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Men Who Live in Tombs
The Sixth Sunday of Luke (8:27-29)
October 21, 2001

In today's gospel we meet a man that "lived not in a house, but in the tombs." It's an interesting observation.

A house is where you live - where life takes place; a tomb is the abode of the dead. A house - when it is lived in - becomes a home.

Your home expresses your personhood. Your most intimate relationships are conducted there. Your family life is lived out within its walls; at your table you gather with your friends. The art and artifacts that express you are there, as well as the necessary stuff of life - your bed, your table, your toothbrush . . . they are there.

A tomb by contrast, is cold, empty, and lifeless. What kind of a person would live in a tomb?

Apparently, from the gospel, we can say: a person whose life has been shattered; a person who in many ways is no longer recognizably human. That's what we're talking about. That's the man we meet in the gospel today.

For us, such people challenge us as to whether we will live hospitably or greedily. Those are the real alternatives.

To live hospitably is to recognize that Persons come first. It starts with the faith that the Supreme and Divine Personhood is the ultimate in hospitality. He invites all to the Feast of His kingdom.

Listen to the word of the master in the gospel of Luke (14:21-3): "Go quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed, the blind and the lame . . . Go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."

Human beings matter most: even the blind, paralyzed, & lame.

We know who they are: those who have been hobbled by a lifetime of poor-decision making; those whose souls are burdened with unrelenting guilt; those whose spirit has been battered by cruelty and abuse; those for whom a relatively happy home-life as most of us know it is not only not an option, it is not even imaginable.

When you see young people who are dressed up like ghouls, what do you think is going on? What is the appeal of the Gothic gear, Satanism, and Marilyn Manson? These are all just the outward trappings of life in the tombs. They're the witness to the conviction that there is no hope, that nothing means anything, and that this life is no more than a living death.

Or we can ask about terrorists: What lives in their hearts? What lies underneath their fanatical religious beliefs? It must be a formation in oppression, cruelty, and lovelessness. The fanatical terrorism we're seeing today is obviously a culture of death, born of death, fixated on death, and ending in death. Beliefs about paradise are mere window dressing. These are men who dwell in tombs. Usama bin Laden said it well himself: "You Americans love life. We love death."

The truth is: The economy matters. The environment matters. Foreign policy matters. But human beings matter most.

That's why for us as Christians, subcultures and entire cultures of death must be met by the culture of life. "Our brother is our life," St. Silouan of Mt. Athos never tired of repeating.

To live hospitably is to seek to encounter the scary figures out there as far as possible with a demeanor of tranquility, love, and a resolution for the good that will perhaps spark the remembrance of their long-lost dignity as persons made in the image and likeness of God.

We know what Jesus did. He went out and encountered the demon-man. He stood face to face with his fitful and probably terrifying behavior. "Well," some might say, "he was Jesus. He could handle anybody and anything."

But do you know what? Jesus could be hurt. He was vulnerable. His passion and death are ample proof of that. And yet nonetheless, on the cross he welcomed the thief. He forgave those who crucified him: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." In spite of how he was being tormented by others, his hospitality was all-embracing.

What is the opposite response?

To live greedily. It's to figure, "I'm only here for a short while, the resources are limited, and I've got to get as much as I can for me." The focus can be on material wealth, it can be on pleasure, it can be on experience in general, it can even be on home and family.

It's basic characteristic, though, is that it hoards. It is to isolate yourself from others by building walls around yourself with your stuff, or by your ceaseless gorging on pleasures and experiences.

Unlike the scary figures we've met today, the person who lives greedily feels at home here in the world. He has his place. He is too busy with what he considers living to realize that he is in the process of turning what he calls a home into a tomb - a place where, sure, there are plenty of artifacts - but because there are no truly human values, no hospitality, a place as cold, empty and lifeless as a cave in Afghanistan, the black room of a Gothic ghoul, or the tomb-dwelling of our demon-man.

Well, like most gospel stories, our story today has a happy ending.

We find the man sitting at Jesus' feet, clothed, and in his right mind. The Lord of Life has triumphed over the death in this man. And so, when he asks Jesus if he can come and follow him as his disciple, Jesus' answer is all-telling. What does Jesus say to him?

"Go home. Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. You have been released from the jaws of the evil one, from the death that possessed you; you can no longer live in a tomb. You must go home."

Home . . . to your family . . . to your place . . . to your bed . . . to the table where your friends gather; to the place where you live.

May we then live hospitably, that the gifts and ministries that our Saviour has given us enable many to arise from their tombs and return home . . .

Not only to find a happy dwelling on earth, but to find in such a place a foretaste, an intimation, or should I say, a window and a portal, into that heavenly and eternal home where the table is always richly laden, and where we shall feast unceasingly with all the angels and saints.

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