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Pentecost 2C/Proper 7C
June 19, 2022
Luke 9:26-39
INTRODUCTION
Today, after a couple months straight of festival Sundays, we enter into what is called “ordinary time.” It’s marked by the use of green paraments, and during this time through the summer and fall, we work our way through the daily ministry of Jesus, hearing his teachings and stories of healings, stuff like that.
Today is also Juneteenth, as you know, which is perfect because today’s texts are all about freedom! Well, Isaiah is more about the need for freedom, in particular freedom from sin. At this point in Isaiah, the Israelites have returned from exile, and divisions are emerging in the worshiping community, and in this text, one group is expressing their frustration toward the other group – a situation we know something about!
But Galatians offers a response to this. Speaking to the divisions and disagreements inherent in the new Christian communities, and whether those differences are lawful or not, Paul offers this liberating exclamation: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ!” It remains a powerful message as we remember the freedom from slavery that we celebrate on Juneteenth, and as we manage and celebrate diversity in our 21st century world.
Finally, in the Gospel reading, we’ll hear of a man who is captive in numerous ways – he is captive to a Legion of demons, he is chained up outside of town, trapped in a graveyard. And Jesus comes and declares his freedom. The townspeople are not thrilled by Jesus’ declaration – as I’m sure slaveholders in the 19th century weren’t thrilled with the declaration of their slaves’ freedom! We have continued to long for freedom for all God’s people, even as we have, like those in this text, continued to feel uncertain and suspect of it as well.
As you listen to these readings, I hope you will find yourself in them. Where and how do these stories help you to tell your own story? Where do your story and the text intersect? Let’s listen.
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| Katolophyromai, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons |
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Last week we had a new member class. Since these folks bring a fresh perspective to our congregation, I asked them what they’d like to see at St. Paul’s. One of those in attendance said she’d love to have a place where she can talk with others in the congregation about where they have seen God working in their lives, and how we could pray for each other.
I would love that, too! That’s exactly what a faith community can offer that is different from what other organizations can offer. So where can this happen? Well, perhaps the best place is in the context of Bible study. We believe that scripture is the means by which we hear God’s voice and see and understand how God is working in our lives. So if we want to see and know God’s action in and among us, then spending time dwelling in this sacred telling of God’s story, the Bible, is the logical place to start!
Now, I know, “Bible study” can sound very boring to some. Or maybe, it is intimidating, because many of us have so little experience, we don’t even know where to start with the Bible, and we’re afraid we will feel dumb. It just isn’t relatable to me, we think. It’s so esoteric, with lots of people, places, and rituals that are so foreign to me. I get it – I felt that way most of my life before going to seminary, too, and I still do sometimes! But it doesn’t have to be boring, OR intimidating. When I say “Bible study,” what I mean is this: looking together at a story – not necessarily the particulars of it, but the arch of the story – and finding ways that this story can help us tell our own story. Because scripture tells stories about how God works in the world, right? So, if we can find how our own story overlaps with God’s story, then we have a better shot at seeing how God is working in our world, our story. Right?
But how do we do that, we ask, when the story we are given is just so… weird. Like today’s Gospel: it’s a cool story, one of the most graphic and bizarre in the Bible. Just picture it, and it is, truly, creepy. It’s in a graveyard, this guy is breaking his chains and clearly out of his mind. It’s a horror flick. So where are we supposed to find ourselves in this intense story of demon possession, and pigs flying off a cliff? I’m not saying demon possession isn’t real, I’m just saying it is likely not familiar to most of us. So how can it possibly relate to our 21st century lives?
But look beneath the surface, and there is a point of entry. We may not all know about demon possession, but we do all know something about how it feels to be metaphorically chained by or to something that works against who we want to be in the world. I’m thinking about… our past traumas, the emotional pain we carry, the defenses we have learned to put up in order to feel safe from whatever is our biggest fear – be it abandonment, or shame, or failure, or insignificance. Like the Gerasene demoniac, we may find ourselves chained by these things, such that they hold us back from living a life of wholeness – they keep us from being in trusting relationships, from deep connection, from contributing something meaningful to the world. No, we are not physically chained in a graveyard, but we do find ourselves no less trapped in a place that is more death than life.
And then along comes Jesus, and with him the possibility of healing, of freedom, of breaking those chains that would hold us back and keep us from the life we crave. Jesus soon realizes how stubborn those demons are (and don’t we know about how stubborn our pain and trauma can be, often hiding deep inside where even we can’t see it, but emerging, often unexpectedly, and wreaking havoc in our lives and relationships). And what does Jesus do? He asks for its name. He asks for the demons, the pain, the trauma, to be named. What happens when we name what is troubling us? Once specifically named, that thing immediately begins to lose its power. It cannot hide any longer. Anyone who has spent any time in counseling knows this – once something has been identified, named, we can find a pathway forward, away from that pain and trauma. It’s not always an easy path, or one we want to take. But it promises far more life than staying put does.
Sure enough, once Legion has been identified, Jesus knows how to get rid of them: he sends them into a herd of swine, who in turn race off a cliff and into the sea. I can’t help but notice the baptismal imagery here – the demons are literally drowned, the very same language we use when talking about baptism. Luther writes in his Small Catechism, that the significance of baptism is “that the old person in us, with all the sins and evil desires, is to be drowned and die.” In a moment, when Reeve, Alex, and Bobby affirm their baptism, they will say that they continue to renounce that “old person,” that Legion that would try to make their way into our lives. I love that image of renouncing, rejecting those evil desires and God-defying forces, and picturing them as a pig flying through the air and into the sea!
So, once that renunciation is complete… what do we have left? Jesus has cast out the Legion, and what is left is a man, bloodied and bruised from the shackles, naked and completely vulnerable, without any of his former coping mechanisms. This can be the hardest part of emotional healing. When you have spent so much time letting yourself be defined by your pain, trauma, ailments, troubles – and you’ve built up defenses to keep that false identity safe – then who are you without it? Who is this man without his demons? Who is the alcoholic without her wine? Who am I without my anger? Who are you without your shame? Who are we without our fear and pain? I know people who have gone to therapy and, as they chip away at healing, they discover that they need to find something to fill the space that was left by whatever unhealthy behavior or pattern they dispelled. Otherwise, we are left with an identity crisis. Who am I, without that?
But Jesus does not let the man stay there long, hurting, naked, and completely vulnerable. By the time the townspeople arrive, the man is clothed again – much as we, in our baptism, are “clothed in Christ.” The Apostle Paul talks about how we “put on” Christ in baptism, and here that is what has happened. It’s why we wear baptismal gowns, and confirmation robes – we are “putting on Christ.” And so here, the man is clothed and sitting at Jesus’ feet. He has become a disciple. But that isn’t all – Jesus gives him a charge, a new purpose. “Return to your home,” he says, “and declare how much God has done for you.” This is remarkable! For years, this man has been defined by Legion. He was The Demoniac. And now, just like God does in our baptism, Christ has given him a new name and purpose: he is an apostle, one sent to tell how God has worked in his life, how his story and God’s story have intersected and overlapped. He is sent to tell the good news.
This, too, is our own story. In a moment, our confirmands will affirm the promises made at baptism, and with them, we will be reminded of our own baptism. Among those promises is this: “to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed.” That sounds an awful lot like Jesus’ charge to the man in the story! I’m not saying you all should become preachers, or go door to door with pamphlets. I am saying that finding the words to tell our own stories of the ways Jesus has shown up on the shores of our lives, and helped us to name what keeps us bound, so that we could find a more fulfilling life, is a part of what living out our baptismal promises looks like. How has God worked through your story to bring you to fuller life?
There are other parts to our baptismal covenant, too, of course: serving all people, engaging in the word and the sacraments, striving for justice and peace in all the earth. It is all good stuff to aim for. But what the study of scripture can do for us, even creepy and intense stories like this one, is to give us words by which to tell the story of how God has brought us to life.
I pray that our three confirmands will find ways to live into that. I pray that our graduates, as they head off to the next phase of their lives, will encounter God’s story playing out in their own story, in many and various ways. And I pray that all of us would become more intimately familiar with God’s story told through scripture, so that we might know how to make it our own.
Let us pray… Life-giving God, encourage us to dwell in your word, so that by your word we may find language to share the story of how you unbind your people, and bring them to life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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