Unlikely Workers

I.N.I.

a sermon to be preached at Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arlington, VA on the 5th Sunday after Pentecost, 23 June 2013, and based on the Gospel for the day, St. Luke 8:26-39, with connections to the Epistle for the day, Galatians 3:23-4:7

Grace, mercy and peace be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Dear friends in Christ,

Jesus often seems to pull his workers from really unlikely places and circumstances. He selects a wandering Aramean to be the progenitor of his chosen people. He pulls a tax collector working on behalf of the occupying Romans to be in his inner circle of Jewish disciples. He takes a rabidly right wing Jewish man to be his primary apostle to the first century Gentile world. Throughout history God calls the least and weakest among humanity to be among the people who are both to lead the faithful, and to gather in more from the ends of the earth. In today's Gospel Jesus reaches into the ranks of the most unfortunate to create a missionary preacher.

Our goal this morning is to see how each of us is being called to be God's instrument in the world. No matter what our background, no matter where we come from, or how we have lived our lives thus far, we do not sit beyond the reach of God. God said through Isaiah in today's Old Testament lesson, "I spread out my hands all day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually...." (Is. 65:2) In other words, he is constantly reaching out to people who do not seek him, who do not ask for him (65:1). He has done that from the beginning, and continues to do that now.

You and I are among those whom God has reached out to. We are among those whom God has called to be his servants. We are the ones whom he works through today. But like so many of those who came before us, we have often preferred to remain locked in the past, tied to the unhelpful things that date from before Jesus on our personal timelines.

Look with me at the man in today's Gospel. Here's someone who was in a bad spot. He had somehow or other opened himself up to demonic possession. And not just one demon, but a whole host of them -- thousands, perhaps. He was a danger to himself and to others. He was so violent and uncontrolled that his family and neighbors would chain him up so that he wouldn't hurt them or himself. But the demons gave him more than human strength and he would regularly break the chains holding him, and then they would drive him out of the town, away from the living, out into the cemetery where he would live in the tombs. It was a sad, lonely life. An unproductive life. A violent life. An uncontrolled life. A dangerous life. If it continued, it would be a completely wasted life.

Then Jesus appeared. He and his disciples had sailed through a raging storm on the Sea of Galilee (one in which the Lord spoke to the wind and waves to calm things down) and they had landed on the opposite shore. It wasn't far away in miles, but may have been a place the disciples had never been before. It was a Greek region made up of 10 towns that were definitely not a majority Jewish area. They were going to be strangers in a strange land.

That oddness was made clear by the welcome they got. It wasn't from the Welcome Wagon, or the Convention and Visitors' Bureau; it wasn't from Customs and Immigration Enforcement. The welcome they got was from a raving naked man. This is our demon-possessed man out roaming the deserted regions away from town. And he was in full demon mode, too, that morning.

As they landed, Jesus was already commanding the demons to come out of the poor man, but they were resisting. In typical demon fashion they were trying to distract Jesus and confuse his purposes by spinning lies. "What have you to do with me?" they asked. In other words, 'leave me alone, Jesus; this is no concern of yours, nothing interesting happening here; go back where you came from, Jesus.' All that spoken with what the demons meant as a flattering tag line, calling him "Jesus, Son of the Most High God." (Because although they do not have saving faith in Jesus, they do recognize and have to speak the truth about our Lord.)

When Jesus allows the demons to enter the herd of pigs on the hillside, the ruckus moves with them. That really becomes the news of the day as the swineherds run off to spread the story. Our focus should remain back on Jesus. We don't have the minute-by-minute narrative of what happened next, but can tell from the result that the man suddenly came back to his own God-created senses. The disciples went into their luggage to find him some clothes (or did Jesus miraculously create some for him?). Then our Lord began to teach him what he needed to know.

We sure would like to know what Jesus said to him, but that was Jesus's story for that man; and what we really need to listen for is his story for each of us. Still, I will speculate that Jesus told the man about the havoc he had created in his demon-possessed state, and the broken relationships he would need to mend. And I will surmise that Jesus especially shared his love and forgiveness with the man, and that Jesus gave the man his mission in life, explaining that it was now his turn to tell others about the miraculous life-changing relationship with God that all of them could experience, too (even though, as Isaiah had said, "they did not ask for me ... [they] did not seek me.")

So, fine Pastor, how's this relate to me? Here's how: none of us here are as obviously demon-possessed as this man by the lake was centuries ago, but all of us here have at least remnants of the chains from our past holding us back from being God's instruments in today's world.

Let's work through this by looking at our lives through the lens of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. Our Epistle lesson this morning carries a very fully-packed series of images that grow out of the idea that in Paul's time an immature boy (which we will expand in our application to include girls) would have been under the strict rule of a guardian "until the date set by his father" (Gal. 4:2). Until that date they would really have no more rights and privileges than a slave. So Paul says that's how we were, too, when we lived under the Law. We were chained, then, basically kept prisoner, not allowed our freedom, always at the direction of another.

Living under the rule of the Law, in other words, is like being that demon-possessed man who needed to be chained up for everyone's safety, who broke away and preferred living among the dead in the tombs. "Before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed" (Gal. 3:23). "But now that faith has come, we are no longer" chained in captivity to the Law with its impossible demands "for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith." (Gal. 3:25). Now that our faith is that the death and resurrection of Jesus make us right with God, we are free from the impossible demands of the Law, free to be who God wants us to be, free to live how he wants us to live.

When the demon-possessed man was changed by contact with Jesus, he put on clothes and sat at Jesus's feet. Or, as Paul says in Galatians, "as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Putting on clothes, putting on Christ, we're ready to take up our tasks in the world.

The man by the lake is a kind of flesh-and-blood parable for us, who illustrates both Paul's teaching in Galatians and our own lives. His encounter with Jesus prepared him to go back to his house, his home, the town he was from, and tell others all the things that had come to pass, which the Lord had made known unto him. In the same way, we are informed and empowered by continuing conversations with Jesus to move out into the world and do what he needs us to do.

That continuing conversation with Jesus is important, too. I would guess that the man who had been possessed by demons probably thought his conversation was cut short. He was sitting at Jesus's feet, we're told, which was the posture of discipleship. At that time one literally sat at the feet of one's teacher. We don't know how long his instruction went on. It was a little while anyway, in that the swineherds first had to run off shouting their story in town and country; then the townsfolk had to hear the news, probably from several witnesses, process it mentally as something interesting enough to look into, and then they had to gather themselves up and go out to see what had happened. That wouldn't have been an instantaneous series of events. But there's no evidence that it dragged on either.

That makes the healed man's period of discipleship pretty short before the world (in the form of "all the people of the surrounding country") broke in on the scene, asking Jesus to depart. We could wonder at these people who were near witnesses of the miraculous healing of a man whom they all knew to be possessed of demons. Why wouldn't they want such a powerful healer to live among them and work more miracles? Well, they were afraid, we're told.

The people in that surrounding country needed a messenger to tell them they need not be afraid. They needed someone to bring them good tidings of great joy and announce to them that a Savior had been born for them in Bethlehem and was now walking the earth preaching good news to the poor. They were afraid because they realized their sinfulness in the presence of the Holy One of God. They did not know yet that Jesus himself was their path to life. They needed a messenger to bring them that news. And who better than one of their own? Who better than the man who was formerly filled with a legion of demons? That is why Jesus left the man behind with the mission to return home rather than letting him follow along as they went back to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

The man had absorbed enough in his short time with Jesus to be able to take his experience out to his family, friends, neighbors, and eventually to "the whole city" telling them "how much Jesus had done for him" (Luke 8:39). In the same way, really, you and I have absorbed enough from our conversations with Jesus to be able to tell other people how much he has done for us. He has set us on the path. We have direction and purpose in our lives. We have parts to play.

See again how this un-named man's experience is a picture of our own. In various ways and to various depths each of us was at one time chained and kept captive under the Law. All our hearts knew then was the threat of punishment for being broken and sinful people. We lived among the dead without a shred of self-respect to clothe ourselves in. Then Jesus came to us. We were justified by faith. We were baptized and put on Christ. No longer enslaved under the Law, we were adopted as God's true children and entered into the close family relationship he offers us, where we are learning our real places in the world. And at some point we return as free people able to tell the whole city how much Jesus has done for us, each of us in our own particular way, each of us in our own God-powered actions and Spirit-filled words.

When Jesus and the disciples got back they were surrounded by crowds. After Jesus healed some people he called his 12 disciples together and sent them out "to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick" (Luke 9:2). So you see that this action of being discipled and then going out has much precedent: the man who had been possessed by demons, the 12 disciples, all who heard the Great Commission, me, you, all of us.

In our individual conversation with Jesus we learn how and where to go, what to do. We pray with the hymnwriter: "Drive out the doubt that cripples faith; expel our pride and greed that we, from powers that threaten us, may by Your grace, be freed. Then help us, Lord, to greet each day with hearts and wills made new and, when You call us forth to serve, to rise and follow You." (Lutheran Service Book, #541, st. 4,5).

And may the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.