No
more had Jesus set foot on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, than he was
confronted by this man…
naked, unhoused, at home in the wild and among the tombs.
A man guarded and bound…
all kinds of things done to try to keep him under control…
all of them failed…
Possessed—(from
Garasa, a village destroyed by Rome, named as “Legion”—a 5,000 person cohort of
Roman Soldiers—thrown into swine—the mascot of Rome’s Syrian Legion.)
And
Jesus throws the Legion out of this man,
and they stampede through the swine over a cliff,
to the pigs’ doom.
Then
the hog farmers
—the villagers
—the man’s neighbors
—come to see the commotion.
Transformed—the man is clothed and in his right mind…
Now
that’s frightening! Who is this man without his demons… who is he if he’s not
the guy we used to chain up? Guarded… was it all worth the trouble? Is his
stability worth losing many times his weight in bacon and profit?
“Get
out of here, Jesus!”
“Take
me with you, Jesus!”
“Stay
with them, your neighbors, the hog farmers, the folk who used to tie you up and
no longer recognize you now that you are you again!”
God!
I feel for this man…
he’s freed from his demons, and now he’s stuck with his neighbors!
Let us pray
You
might remember three years ago when I last preached on Galatians—the continued
refrain of that letter is an equation: “Jesus + anything is less than Jesus
Alone.” (J+<J)
Paul
says, “watch out, we were once captured and tutored by the Law”
—by this he means something more than just the Jewish Torah
—but in fact any rules based on Antimonies
—pairs of things that make up the whole…
dominating by using dualistic, either/or categories.
“The whole world is Free people… or Slaves”
“You’re either a Greek… or a Barbarian.”
“You got men… and you got ladies.”
In
short, Paul is saying, “don’t get Jailed by your categories.”
Don’t let their usefulness for order, order you around;
don’t let a system become a stumbling block for you and your faith.
If the Law is your schoolmaster or Nanny,
you’re an immature and retched pupil…
but you’re not!
You are a Child of God!
You’re an heir of the Promise!
Fastening
any of those categories onto Baptism
—forcing people to put on a cultural, religious, economic or gendered garb,
before baptism and membership into the family of God
—before putting on Christ
Or advantaging one type over another,
one identity or category
—misses the mark and the point!
That’s small ball
kind of stuff
—this faith,
this community, this baptism
—it destroys the world and all of its categories, its laws and its hierarchies.
When you put on Christ
you are putting on:
-God’s invasion of this world
-God’s emancipation and adoption
-the righting of the whole world!
You are joined to Christ
—you are a New Creation!
You are a member of God’s family on account of Jesus, and Jesus alone!
That alone is the
meaningful category!
That alone pulls together all these jangling pieces—like a magnet
—like a mother hen… all of us gathered together, in our baptism, under loving
wings!
We are one, without
homogeneity,
we find dignity in difference because of our oneness in Christ,
united in diversity,
heirs of the promise—all of us!
Freed, and now stuck together!
Think
about the man from Garasa.
While he was physically hard to control—categorizing him as the Demoniac made
it easy to control… literally demonize… There are people possessed by demons
and then there is us.
Having
a bad guy is comfortable,
The hard work of growth and change when you’re faced with the man as he
is—faced with the way you abused and devalued him—that’s where the Spirit
breaks in!
For
that matter, the transformation of this man isn’t inconsequential—encountering
Christ is an invasion—not business as usual—an unburdening and emancipation
from the power of the Devil!
He
is Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors, or to quote Luther’s
understanding of Christian freedom, he is now, “Slave to none, and servant to
all.”
(As I said last week, the season
after Pentecost is a “So What” sort of season… don’t just tell the story but
tell me the why and the so what of things!)
Well,
our congregation was one of 100s who took part in the Harford Study
—the first major study of how the Pandemic affected the faith life of
Parishioners
—there’ve been tons of studies on the Clergy
—we’re not alright
—but this was the first to measure what’s happening in the pews—what the
people attending virtually are up to.
-The study told us that 95% of
parishioners are satisfied with online worship.
-Virtual worshippers multitask—but do
pray, read, and sing along.
-Counting each person who watches at
1.5 people is about right.
It
also had a lot to say about people who have joined a church in the last 5
years.
8% have never been to church before, and are looking for mentors—this is a significantly
higher number than pre-Covid.
22% of joiners were returners—they’d stopped regularly attending pre-Covid and
came back because they were looking for connection—a place to volunteer and
belong.
Then finally, the bulk of
people joining a congregation—70% left another congregation to join one that more
closely aligned with their ideology. Blue churches for blue people and Red
churches for red people—a parallel to the sorting we see in wider society—you
have blue neighborhoods and red neighborhoods, blue news and red news. They left,
according to this study, because it made them happy and comfortable.
The thing about that is…
there are higher values than happiness. Is a community life giving, not
comfortable? Are you transformed? Filled with joy? Do you find peace and
growth—does the community open you to hear the Spirit?
In Luther’s table talk
about marriage he says that it knocks off the rough edges—in general
relationships, community, is like sandpaper, it smooths out our jagged
coarseness.
-Jews and Gentiles worshipping
together meant we had to have the Council of Jerusalem.
-Freed and Slave gathered as one body—led to Paul to call Onesimus son and
insist that his owner Philemon cease to call him slave!
-Man and woman—Luke’s whole Gospel & and the Acts of the Apostles attests
to the Spirit at work in that admixture!
What I’m saying is—seeking
conflict free happiness in a homogeneous congregation might not be our
highest goal as Christians.
Faithfulness means we’re Freed
from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors, God help us!
So
X, Y—joining us, you need to know a couple things…
-This isn’t a hobby church—but folks in a struggle of life from
death, the Spirit birthing a new creation in us!
-This isn’t an ideological silo—we’re
not any political party at prayer—even when we want to be, we’re awful at it,
our Theology doesn’t allow it. Just as Jesus’ disciples included Roman
Collaborator Tax Collectors and anti-Roman Zealots—we too hold antimonies
together in our baptism.
-The way Lutherans understand preaching is that it’s an act of confession,
my confession of faith in a way that ought to speak to the whole congregation…
that’s why ELCA clergy can be removed for using other people’s sermons without citation
—that wouldn’t be a genuine confession of faith…
that’s also why you will hear the Gospel in the tenor of
Halverson, the key of Chris
—and that means I’m more likely to disappoint you or say something you disagree
with
—that’s part of the package when the preacher is not a parrot or entertainer,
but is a confessor.
Welcome
to this community, freed from Sin, Death, and the Devil, and bound to one
another in our Baptism.
Amen.
