Free from Fear - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Luke 8:26-39

²⁶Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 

²⁸When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— ²⁹for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 

³⁰Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. ³¹They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. 

³²Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. ³⁴When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.³⁵Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

³⁶Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. ³⁷Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 

³⁸The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

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If you would like to hear a recording of this sermon (which infusions from the Spirit), you can find the recording by clicking this link.

God of freedom, we ask that you break open our shackles of fear of the other so that we might go forth to declare how much God has done for us, risking the work of freeing all people, because they are your children and they are worthy of grace, and mercy, and justice. Amen. 

There is a lot happening in the gospel text this morning. And I could preach on about six different things here, so it’s a shame we only hear this story once every three years. It is rich with the very meaning of God’s incarnation in Christ Jesus. I spent my internship year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and there, people were more accustomed to two or three hour worship services. So on a Sunday like today, I might say, "sit back, get comfortable, because this is going to be a long one." 

But I don't think you will let me preach for an hour or so, so I had to pick something, just one thing to preach about. 

So this morning, I want to focus on something different, something sort of on the outside of this text. I want to focus on the community around the man we call the Gerasene demoniac, the man with a legion of demons, the man with no clothes who lives not in a house but in the tombs. I want to focus on the community around that man.

We don’t know much about the community, but I think we can safely extrapolate some things from the reading. Even though it never says that the man possessed by demons harmed anyone or even himself, he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles. I can only imagine that the community did this out of fear. Perhaps they were afraid that he might be too difficult to care for, a strain on the community, or a nuisance to the right order of things. Perhaps they were afraid that they, too, may become possessed by demons as if it were some communicable disease. As if they didn’t have demons of their own to deal with. But we do know they were a fearful people, because when they came back and saw that the man was in his right mind, when the demons had left him— they were afraid— seized with great fear. They remind me of the verses from Isaiah where God says, “I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people who say, ‘Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you’” (Isaiah 65:2,5). God has some words for people like that. 

Somehow, by some luck or coincidence, the community surrounding this man is full of people who are not possessed by demons. They believed they were free. Yet instead of intervening on behalf of this man, instead of trying to work toward his wholeness and healing, they have cast him out to live among the dead. They have decided, as a community, that he is unworthy of being cared for because of circumstances that he cannot control. 

And I don’t want to assume too much about this community, because you know what they say about people who assume. So maybe they did attempt other paths before resorting to chaining him up and guarding him. Perhaps this is the only way they knew how to deal with this man. We don’t know the whole story, but it seemed like this man’s bondage worked for the community. They were okay with him being chained up, they were comfortable with it even. But it does not work for Jesus, God is not comfortable with God’s child being shackled and chained. 

At this point in his journey, Jesus has made a habit out of seeking out the people who have been discarded by their community and left for dead. And that’s exactly what he does in this story. He crosses the sea into an unclean land that is Gerasene, to an unclean place that is the tombs, to an unclean man who is possessed by demons. There is something about God incarnate in Christ that is like a magnet to the people who are outcast and discarded. Because this man, like us, like every person on this earth, is God’s child and is worthy of grace, and mercy, and justice not because of who he is or what he has done, but because of whose he is as God’s child. 

And grace upon grace that God is, Jesus not only casts out the demons, but grants their plea and does not send them into the abyss. And most importantly the man is healed. He is restored and clothed and freed. 

So, too, are we restored and clothed and freed in our baptism. So, too, are we restored and clothed and freed and fed in this holy meal. 

After the man was freed from his shackles and chains, he begged to go with Jesus, to be safe by his side, away from any more demons that may be lurking. But Jesus sets him on a different path— a more difficult path. He is to return home, declaring how much God had done for him. He was to go and spread the gospel. He was to go and help his own community break the chains of fear that they held so close to themselves even now, even after they witnessed Jesus’ incredible power to heal and restore. 

This, too, is our call. We have been freed from our shackles of sin and we are called to proclaim what Christ has done for us. We are called to proclaim our freedom. We get to be a part of God’s work of freeing others. We have been freed like this man to go and tell others what God has done by actively working to break down the boundaries and walls and fences that we have build up against one another. And that is holy work for the sake of God’s reign in this world.

But it is not easy work. There will be people who are afraid of God’s power. There will be people who resist the gospel. Afraid that the gospel says, in no unclear words that in God’s kingdom: there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, there is no longer black and white, there is no longer conservative or liberal, there is no longer migrant or citizen, there is no longer undocumented or documented. 

There will be people who are afraid to accept that we are all made in Christ’s image, we are all one in Christ, belonging to Christ, and freed in Christ. All of us. Every single one of us. And every single one of them. You know you I am talking about. The people who we consider them— maybe they are those who are in prison, those who are across any border, those who are openly wrestling with demons. All of them in detention centers and mental hospital wings and on the street or facing their court date. Every single one of them is made in the image of God, is a child of God. 

We may even be those frightened people, the ones who don’t want to accept that truth, every once in a while. Or maybe even most of the time. Because it is also risky work. Doing the work of the kingdom is why Jesus was arrested, tried, and murdered by the state. So what are we to do? 

We do as Jesus says, we declare how much God has done for us. And we hope. Unrelentingly, we hope. 

Because we have been welcomed into a new community. And the opposite of a community surrounded by fear is a community fully entrenched in hope. Hope for a new day, hope for a new creation, hope for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Hope for all people all people to be unshackled and safe and clothed at Christ’s feet. 

Amen. 

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I preached this sermon at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida on June 23, 2019. 

Midwives Save Lives

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is about two of the bravest and most extraordinary people in Hebrew scripture: Shiprah and Puah, two midwives (Exodus 15-22). If you've never read this story, I encourage you to read the whole thing. It is wonderful. It's about two head Egyptian midwives who have been told by the pharaoh to kill all the Hebrew baby boys as they are born. The midwives resist the pharaoh's orders, and more than that, the Hebrew text tells us that they allowed the baby boys to flourish. When approached by the pharaoh regarding their disobedience, they lied and said that the Hebrew women were fierce enough to birth their own babies. 

This story, among many other reasons, led me to the UF Health North Birth Center, where I came under the brave, diligent care of the midwives there. 

The story of Shiprah and Puah is about bravery in the face of seemingly unchallengeable odds. The Hebrew scholar Nahum M. Sarna states that “their defiance of tyranny constitutes history’s first recorded act of civil disobedience in defense of moral imperative.” Midwives, from the start, seem to be accustom to acts of resistance and fighting against the powers that be. 

Per the CDC, Florida's 2017 Infant Mortality Rate was 6.1%, compared to the national average of 5.8%. Also per the CDC, Florida's 2017 Cesarean rate was 37.2%, compared to the national 32.0%. With the high infant and maternal mortality rates in the United States, and even higher in Florida, health care leaders and providers should be looking to subvert the machine of the “birthing business” for safer alternatives. 

This is precisely what the midwives of the UF Health North Birth Center are doing in their care for parents and children, and their commitment to honoring each person’s birth desires. Instead of triaging patients into one of many hospital rooms, and instead of endless paperwork and tests, the midwives work with parents to discover exactly the kind of birth experience they desire. This was my experience at the birth center when I moved to their care in March 2018, at six months pregnant. 

It has been expressed by the decision-makers at UF Health that the main reason for closing the birth center is to provide more options for people giving birth. If this is truly the reason, it only proves how out of touch the decision-makers are from the reality of birth in Jacksonville. The birth center actually provided a unique and important option for people giving birth that is not available in any other facility in Jacksonville. Closing the birth center would provide fewer options, not more.

I imagine the true reason that the birth center is being closed is because the birth center does not buy into “the business of birthing.” The midwives of the practice are committed to resisting the powers that insist that birth is nothing more or less than a cog in the for-profit, dangerous anti-health machine. Instead, the midwives work toward providing the care and comfort that any person would want during an otherwise traumatic or frightening transition in one’s life. The midwives know— and prove— that birth can be an incredibly transformational and even pleasurable experience for parents. 

Like the midwives of Exodus, the midwives at the UF Health North Birth Center are committed to seeing life not only be brought safely into the world, but flourish. The birth center provides an option for people, like me, who want to feel the safety and peace of mind of a hospital without the unnecessary IV drips, rushed care, and unimaginable cost. 

It was not without risk to themselves that the midwives in Exodus carried out their plan to subvert Pharaoh’s orders. I believe that the midwives of the UF Health North Birth Center, and midwives across the United States, have carried out their vocations with similar risk. When up against a tyrannical power as great as the United States healthcare system, it is never without risk to choose care over profit. But choose we must, and it seems UF Health has made its decision clear. 

I could not be more proud of these brave midwives, and grateful for their important role in my child’s own birth story. I hope that, like the midwives of Exodus, their story will be one of triumph over seemingly unchallengeable odds.

We are all one - Redeemer Episcopal Church

John 17:20-26

²⁰”I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

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If you would like to listen to this sermon (with infusions from the Spirit), you can find it at the link here. 

Grace and peace to you, from God the holy one, who is one with Christ as Christ is one with us so that we might be one with each other. Amen. 

The season of Easter is very strange. We have the amazing Easter celebration with the trumpets and lilies, then for several weeks after that, we go back in the story and hear gospel lessons about the time before Jesus’ death and resurrection. 

This is a particularly strange time in the liturgical calendar because it is after the feast of the ascension, which we celebrated on Thursday, but before the Pentecost. Jesus is no longer on earth with the disciples, but the Holy Spirit has not yet come. But for some reason, we find ourselves reading about before Jesus death and resurrection and ascension this Sunday.

That’s exactly what’s happening in this text— for several chapters, Jesus has been issuing his final farewell to the disciples before Passover and during his final meal with them. 

For almost four chapters, he gives them encouraging words, instructions, and exhortations. But in chapter 17, there is a shift. Jesus goes from talking to the disciples to looking up to heaven and addressing his father. Jesus starts praying. 

When I was in youth and campus ministry in Ohio, I was meeting at a restaurant with a student who had just started her first year of college and was home on break. She was discerning a call to ministry and needed someone to talk through it with. We talked for nearly three hours, to the great frustration of the restaurant workers. When we got up to leave, she said, “as you can see… I have a lot of discernment to do and many decisions to make. Will you pray for me?” 

I said, yes of course I would pray for her and gave her a hug. She hesitated and said, “no— I mean, will you pray for me right now. Here.” And she sat back down. Now, at that point in my ministry, I didn’t *love* praying aloud and I certainly didn’t like to doing it without any sort of preparation or warning. But I pulled my chair back around, sat down right across from her, clasped her hands in mind, put my forehead to hers, and prayed for a half an hour.

If you’ve ever had anyone pray for you aloud and in person, you know that it is vulnerable, and wonderful, and oftentimes exactly what your heart and spirit need in that moment. 

In this gospel lesson, Jesus has stopped giving instructions to his friends and starts praying aloud for them. And I think this is especially important to remember. 

When I first read the lesson this morning, I scoffed at the audacity of Jesus’ words. Jesus says things like, “So that they may be one. So that they may be completely one.” If this was still instruction or exhortation from Jesus, we’d be failing pretty terribly at being one people. But it’s not instruction. It’s a prayer. 

When Jesus asks his father that we may be one, it is not so much a command for us to follow as it is a description for us to remember. 

It reminds me of a math problem in high school, but I was never really very good at math, so I hope this is a little easier to grasp. 

Because Christ came into the world to walk and eat and be with us, we are one with Christ. And because Christ is one with God, we are also one with God. And if all of us are one with Christ and God, it means that we are all one with each other. We have all been grafted into the same family tree. 

That’s what it means when we are washed in the waters of baptism. It means that our own family lines don’t matter anymore. It means that we have died and we are raised with Christ. It means that when we eat the body and drink the blood of Christ, we are now one with Christ. His body and blood are in us. Which means we all share the same body and blood. 

And I know that most of this sounds metaphorical, but I don’t mean it only as metaphorical. And I think we recognize that in the most intimate moments of our lives. When we bury our friends and our family, like we have done so often these past few months, we recognize that we are not grieving alone. We are not hurting alone. The whole body of Christ, as one body, grieves together. 

Thursday night I attended the ordination of a new deacon at Christ Church, and even though I didn’t know him or most of the clergy and folx there, I was able to rejoice with them because we are all one. 

We do this in our prayers every Sunday too, we pray for people we don’t know or who don’t know us. People who are far away, or long gone. Just as Jesus prayed that evening in the presence of the disciples. Because he was not just praying to his father for the disciples, but he was praying on behalf of those who will believe in me through the disciples’ word. All of us. On the eve of his crucifixion, our Lord and savior prayed for you and me and everyone who would come to believe in him because of the witness of the disciples. Because we are one. We are one. There is no such thing as “us” and “them.” 

And that is difficult to hear because we live in a world of “us” and “them.” We are actively trying to emphasize the “us-ness” and “them-ness” in the world. 

Us, the Episcopalians, and them. 

Us, the Floridians, and them. 

Us, the Christians, and them. 

Us, the Americans, and them. 

Us, the Republicans or Democrats, or citizens, or wealthy, or liberals, or conservatives, or men, or women, or worthy, or pure, or pious, or stable, or well-adjusted. And them. 

But Jesus says that we are one. There is no “us” and “them.” Only God’s children. Only those who have died and been raised in Christ’s death and resurrection. Only those who have been grafted into God’s promise of salvations through Christ Jesus. There is only one body, one people, all together different and the same. 

And even though this isn’t a command or instruction from Jesus, I wonder what would it would look like if we started acting like we were one.

What would the world be if we felt the pain and suffering, the joy and liberation of everyone in the world? 

We are one, whether we like it or not. When one person in the body is suffering, we all suffer. When one celebrates, we all celebrate. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer said “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” 

Just like Paul and Silas in the story in Acts, when they broke free of their shackles, everyone broke free of their shackles. 

It is imperative that we begin living like we believe that we have all been created in God’s image and that in Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension, we are all one. Otherwise, we are not able to enjoy the truth of the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit— the truth that God is still with us, among us, within each of us, and in the face of each person on this earth. 

And next week, we get to hear that story and witness that truth firsthand— in Pentecost. So stay tuned for the next part of the story— it gets even better. Amen. 

This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church on June 2, 2019.