2022 06 19 Sermon

Sermon for June 19, 2022 Pentecost 2 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Luke 8:26-39 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Maybe I should have taken this Sunday for vacation, because we get one weird gospel reading! But even though the details are strange and even a bit fantastical—with demons leaving a man, entering a herd of swine who rush down a steep bank, and get drowned in a lake—when you strip the story down to what is happening underneath, I think it still speaks to us today. So let’s take a closer look.

There was a “man of the city” who had demons. For most of us, we might think of demons as something from a horror movie, not as a supernatural force that possesses people. And yet, to use a common expression, we often talk of someone being “haunted by their demons”. We might say “their demons have caught up with them” or they are “tormented by their demons”; by which we might mean anything from a traumatic experience, to a chronic illness, an episode of abuse, an addiction, or even a nagging worry that you can never shake off.

We also learn that the man in this story is from “the city” but lived naked and homeless “in the tombs”. Today, it’s unlikely that you’ll see naked people roaming the streets, but we do know that many vulnerable people need clothing, especially in the winter months, and many of you donate generously to Despensa or Street Life when there is a need. And while you probably wouldn’t expect to find anyone living in a cemetery, we do know that homelessness is a big problem these days and that you can find people living in all kinds of precarious places— not only in major cities, but also in rural areas, and even in a suburb like Franklin. It’s estimated that 1 in 14 Americans will experience homelessness (either briefly or long-term) in their lifetime.

We also see in today’s gospel story a repeated mention of begging. I’ve had many experiences of people approaching me and begging for money, and maybe you have, too. Very often, for me, this has been while riding the train in New York City. I spent my high school years riding the train to school every day; and in my visits back home in the years since then, I’ve frequently been approached by people begging, and most seemed to be in genuine need. There are all kinds of stories behind the people who do the begging. Homeless veteran. Loss of job. Loss of housing. Drug addiction. Illnesses. Medical bills. Kids at home need food; and the list goes on. Usually they move on pretty quickly if you don’t give them anything, and when you’re exposed a lot of begging, you kind of become numb to it and learn how to tune it out. That was true to for in my years of riding the subway. After all, it’s impossible to help everyone, you’re not always in a position to help, and naturally you have your questions or doubts about the reasons people are doing the begging, and about what’s the best way to truly help.

But in today’s gospel story, the begging we hear about is specifically begging Jesus—and this detail turns begging into a form of prayer. So as I reflected on this, I thought, what if we consider our prayers as a form of begging? After all, Jesus has everything we truly need; and one aspect of prayer is acknowledging that there are things that we need, that we don’t have, that we’d like God to provide. Would thinking of our prayers as “begging from Jesus” change the way we pray? Would it change our attitudes? Would it open our hearts and souls in a different way? Would we come to look for different things as the result of our prayers?

When we look at today’s gospel, what do they beg for? The man who has demons begs Jesus “do not torment me!” He’s basically saying “leave me alone! Allow my demons to remain with me.” You might think he’d be begging Jesus to remove the demons instead, but really, it’s a pretty common human experience that we prefer to hold onto what we know, even if it is

harmful or unhealthy. We can be very afraid of putting in the work that’s required to become free of the “demons that torment us”, because freedom means venturing into the unknown.

Even if the present is painful, it is still familiar. And we like the familiar. The prospect of a better future often involves a lot of discomfort along the way to get there. That’s why new life can only be reached by faith: Faith that Christ is walking by our side with his grace, love, and strength to lead us through our fear; through our discomfort; through our pain. As much as we might want him to, Christ doesn’t simply take these things away—instead, when we put our faith in him, he leads us through them, because Christ himself went through fear, discomfort, and pain on his way to the cross—and he knows the way to being raised to new life and salvation; he knows that after making your way through the unknown, God is already there waiting for you on the other side.

Jesus wants to lead you to become the full person God has created you to be. Which is, I think, why Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee to find this demon-possessed man living among the tombs. Even though this man was alive, he was living as if he were already dead. For him—and for us—Jesus wants to turn that mindset around, until we live by faith that, even when we die, in Christ we shall be made alive. And as we die to our fears; die to our sin; die to the things that torment us; die to our reluctance to trust God—that’s when we find that we are already alive in God!

Jesus casts the demons out of the man. Jesus makes him venture through his fear into a future filled with God’s presence. And then what happens? The folks from the city find the man “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” He’s the same man, but different—free now to be who God always meant for him to be. Free to live as a disciple—as someone who learns how to truly live, by keeping connected to Jesus.

Understandably, the man wants to go back to Galilee with Jesus when it’s time for Jesus to leave. But Jesus tells him, “No; you’ve got to stay here, where you live. Tell the story of what God has done for you, right here.”

That’s where the story ends, and the end of this story gives each of us an open invitation from Jesus to imagine ourselves in the place of this man, right where you live. As Jesus asks you to stay where you live and tell what God has done for you, you can begin by begging Jesus in prayer and lifting up to him your answers to the questions Jesus poses in this story:

What are the things that torment or worry you?

What is the first step toward an unknown future that you need Jesus to help you with? What part of your life needs to “die” so that you may truly live in Christ? How will you stay close to Jesus and learn from him, so that God will lead you to become the person he’s always created you to be? Amen.