The people of Iraq continue to stumble and fall in its struggle toward a national identity independent of the tyrannical oppression of Saddam Hussein.

The people of Palestine have recently turned on one another as factions loyal to Hamas on the one hand, and Fatah-loyalists on the other hand fight it out on the streets. The Gaza strip is now under the control of Hamas. The West Bank, for now, remains under the control of the Palastinian Authority un Mahmoud Abbas.

Factionalism and strife rise continually in the human experience. Emerging nations have always struggled to negotiate diverging interests in the absence of shared institutions that manage the sharing of power.

But it is not just emerging nations. Families struggle with issues related to power sharing. Who controls the check-book? Who gets the car on the weekend? Who decides what’s on the TV? Who gets to use the computer?

Families who are awash in material abundance solve the problem of power-sharing by purchasing convenience. Everyone gets a credit card. Everyone old enough to drive gets their own car. There is a TV in every room, and a computer on every desk, and a telephone in every pocket.

But material abundance within families does not solve the problem of power-struggle in the human experience. It merely obscures it. Even in the midst of great abundance families seem to find a scarce resource worthy of a good fight.

Emerging nations fight. Families fight. Even churches fight. Wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, there is the potential for a good argument. It seems that no issue is so petty that it is not worthy of the sacrifice of the personal dignity of one or two human beings.

Today’s gospel relates the story of a man possessed by, not just one demon, but many demons. The fight in this story is not between diverging individual interests, but diverging interests in one man. Demons are fighting it out within the heart of one man. He is possessed by multiple and conflicting desires.

Jesus comes into this man’s life and restores him to sanity. He chases away the demons. The diverging desires of his heart are put to rest. Where there was once confusion and bewilderment, there is now a quiet calm. Instead of competing values and conflicting desires, there is now only one desire: To embrace the will of God which is perfect peace.

Jesus wants to cast all the demons out of the human experience. Jesus comes among us to chase the demons out of nations, out of families, and even out of churches. Are we willing to allow Jesus to exorcise the demons out of us?