Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
Goodbye well-crafted words based on the Galatians text of the day. Reflections on unity in the early church, of social sacrifice, and mutual care across social and racial lines will have to wait for another day. Another time, God willing, we will return to Paul’s words regarding the disciplined Divine love in the law and the matching compassionate grace to be found in Christ, the inheritance of the descendants of Abraham, the children of God.
Farewell to thoughts on Isaiah- musings on people who sought power in the wrong ways and worshipped their own understanding, rather than the mystery and awesomeness of God. Delete, delete, delete over sentences regarding what it might mean for a people to follow their own certainties to such an extent that they miss the providence and guidance of God right before them. The prophet speaks of God’s impatience, but the people do not see it and we will not think of it today.
The laments of Psalm 22 are not ours for discussion today. A man feeling forsaken, a people who feel unheard, any understanding that dominion belongs to the Lord…. Those words are all sermons in themselves, if we pray with humility to hear them.
Here I am deleting the Flannery O’Conner quote, “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.” Contemplation on why the folks asked Jesus to leave town after such a powerful healing. The restoration of a man to wholeness cost at least some of them their livelihoods in the form of the pigs. They had to consider how to relate to the healed man in a new way. It was too much, too fast and change is painful. And grace necessitates and facilitates change. But not today.
In light of the bombs dropped on Iran, based on what I know on Saturday night, looking at my computer at 10 pm and knowing the outline I memorized will not be the words I deliver, this is what I believe we must consider today.
We must think about this in the light of being followers of Christ- people called and equipped to give glory to God in word and deed, to imitate Christ, and to share his love.
It is easy to listen to this story from Luke and to think its first hearers would have kind of been glad about the death of a herd of pigs. They didn’t eat pork. Why should they care?
It is easy to listen to this story and to think about Acts and the early church learning about the wideness in God’s mercy and considering what it truly means not to call something or someone whom God has made unclean.
But the pigs aren’t just dead pigs. They don’t just represent lost livelihood. The pigs are the collateral damage of evil.
The demons did not wish to be cast into the abyss- a permanent destruction that the first century hearers of the story would have recognized as the end location of conquered evil spiritual forces.
The demons beg to be sent into another host; they want to live. Evil does not go quietly into the night. It fights and fights and it takes down everything it possibly can on its way. Spiritual evil. The powers and principalities of this world that oppose the Divine will. The evil of human brokenness in sin.
Jesus knows the consequences of letting evil have its way, but he permits the demons to enter the pigs. And the pigs respond by rushing down the steep bank and drowning, which effectively sends the demons into the abyss, permanently, anyway. Evil is destructive and, ultimately, self-destructive. It will not win, and it doesn’t actually care who or what it takes down on the way to the abyss.
It is far too reductive, too simplistic, to read today’s story and say, “Sometimes some pigs have to die for someone to be free.” That is never the conclusion of the gospel.
Jesus came upon a scene of despair, pain, and torment, which had occurred through years of evil at work in the form of the demons and complicity with evil in the form of how the man had been treated through isolation, force, and domination. It was not inevitable that the pigs had to die. There is more than one way to combat and reject evil.
Almost everyone in this room has a different idea of what exactly is evil in our present circumstances in the world. And we could fight about that all day. And that is why this sermon had to be rewritten on Saturday night.
Followers of Christ do not accept that evil is inevitable. We renounce it.
Followers of Christ do not accept that isolation, force, and domination make for safety. We renounce it.
Followers of Christ do not accept that sometimes the pigs just have to die. We renounce it.
In this world, in a time in need of hope and peace, followers of Christ are called to believe and attest to the only thing we truly believe is inevitable- the grace of God. And that’s the sermon.
Prayer of the day: O Lord God, we bring before you the cries of a sorrowing world. In your mercy set us free from the chains that bind us, and defend us from everything that is evil, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.
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