that though, consider the man Jesus encounters when he steps off the boat. He is naked, he lives in tombs. For Jews contact with a dead body made someone ritually unclean. This guy literally lives among them. He is possessed by demons - so many that they call themselves Legion. How we understand this ‘demon possession’ is a whole other sermon so let’s take it at face value for now and take Luke at his word. We are, after all, trying to understand what Luke is telling us. This guy is possessed by Demons. He is, right now, as far from God as it’s possible to be. Yet here he is, met by the Son of God - God living as a human being. He is ritually unclean but here he is, met by the God in Christ. He is a Gentile living cheek by jowl with herds of pigs but here he is, met by the Jewish Messiah.

This guy is as close to the opposite of Jesus in human terms as it’s possible to be. No wonder he asks “What have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?” He’s the kind of guy that pious Jews would go a mile out of their way to avoid; that respectable folk of the city have shackled; that would be allowed to starve and die and the sooner the better so that decent folk didn’t have to live in fear of him: this other, this different, this ‘opposite’. But how does Jesus meet him? With compassion. With healing. With a question: what is your name?

See, here’s a thing common to all humanity, in all our cultures and our differences. We have names. Sure, the way we name our children varies, but in all our colours and hues, in all our languages and dialects, in all our tribes, peoples and nations, parents name their children in recognition that each of them is a unique human being. Each is special. I remember the times when Sue was pregnant discussing how we would name our child and trust me, as a teacher, there’s a definite list of names that I wasn’t going to give to our son. 

I said that naming our kids is something common to all humanity. There is so much that is common to all humanity. I started by talking about matter and antimatter and how, in their difference, they annihilate each other but here’s a thing: in every other respect a particle of matter and antimatter are identical. An electron is way more similar to an anti-electron than it is different. For me this is why God came into the world - into a world so often divided by differences  between us that fade into insignificance when we think on how alike we are as human beings; as common humanity.

In an ever more interlinked world we have a choice. When we encounter folk who are different from us, whether we work beside them or whether they have washed up on our shores fleeing poverty, hunger or war we have a choice, whether they hold the same beliefs as us or not, we have a choice. Do we meet them on the opposite side from Galilee or do we stay on our own side? Do we look after our own and let the rest go hang or do we reach out for those in need regardless of who they are or why they are in need? Do we look out into a broad world of difference and uniqueness or do we throw up walls and pull up the drawbridge and draw lines in the sand between ‘us’ and ‘them’?

These are questions God asks of us now, as he has in every age. For me the answer we must give, as Christians, springs from Paul’s words in Galatians; words which, when I read them for the first time  blew my mind and made me reassess what the Christian faith is really all about: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

In Christ all those things that divide us, that say that “we” are divided from “them” don’t matter. Yes we are different but we are equally loved by God. We are equal and opposite. In Christ the divisions of race and culture don’t matter. Yes we are different but we are equally loved by God. We are equal and opposite. Yes, we are different in social class, sexuality, whatever. In Christ those differences don’t matter. We are equal and opposite in the love of God.

It really is this simple. In Christ there is one humanity. In Christ we all children of one father. Just as parents give each of their children a different name because each is unique and precious, in Christ each of us - however diverse or “opposite” from each other we may be - is unique and precious. The challenge and blessing Christ offers us is to cross to the opposite side from Galilee and embrace those who need our love and care - however different they may seem from  us - in our common humanity, as children of our father; a father who rejoices in our variety and differences and longs to recognise each other as family.

This for me is a message of our reading this morning. Christ sailed across the sea to the opposite side and cared for someone as different from him as it was possible to be but was still a beloved child of God. When we do likewise, crossing whatever borders there may be, we bear witness to the love of God for all his children and we shine with the light of Heaven itself.

Lord may we sail across the Galilee. May we land on the shores of those who are not like us and embrace them as brothers and sisters. Your children. May we care for them as we care for our own