The gospel passage for this Sunday shows the cutting edge of Jesus as liberator. A man named Legion lived in dire straits, devil possessed and naked among the tombs of the dead. At Jesus’ command the demons left off from tormenting him and drove 2,000 pigs to their death in the lake (Luke 8:26-39). The dramatic nature of the story contains within it core questions of identity. The Israelites’ social identity had been lost to the occupying Roman army: Legion is a Roman name. The Israelites’ religious identity had been lost to the need to tend to animals they thought of as unclean: Jews do not eat pork and the pigs were kept to feed the Roman army. In our busy modern day society we do not need a Roman army to lose touch with ourselves. We can do that perfectly well on our own

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