David M. Chambers on Unsplash
Karen Hollis | June 22, 2025
Indigenous Peoples | Pentecost 2
Luke 8:26-39 When they finished crossing, they came to the territory of the people Honored in the End (Gadarenes), across the Lake of Circle of Nations (Sea of Galilee). As soon as he stepped from the canoe, a man from the village was there. This man had been tormented with evil spirits for a long time. His clothes had worn off him, and he was homeless, so he lived in the local burial grounds.
When the man saw Creator Sets Free (Jesus), he fell to the ground in front of him. The evil spirit cried out through the man, “Creator Sets Free (Jesus), Son of the One Above Us All, what do you want with me? I beg you not to torment me!” He said this because Creator Sets Free (Jesus) had ordered the evil spirit to leave the man.
In the past his evil spirit had often taken hold of the man, so the villagers had kept the man bound with chains and under close watch. But the man had broken the chains, and the evil spirit had forced him out into the desert.
Creator Sets Free (Jesus) asked, “What is your name?”
“Many Soldiers,” he answered, because thousands of spirits had entered into him. They begged him not to send them into the deep dark pit of the world below.
There was a large herd of pigs feeding on a nearby mountainside, so the spirits begged him to permit them to enter the pigs. When they gave them permission, the evil spirits left the man and entered into the herd of pigs. Then the whole herd stampeded down the mountainside headlong into the lake and drowned.
The ones who were watching over the pigs were scared to death and ran away. They went to the nearby village and told them everything that had happened. As word spread, people came from the villages and the countryside to see for themselves. There they found the man whom the evil spirits had come out of, sitting quietly at the feet of Creator Sets Free (Jesus). He was clothed and in his right mind. This filled the hearts of the people there with awe and fear.
The ones who had seen what happened told the people how the man with evil spirits had been set free. Then the people from the territory of Honored in the End (Gadarenes) begged Creator Sets Free (Jesus) to go away from their land.
As Creator Sets Free (Jesus) entered the canoe to return to the other side, the man who had been set free from the evil spirits begged him to take him along. Creator Sets Free (Jesus) would not permit it and said to the man, “Return home to your family and friends.” He told the man, “Tell them all the powerful things the Great Spirit has done for you.”
The man went his way and told his story in the villages, telling everyone the great things Creator Sets Free (Jesus) had done for him.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
We were in Alaska a few weeks ago and visited Ketchikan, the home town of my favourite master carver, Israel Shotridge. We met him years ago when we all lived on Vashon Island, near Seattle.
Photos:
Reconstruction of the Chief Johnson totem in Kechikan
Eyak Housepost in Anchorage
I worked in Israel’s gallery for a summer and made a nice connection with him and his wife. Israel has a gift, not only for carving, but for design – my eye is just drawn into his work . . . and I know there’s more. The beauty of Coast Salish art only scratches the surface of their meaning and significance to First Nations people. While today is about celebration of these things, the invitation of this morning’s scripture is to frame this celebration in the context of the healing that comes when these are restored. We’re going to come back to culture in a few minutes, but first, let’s take a journey through the text.
As we all know, when designs and masks and boxes and baskets and land are taken away by colonizers, they leave a deep hole in people, which is manifest in a number of different ways that are often lumped together as mental illness.
When Jesus steps out of the canoe in the territory of the Gadarenes, he is met by a man who is tormented by evil spirits. While today we would probably diagnose him with a mental illness . . . in the
1st Century, their interpretation is affliction evil spirits . . . when we look closer at the text, the picture really changes and we see that Luke identifies the spirits as the ones occupying the land.
The first clue is Legion, the many. Like the Legion that’s down the street here, this is a military word referring to a fleet of Roman soldiers. “John Dominic Crossan compares this story . . . with a report from anthropologist, Barrie Reynolds, on the colonization of the Lunda-Luvale tribes in South central Africa by the British in the late 1800s. He observed that the tribes’ shamans had to exorcise a new and dangerous spirit that had possessed and tormented several people. They called this spirit “bindele,” which is the Luvale word for European.”1
Returning to the text, we find several additional military references. Legion begs Jesus not to “order” or “dispatch” them into the abyss, like a soldier making a plea to their commanding officer. Then, Jesus gives Legion permission to enter the pigs, in Greek, it’s like a military order to leave the space they are occupying. Finally, the Greek words that describe the pigs “running violently” down the hill are much more naturally used to describe the movement of troops charging into battle. When we unpack the Greek here, the picture of the gospel story really changes. We go
from a story about Jesus healing a man in Gentile territory, to commentary on the Roman empire and the real impacts on the colonized people.
In the book, Wretched of the Earth, French West Indian psychologist, Frantz Fanon elaborates on this kind of observation. He writes: “When the sum of harmful stimulants exceeds a certain threshold, the colonized’s defenses collapse, and many of them end up in psychiatric institutions. In the calm of this period of triumphant colonization, a constant and considerable stream of mental symptoms are direct sequels of this oppression.”2
So, what does Jesus do in the story? He orders the spirits out of the man, who then appears clothed, in his right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Like so many others, the man’s response to being healed is to want to be near Jesus, to follow him, but Jesus tells him to go back to his family, go back to his community. Jesus is constantly restoring people to community . . . and restoring people to community . . . because there we find layers of healing even deeper than what Jesus can do alone. People and communities heal deeply when immersed with the people, the practices, the food, the symbols that remind and affirm one’s identity.
I recently came across a documentary from 1997 called “People Gathering Together,” by Barb Cranmer, about the canoe journey of 1993 to Bella Bella, which tells a story of healing through the revitalization of culture.
At a ceremony in 1993 the Heiltsuk issued an invitation to all of the first nations of the northwest coast to travel by canoe to their home. In response, a representative from the Quileute nation presented a paddle with their name on it, saying in 4 years time, we’re going to paddle to your village and pick up this paddle that we’re giving you. With that gesture, the journey became real for a lot of people. Ken Hall of the Haisla Nation expressed gratitude that the invitation woke people up in a way. The invitation, it seems, gave them a context for revitalizing the old ways.
In the old days, people traveled by way of the great cedar canoe along the ocean highway. Julian Brave Noisecat explains that “the traditional oceangoing canoe . . . is a communal vessel. Groups work together to fell and carve old-growth cedar, ideal for a hull. Generations of master carvers have fine-tuned the canoe’s dynamic form. Meticulous craft and care go into burning the log hollow and shaping it with an adze. Every year, dozens of hands come together to carry watercraft to the sea. Teams of pullers paddling
in unison pilot their way through churning tides, crashing waves and swift currents to traverse the coastal seascape that connects ocean to continent and past to future.”3.
In the past, canoes were essential for maintaining connections between First Nations. For instance, they would be used to travel and invite nations to potlatches, and then transporting people to and from these gatherings. In the 20th century travel by cedar canoe was suppressed and many canoes ended up in museums.
As nations made their preparations for the 1997 gathering, carving canoes and training for the long journey, they called on the spirit of their ancestors who had actually taken these journeys for wisdom and guidance, because none of people in the canoes had ever taken these journeys.
“Ever since [Suquamish Tribal elder Marilyn Wandrey] had seen a picture of her great-grandmother sitting in a dugout canoe, Marilyn had known she wanted to be in one herself. “What made it special was I met so [much] family from other Tribes,” said Marilyn in [an] . . . interview with Wa Na Wari. During this long journey, participants made camp at Tribal host sites along the way to rest, have a meal, and share songs and dances. “I had a much larger picture of our people
because of traveling to their homes, to their villages, meeting them, and just participating in these large gatherings, listening to the testimonies of people that came, and just their telling who they are. It was just a mind/heart-changing event.”
Helen Harrison from Quileute recalls being on the beach in Bella Bella, as the 21 canoes rounded the corner and approached the shore. “While I was standing there, it felt like a whole century had turned and I could feel the experiences of what must have happened 100 years ago. The songs and the drumming – it was so in unison. It really was turning my mind, and I could imagine 100 years ago.”
I learned during my time in Alaska that the designs on canoes, paddles and other objects are primarily about identity. When a young person sits in a canoe with their paddle, the design tells the story of who they are, where they’re from, and their clan. When they put the paddle in the water, they’re telling the water and the sea life who they are as they travel along the traditional marine highways. And when they arrive at a stop along the journey, their paddle also tells their host who they are. What is being revitalized, relearned and reclaimed is multi-layered and connected. It knits souls back together, realigns a sense of self and purpose. Mary McQuillen of the Makah Nation affirms: “It’s culture that heals us. There isn’t anything in the white world that can heal us. Our own tradition has to do it for us.”
This healing continues, as it has been nearly 20 years now, and since then there has been a canoe journey every year in these waters (with the exception of 2 years during covid). The host community for this year’s journey is Elwha, which is on the Olympic Peninsula, just south of Victoria. Over 30 communities are hosting stops along the way . . . not just participating, but hosting the paddlers, imagine how many more will participate. And that is what we are here to celebrate today, the healing that continues. Thanks be to God!
1 John Dominc Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: HarperOne, 1994), 102. in enfleshed July 19, 2022
2 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 182. in enfleshed July 19, 2022
3 https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/the-tribal-canoe-journey-an-odyssey-to-reclaim-tradition-and-territory/