June 23 — Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Listen to this sermon HERE.

Grace to you and peace...

This text is no joke: Jesus once again comes face to face with the demonic, and there is confrontation and fear and terror, and even horror, and the ex-demoniac wanting to run from his community...but the scene—at least in my reading—ends with that blessing of peace: “Go home, and tell everyone how much God has done for you.”

Ugh, I guess that’s us: I guess we’re the ex-demoniacs.  Formerly bound, formerly scared.  Who hasn’t wanted to to run and reject God: “What have you to do with me, Jesus?!”  Maybe not in those words, but how often the “Jesus road”, the road less travelled looks so much more challenging. [pause]  Leave me alone, Jesus!  I guess we’re the ex-demoniacs.

Oh, and how this culture can drive us to insanity.  Either we’re crazy, locked up.  (Did you hear how that man was possessed by many demons, and they tried to lock him up?) — Ugh, I guess that’s us:  either we’re bound by the chains of our consumer culture, social and societal pressures, roles that we have to fit into, busyness, or bound by the chains of our addictions...and our fears.  Either we’re crazy, locked up...or we’re crazy, running wild.  Screw ‘em all!  (Ever had that within you too?)  We muster the strength to go it alone: I don’t need all this.  Forget all of you!  Alone, naked, uprooted, angry, out there on our own.  [slowly] Whether we’re crazy locked up, or crazy running wild...either way, something’s got us from the inside.  [pause]  

And right in the midst of our insanity, we are threatened by Jesus, who comes before us plainly — bread, wine, water, the care of a friend or a community like this.  Nothing sexy.  Jesus just climbs out of a boat plainly.  And how we can go on the defensive.  Get out of here!  Our demons stick up for us...

Because Jesus threatens the way we’ve been doing it...those things that...yeah, maybe aren’t the healthiest, but…those things that have given us identity.  And Jesus doesn’t just threaten, Jesus casts it out.  Jesus cast out the old and the demonic.  Jesus clears us of what was.  Drowns that which chains us and consumes us and even that which causes us to isolate ourselves.  All of it — drowned!  (Got a baptism today.)       

And there is for a moment a profound peace, calm.  [Women of El Nido — once abused, victims, incapable, hunched over with fear.  Sister Margaret:  now they are standing up.]

(That scene of the pigs running off—that many demons—but now the man is free/healed.)  Profound peace, calm.  Maybe that’s here?

But the world stays crazy:  The swineherds go running wild.  The crowds are gossiping, and fearful, and uneasy.   They banish Jesus.  Violence persists.  Abuse and recklessness and insanity, is all around, still.  We ex-demoniacs can hear it, and see it everywhere.  Almost immediately—after the amazing exorcism—nothing appears all that different...except for the fact that we’ve encountered the living God.  Almost immediately, though, we identify that suffering that still exists.

Looking around at all this, who wouldn't want to run away with Jesus?  Who wouldn’t want to be in an enlightened and healthy place mentally, physically and spiritually...and far away from all this nonsense?!  “Take me with you, Jesus!” the ex-demoniac...we say. 

Ugh, I guess we’re the ex-demoniacs.  Jesus encounters us, frees us of our demons, our fears, our anger...this day.  And there is this moment of peace, this moment to stand up straight.  And who wouldn’t want to stay here, stay with Jesus?  

But he sends us back.  Back home.  Back to the people.  Back to the earth, love and care for it all.

[I know I’ve told this before, but with Father’s Day a week ago and our trip to Colorado coming up...Dad in the rugged, beautiful Colorado landscape: "What'ya think, Dad?  Retire and get a cabin up here?"  "No, my place is with the people."]

It is an image for me of trusting that blessing from Christ: “Go home, and tell everyone what God has done for you.”

Friends in Christ, it’s crazy out there.  But Christ encounters us in here, in simple, down to earth, and yet life-giving, death-conquering, chain-breaking, community-restoring, peace-filling ways.  Thanks be to God for this encounter offered freely — Jesus just comes floating up in the boat.  For this community that gathers plainly and profoundly.  For this restoration.  For this exorcism.  And even for this command to “go back out there, and tell everyone”.

So the the ex-demoniac goes back.  He responds to Jesus.  He goes back and proclaims to everyone what God has done.  And we do that too, with our lives.  You’ve been healed and sent for a long time, and you do it everyday in your workplace, with your family, among your friends...perhaps not explicitly:  “God has done so much for me, let me count the ways…”  But through our actions we share the good news:  That God is love, that forgiveness and healing and the resurrection is real, that we no longer have to be plagued by demons, and that, with all evidence to the contrary, there is peace.  The peace that passes all human understanding.  That peace is with you now, and will never, ever leave you.  To God be the glory.  AMEN.