Lectionary 12/Pentecost 5/Proper 7 June 23, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
Galatians 3: 23-29 + Psalm 22: 18-27 + Luke 8: 26-39
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
This Gospel reading from Luke is one that is so graphic and so in-your-face that I am always taken aback by it. There’s so much to take in– a man possessed by demons, legions of demons who actually do not wish to go back to the dark place from which they have come, so Jesus sends them out of the man and into a herd of pigs and they plunge off of a cliff. It is the first recorded incident of deviled ham.
This man who came to Jesus had apparently been possessed by demons for most of his life. The text says that for a long time he went without clothing and lived in the tombs, the catacombs. I would imagine him to be not unlike some of the folks we avoid when walking downtown. Hard to be near. Invoking uncertainty or fear.
But the story says that the people actually became fearful AFTER Jesus had driven the demons out of the man. They asked Jesus to leave them, the text reads, for they were seized with great fear. In fact, none of the people wanted Jesus to stay with them, our reading says that “all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear.” (Luke 8: 37)
Almost any counselor or therapist will tell you that it is easier for people to stay in unhealthy and even dangerous situations than it is for them to leave them. It’s their own reality. It’s what they know. It might be awful, it might even be a threat to their well being, but it’s what is familiar. So while the man possessed by legions of demons would likely have been difficult for the community, and while we might imagine that those who shared community with him would want him to be healed and restored, what we learn from this story is that too often communities remain stuck in what is unhealthy but familiar rather than moving into what is right and good for their growth and well being.
If we look at this story from Luke metaphorically, we might ask what demons posses our culture today? And it is likely that we would get a variety of different answers, depending on who we asked. Materialism, greed, poor stewardship of creation, bigotry, prejudice, a propensity for violence and war. These come to mind, especially when I read the news stories of the day. These are the demons, though, that if we imagine society without them, cause us to be in fear of what life might look like. What would happen if we took seriously God’s clear and persistent call for us to care for the poor, to steward the earth? What would happen if we, like the prophets, determined to turn our swords into plowshares? Why we can’t even agree to more stringent weapons background checks even when innocent lives are taken every single day. What would it mean if we lived in a country where the color of the skin of our president or the sexual orientation of our neighbor just did not matter? As disciples of Jesus, would we embrace these changes toward health or would we beg him to leave us to our old ways of being?
The Church (big C) is also faced with a similar challenge. Those who study Scripture carefully know that it supports ideas and customs that are abhorrent to us today. Slavery is supported in Scripture. The subjugation of women is supported in Scripture. Polygamy is supported in Scripture. Even stoning disobedient children is supported in Scripture. And the Church has had to employ strong scholarship and wise discernment to understand the context during which the Bible was written – it is the Word of God written through human hands. And those human hands added a thing or two here and there. Those human hands told the stories of their day – the stories of cultures that supported things we understand to be incorrect. And so today, the Church MUST interpret Scripture through what we know of Jesus – whose respect for all people – all people, meant that he drove a legion of demons off a cliff.
Next Sunday 13 Lutheran congregations, make that 13 ELCA congregations, will march in Seattle’s Pride Parade. We will march because we need to share the radical inclusivity of God’s love. And to this pastor, we march as an apology to every person who has ever been told that they were somehow less than a beloved child of God. It’s a stretch for some of us. It’s something we’ve not done before. And maybe we’d rather Jesus just leave us alone with all of his talk of loving all people rather than judging them. Maybe we want to ask Jesus to leave us because we are afraid. It would be understandable, because in our culture and even in the church there are still folks who think that who you love is more important than how you love. I know this. I do. But Jesus never said it would be easy, this taking up our crosses and following him. Although he did tell us that his yoke of love is easier and lighter than carrying those heavy burdens of hate that make us weary in body and spirit.
If you or someone you love is living with demons that feel comfortable and familiar, but that are taking away life…I turn to this reading from Luke to entreat you to find help. If domestic abuse, or assault or addiction is the truth of your daily living I offer this to you, because I know it to be true: there is another way. It might be very hard and you might beg Jesus to just leave you to what you know….but there is help. If you need to know more, please let me know.
As this story concludes in our reading today the man who had been possessed by so many demons is free. Can you imagine what that must have been like for him? He was free from living as an outcast. He was free from the myriad of sick voices that lived in his head, day in and day out. He was free. And he knew clearly that it was because of Jesus that he was free.
This is also our story. We are free from all that possesses us. From all that causes us to be fearful or angry. Because of Jesus, we are free. And in that freedom, we know that we are beloved children of God, called to live in the freedom of God’s grace and mercy. To live in the freedom of what it means to know that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
And our response to that freedom is to be the same as the man who was freed from his demons. Jesus said to him “Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you”
What would this look like for us? Imagine if Jesus was looking straight into your eyes and said “(Name) return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.” Maybe we would be moved to teach Sunday School or bring a child to Day Camp or march in the Pride Parade.
It’s what the man did there in the country of the Gerasenes…freed from the demons that haunted him, the text says that he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Sisters and brothers, as the freed and beloved children of God, may we go and do likewise.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
We will take advantage of folks, and make poor decisions, and misuse what has been entrusted to us. And some days, we will be so sweetly and acutely overwhelmed by the wideness of God’s mercy that we can only fall at the feet of Christ and weep. But the story that surrounds us is one of love – always about love. The love we show to all people, regardless of who they are and how comfortable we are – and the love with which we are loved, by the God who created us and claimed us and calls us beloved children.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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