Before I begin today’s sermon, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support, your welcome, and all that you have taught me in this past year. Tomorrow, June 20th will mark my first year as your curate. It’s been my pleasure to serve, learn, worship, and grow with you. And I look forward to the next year of my curacy and beyond as I focus on children, youth and family ministries. As a child I always felt safe, welcomed and seen at church. I was listened to, invited to take part in the life of the church, and valued. As a kid at church, I mattered. In Sunday school, as an acolyte with my older brother, in confirmation class, in church-wide education activities, youth events and summer camp, I found my community, and I realized God’s love for me through the actions, words, and teachings of others. It is my goal that all young people feel valued and included here at St. Mary’s. And that they grow to know the God who loves them. I thank you in advance for partnering with me to bring God’s love to all of our children, youth, and families here at St. Mary’s.
And now, let us pray: Good and loving God, take these words and use them for your glory and for the unity and restoration of your people. Amen.
Wow. What a gospel story we have today! A naked guy who lives in the tombs, possessed by multiple demons who are so bad when they take over his body he has to be restrained with chains and shackles, and even that’s not enough, he somehow manages to break free and run into the wild. Woah! And then these demons beg Jesus to send them into the pigs and he does, and then the pigs go rushing into the lake and drown? What? Crazy! This is the first person that Jesus and the disciples encounter when they get off of the boat in the country of the Gerasenes, opposite from Galilee. Opposite from Galilee in geography, and also in religion. This is the land of the Gentiles, the non-Jews. But this man with many demons knows who Jesus is, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God...Do not torment me!” And then Jesus asks, “What is your name?” But his answer is not Joshua or Nathaniel, he answers, “Legion.” Legion. Many. Who is this man? Or perhaps better, who was he? Clearly, he is no longer himself. He has no clothes, no house, he has been separated from his community, cast out, no one to care for him, except on the occasions that he becomes too violent and then people bind him in chains and shackles. This man lives among the tombs, on the outskirts of town, tormented, alone, he no longer knows who he is.
What is your name? Legion. Many. Many are the problems, the demons, that weigh on us today, it seems that everywhere I look I am attacked by another story of terrible, senseless, violence and dehumanization in our world today. Like the Gerasene man, it can be hard to remember, hard to tell anymore, who we are, whose we are. Anxieties about our own health, or the health of a loved one, worries about our young peoples’ mental health, about the safety or our schools, shopping centers, even our churches, struggles with addiction, mental health and houselessness in a tangled web, our problems are many, legion. In today’s gospel Jesus crosses over to the other side and reaches out to this man whom his community has dismissed, and kept at bay. He has his place, and they have theirs. They know where this crazy guy will be and how to avoid interacting with him. Stay away from the tombs! The community has chosen their identity and this man is not a part of it. Enter Jesus, the great disruptor. “Then people came out to see what had happened…they found the man…sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” He had been healed, saved, made whole. Jesus disrupts and Jesus restores. He disrupts the pain and evil of our world with compassion, grace, and mercy. He flips the tables, literally, overturning our human way of thinking about who is or isn’t valuable. “Those who had seen it told how the one who had been possessed by the demons has been healed.” Jesus restores this man to himself and returns him to his community. He has been made whole again, the assaults from the demons that beset him are no more. He knows who he is again and he begs Jesus to let him stay with him, the one who has healed him physically, mentally, and spiritually. But Jesus sends him away. “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he goes back into the city, back into his former community and proclaims the good news of Jesus’ healing, restorative power. What’s your name? I’m Joshua. I used to roam among the tombs naked and out of my mind. I’m the one Jesus healed. I am worthy. I am valued. Beloved of God!
But this restoration doesn’t come without its price. The swineherds lost their pigs, their way of making a living. And the people lost the devil they knew, the crazy guy screaming out by the tombs. When they first saw him restored, Luke tells us “They were afraid.” And then they ask Jesus to leave, to go away from them, “For they were seized with great fear.” What were they afraid of? The unknown? The status quo? Change? Jesus has the power to make whole, to restore, to grant to all their true identities. But at what cost? What are we called to lose, to change, to give up? The certainty that we have now? Life as it is, as we know it, people in their places? What would we be willing to offer up for an unknow future, shaped and guided by God? A future that would include restoration and wholeness for all of our hurting siblings, the ability for them to know their names, their true identities, worthy, valuable, beloved.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians our true identities are revealed. “In Christ Jesus you are all children of God.” Like the Gerasene man, we may have trouble remembering or even believing who we are. We are all of us beloved children of God. When we are baptized we are “clothed with Christ.” I love this image. I am reminded of the prayers shawls at my house on the couch and at the end of the bed and the new shawls that I took with me for my family in the Midwest. We are clothed with Christ. Wrapped up in loving arms, the warm embrace of the God who knows our innermost being, who knows exactly what we are feeling and dealing and struggling with as human beings. Paul also reminds us that this love, this grace and mercy, the restorative, healing power of Jesus, does not discriminate. It is available to all. In Jesus, our binary distinctions and separators, our groupings of ins and out, in fact ALL dichotomies, are done away with. None of that has any effect on the love of God for all of God’s beloved children, for we are all one in the love of Christ. What is your name? Beloved.
Amen.
