Luke 8:26-39
Proper 7 (12) - Year C
Boundary-breaking folks are found in our own house and on the other side of nowhere. They come with blessings and challenges. There is no escaping a choice in how to respond. A challenge in Pentecost goes back to its ecstatic beginning — experiencing a compulsion to speak of wonder beyond our ordinary way of interacting — in wonder we are bound together; in ordinary time we fight over everything, no matter how small.
How do we say, “You’re welcome, carry on” or “Rise” or “Come out”?
When the wonder of another finally surfaces, we act, bidden or unbidden, to affirm, to bless, to heal. In our choice to further wonder, we are set apart and lost to many afraid to wonder and more than willing to send us away. We are also set apart and find ever more opportunities to take an initial Pentecostal word of “wonder” and to extend it as an invitation for others to do the same.
Compare Acts 2:11, “...in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power”, and Luke 8:39, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” Here is impetus and continuation of wonder. Imagine where next it will surface in both the pericopes of Pentecost and the situations of your setting.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/06/luke-826-39.html
"What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?"
"Who is my neighbor, Jesus?"
"Where shall I declare God's partnership with me, Jesus?"
These are important questions that define our belovedness. We have been so loved that we might love our neighbor and let them know how our love comes to them.
Another question is that of "when." It is recorded that "when the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it...."
What did they tell? Did they provide fair and balanced news reporting? Did their report focus on pig demons? Did their account highlight unexpected healing? Did their report pre-dispose the newly informed to subsequently "ask" Jesus to leave?
If there is a connection between reports and response, we may want to pay attention to how we declare how much G*O*D has done for us -- it may have something to do with Jesus being asked to leave again or to further commission us.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
Then G*O*D said, "Beloved, this seized-one is part of my whole house. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to me. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the LORD. [Ezekiel 37:11-14, modified]
A city person requires the farmer (of wheat or pigs) to supply their need. They devour products. This is dramatically shown with the end result of destroying that which supplied their need - mad pig disease.
There is another way to live where all receive their needs, a living wage is present, and "enough" is known. Now the city person can see their raving and commit to living and speaking another way, a way of good news -- we are all part of G*O*D's household, whether Gerasene or Galilean.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/june2004.html
What to do when your thanks are given back to you with a task to take your thankfulness and apply it in the most difficult place known - home?
Mr. Gerasene was faced with this situation. Presumably he did it and became the forerunner of the Wesleyan Covenant Service:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.
- - -
wounded healers
travel home
where the hurt began
to test the welcome
and be tested
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html
We have begun our 2010 Wisconsin Annual Conference. Word has come about a potential trial of a lay person in West Ohio and a probable clergy trial here in Wisconsin. Both are logical outcomes of the dismissive language regarding "self-avowed, practicing, homosexuals".
As I read this passage from Luke, I can't help but wonder if the demoniac in need of healing isn't the Church that has gotten out of its right mind in an over-zealous attempt at inappropriate purity. The potential trials are acting like the child in the story of an Emperor's New Clothes - demonstrating the nakedness of a dead-end attempt to protect G*D and to live among the tomb of the past.
Those attempting to keep this identity-politic, restrictive language of the Church, seem to bounce back and forth between shouting about being tormented by liberals (Jesus) and begging to not have to change their ways. If called out on the blaming they whine and soon after complaining will be back at yelling for their way - and around and around it goes.
In this story, the demoniac/church is healed at the expense of pigs and those who earn their livelihood through them. This seems to have torn the community apart, as they ask/demand Jesus leave, even as Jesus sends forth a healed demoniac/church to do Pentecostal testimony regarding an amazing, expansive, and experienced love of G*D.
There will be fall-out when current United Methodist Church policy changes, economics may well be affected, but healing work will have been done and there is no adequate measure of this grace and no adequate reason to keep from a needed healing.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/06/luke-826-39.html