What we read of this possessed man here in Mark is not typically described as a miracle story.  It isn’t lumped into the same group with the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 or walking on the water, but it should be.  What happens is, after all, nothing short of a miracle.  The possessed man’s life was beyond hope, he had spun out of control; he could not be contained physically and he ran wild throughout the country side.  His torment was so great that no one in the community could bear to witness it, so they tried to put him out of sight and out of mind, and it just wouldn’t work.  His life was nothing but chaos and sadness.  Truth is, his situation was probably headed for a violent end, either the people in the community taking matters into their own hands or him hurting one of them . . . whatever the case, it was not going to end well.  But just when everyone was at the end of their rope with that situation, just when it seemed like the man was beyond hope or healing, he happens on Jesus.  And Jesus takes this hopeless, mess of a situation and makes it new, he calls the demons by name and casts them out, into their rightful place, setting the man free.  He sends them into a herd of pigs, which were regarded in those days as unclean and unholy, and in doing so, he demonstrated to those who would have faith in Him what he is capable of and to those demonic forces what their fate will be.  What seeks to torment and torture will not survive the reign of Jesus.

             One of the most significant events in the history between the races in America took place in this very city, only a few miles from here, in the year 1898.  It began with a campaign to squash the political legitimacy of African American residents in this community.  The campaign was led by Colonel Alfred Waddell, a white supremacist who would be mayor of Wilmington, and a prominent mill owner named Hugh McCrae.  Before the election of 1898, Waddell exclaimed at a rally, “Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls, and if he refuses, kill him, shoot him down in his tracks.”  White democrats won victory in that election, but that wasn’t enough.  They took to the streets and burned the printing press at the Daily Record, the only African American newspaper in the country, and then marched through predominantly black Wilmington neighborhoods, indiscriminately murdering African American citizens.  No one knows exactly how many were killed, but Hugh McCrae boasted that there were ninety dead.  Some say it was more than 300.  White men forced the few African American city officials in Wilmington to resign their positions at gunpoint.  1400 black citizens fled the city, while others huddled in the swamps along the Cape Fear to avoid the gun-toting mob.  The pastor of one of Wilmington’s largest churches, then and now, proclaimed from the pulpit, “We have taken a city.  To God be the glory.”

            When my parents were in high school at New Hanover High in 1971, the now famous Wilmington Ten were a group of young African Americans at the center of another riot on the city’s streets.  This time, presumably incited by the closing of Williston, a previously all black high school, and the poor choices made in integrating the New Hanover Co. schools, young African Americans swept up in the violent resistance of the Black Power Movement set fire to buildings downtown.  Police officers fired on the building where ten of the city’s main African American leaders had barricaded themselves.  All ten were later convicted of inciting the rioting and violence, on what was, at best, circumstantial evidence.  The most notable among them was local church leader Ben Chavis, whose 35 year prison sentence was not overturned until 1980, the year I was born.

            In Wayne Co., there is a high school named for Charles B. Aycock, former governor of North Carolina and one of the architects of the white supremacy campaign that resulted in the 1898 Wilmington riot, who, to be fair, also turned into an advocate for the state’s education system.  But the school’s webpage says nothing of his past, nor does the website for the historical site where he was born.  In 1916, John Richards was lynched in Goldsboro for the alleged murder of a farmer named Anderson Gurley.  A photo of the event recently toured the country in an exhibit that recalled our difficult history.  The schools located within the city limits of Goldsboro remained 100% African American in the year 2004, the same year in which we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education.

            I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve chosen to bring up these depressing parts of our past on what is supposed to be a joyous celebration and certainly you’re curious what all that has to do with today’s Scripture.  It is not to assess blame, to make some of us feel guilty or to reopen old wounds.  No, the point here is that we must recall this history.  Our history is what possesses us—our memories are our own legion of demons.  These events haunt and plague us, running our society crazy with the echoes of blood and hate.  These memories are the things that have driven us to the lie of division in the Church, brokenness in our communities, distrust and apprehension, they are the cause of our chaotic attempts at healing this past that threatens to overwhelm us.  Our history is our demonic possession and it still holds us captive, no matter how we try to deny it, no matter much we think than we can erase the pain of 400 years with a few decades of cordial, less than honest contact.  Our hurried attempts at quick healing have looked much like wild wandering in the country side.  These events will haunt us like the demons in this story if we will let them continue to exist in our subconscious, festering and thwarting our attempts to heal. 

One of my professors at Duke says that if you were raised in America, especially the South, the history of strife between the races was in the water you drank and the air you breathed.  You took it in without even knowing it.  Want evidence of our possession?  Today, one of the largest parks in Wilmington, the place where I played Little League baseball, is named for Hugh McCrae, the same man who helped torture this city in 1898, a known and notorious racist and murderer.  I was born and raised in this city, went to the public schools here, and the first in-depth description I ever heard of the racial history of my own hometown came in a history course at UNC when I was 21 years old.  The Wayne Co. School Board cannot see its way to integrating the school system in Goldsboro, despite the fact that Goldsboro as a city is remarkably integrated.  And the Church?  Well, in the congregation today is Amanda Green, the religion reporter from the Wilmington Star- News, covering this service for the newspaper.  News of this service went out in an email sent nationwide by the Office of Reconciliation for Disciples of Christ denomination.  Friends, the fact that we are worshipping together is news!  Not just news, but national news!  100 years after Jim Crow, 50 years after Brown vs. Board, 30 years after the Wilmington Ten, the fact that we can come together and worship the same God and the healing power of Jesus is newsworthy because of its rarity.  And take notice of the emotions that welled up within you as I told those ugly stories.  The deep sadness or anger, resentment or uneasiness . . . still need evidence of our possession?

            All this history is part of us, it is in our make-up whether you will choose to acknowledge it or not.  You will certainly deal with all of our fractured past as you seek to reach out in your own communities and bring the Church together.  The residual emotions left from these events will be part of any conversation we have.  It can seem a mountain too large to pass.  Overcoming our fractured, violent past seems an impossible proposition; about as impossible as the man in this story being purged of his demons.  But friends, I’m here to tell you that we can be healed, just like the man in this story.  And we stopped by the beach, just like he did, to encounter Jesus again and to ask him to heal us, to unite us, to purge us of our demons, to consecrate us as people who are bold enough to say: “Our past is ugly and painful and we are wounded by it still.  But there is a common place where we may gather and proclaim a common truth, that Christ is Lord of all, healer of all, redeemer of us all, and that if we seek his Spirit in truth, we will be raised from the pain of our past.”  As the body of Christ, His real presence in this world, we will say to everyone who will hear and even those who won’t that we will not continue to be possessed by our history; instead we will claim the healing power of the One who works miracles beyond our imagination, who can and will heal any affliction, in any time, and in any place.  We believe it and we will live it.  Today, we ask Jesus not to remove our history, our brokenness, and our division that stand as tall as a mountain between us and true reconciliation.  Instead, we ask Him to help us climb it.  Together.