"Freeing Up our Demons" Pastor Fred Kinsey sermon, 6/23/13

• Isaiah 65:1-9 and Psalm 22:19-28 
• Galatians 3:23-29  
• Luke 8:26-39

The great theologian Karl Barth thought that the herd of pigs careening off the cliff’s edge into the Sea of Galilee was hilarious – I believe his exact words were, “burlesque” and “farcical,” a herd of squealing pigs in a panic.  But, as a descendant of Iowa pig farmers, I am scandalized, I tell you – simply scandalized! 

My great grandfather loved his swine, even as he sold them to the food processors to make his living, and, in doing so, sent them to the very same fateful outcome.  Still, I’d like to think that he had a respect for the animals that God created.  And so, I don’t think my great grandfather would have found anything humorous in the least, about good pork, leaping to its own destruction – all these potential “Spanferkel’s” tragically wasted!  Even if –in the case of this gospel story– it was for a good cause, that is, the drowning of the Legion of demons and sending them back into the abyss, still, I imagine my great grandfather thinking, not hilarious at all!

Some have tried to blame it on Jesus, but there is a strong “shadow of doubt” protecting him, I’d say, in that, Luke says it was the demons themselves who begged Jesus to let them enter the large herd of swine feeding on the hillside.  Jesus merely gave them “permission” – and then they entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake… 

Whether or not Jesus is acquitted of this loss of life or not, no doubt he saw it from a different perspective.  The cloven-hooved swine were an un-clean animal, for the ancient chosen people, unfit for human consumption.  So, how bad can it be that they end up in the big drink, martyrs for a good cause, in the eyes Jesus and all his followers?!  Our convenient herd of swine were, in many ways, the perfect receptor for expelling the Legion -5,000 demons- that were tormenting the one man. 

But once Jesus had exorcized the demons, the most unexpected thing happened!  Once Jesus healed the man, and he was found in his right mind, wearing clothes again, and was –like a good student with their Rabbi– sitting at the feet of Jesus – then the people become, afraid, of Jesus, and want to expel him! 

Jesus, on the other hand, was rather calm and courteous about it all.  Ironically, he wasn’t afraid of the crazy man – chained, naked and living in the cave-like tombs.  Jesus has some kind of negotiation or discussion with the demons in him, and doesn’t take offense when Legion shouted at the top of his voice at him. 

So, what does Jesus know that we don’t?  Why does Jesus bother with this guy, the most marginalized outcast of the whole city of Gerasa?  And how does this possessed man, Mr. Legion, know who Jesus is, calling him the Son of the Most High God, when his own disciples on the way over in the boat seem so puzzled and question, who is this Jesus that calms the sea? 

Jesus, as Luke state plainly, earlier in this gospel, came to heal the sick, and loose the bonds of the oppressed.  Now, in freeing the Gerasene Demoniac, we see those words in action – a kind of test of where our faith is at.  Because, healing and setting free are not just a state of mind, not just private or internal, but they mess with orders of power we actually live in.  When we, like the townspeople of Gerasa, project our fears and failures onto a convenient scapegoat and chain them up in jails where the living are left for dead, yet still controllable – in a word, demonized – what happens if Jesus comes and liberates them - and us - and all our well laid plans and order of things, is messed with?

Jesus, when he comes, breaks through our demonic social orders, calmly demanding, and publically insisting, on freedom and life for all.  He never forces us into it, but he empowers us to take responsibility for our sins and pathologies, and not just our own individually, but collectively in community, for all our faults together, challenging us to organize for action in God’s world.  And this is just what is so scary for us, which we see in the fearful reaction of the people of Gerasa – the liberation and salvation from death that Jesus brings, asks us, to make life and forgiveness available to all. 

In 2007, when Mother Teresa's book, Come Be My Light, came out, it really shocked people.  Not only was she candid about her demons, but no one suspected she even had them in the first place.  She wrote that she hadn't practiced what she preached, and lamented the stark contrast between her exterior demeanor and her interior desolation: "The smile is a big cloak which covers a multitude of pains,” she wrote… “my cheerfulness is a cloak by which I cover the emptiness and misery… I deceive people with this weapon." 

She describes the absence of God's presence in many ways — as emptiness, loneliness, pain, spiritual dryness, or lack of consolation. "I find no words to express the depths of the darkness… My heart is so empty… I don't pray any longer." She rebukes herself as a "shameless hypocrite" for teaching her sisters one thing while experiencing something far different. 

Not that it helps her a whole lot, but I think we can understand how, in a way, Mother Teresa took onto herself the demons of the world that most of us are unwilling or afraid to deal with ourselves.  In caring for the least of the least, she did the work of healing Jesus did, in a place of great suffering, and in the process nearly became the chained and screaming demoniac herself.  Yet, she was a light and a beacon for us, even while taking on the worst of the demons, of our world. 

And so we have to ask, where are the demons today?  Where are the demons in our lives?  How come, for instance, our Prisons are such a growing industry, while our school budgets shrink and schools are being shuttered?  How come we welcome immigrants to fill the most difficult jobs, which put food on our tables, and yet demonize them as law-breakers, and drain’s on our economy?  How come banks, reaping record profits in a stagnant economy, are privileged as too big to fail, and must be bailed out by a shrinking middle-class?  How come amongst our active duty soldiers putting their lives on the line in the longest war in American history, the rate of combat deaths this past year is now eclipsed by the number of those taking their own lives in suicide? 

I’m just asking the questions here, it doesn’t mean I have any answers! 

But, seriously, I think I can say this.  Our increasingly polarized and paralyzed society is, in some sense, responsible for its own pathology, at least in so far as the fears that we have, because of change, the breakdown of culture as we thought we knew it, and the disruption of the normal order of things, only feeds the demons.  They feast on fear for breakfast! 

But Jesus comes to send the demons away into the abyss, to wash away our narcotic of blaming and bullying, scapegoating and avoiding, and to put us in our right minds again, and thereby, to make a way for healing to begin, and new life to grow – to give us new clothes to put on, and the look of a new era, a new reality.  

Jesus comes with a calm surety to identify the death-dealing, death-making systems we have created to maintain our righteousness, or our security – and drown them once and for all, and wash our world clean, that we may rise and shine as a new community, a new economy of scale, where justice and peace flourish - the realm of God – where grace and love are unbounded.  

This drowning and rising again is the beginning of our life in Christ, a baptismal journey, as traumatic as birth itself, but a little miracle of sanity, that scatters all fear.  And now in our right minds, the forgiven ones who are Sent to forgive, we unfurl our banners and joyfully shout out, loudly and proudly – have your way with us, Son of the Most High God!  Birth us into your new creation! 

Simon says: welcome Jesus.  Simon says: recline at table with me.  But then, Simon is appalled at the sinner’s behavior – weeping, bathing him!  Simon has Intel on her – she is “the enemy.”  Simon says: don’t let her touch you!  Simon says: bad Jesus!  Simon says: you’re no prophet!  Simon disapproves.  Take off your crown, he says. Turn in your scepter! 

Did you ever play that game, Simon Says?  Simon says: touch your nose, and you have to touch your nose.  Simon says, touch the top of your head with your left hand – and you touch your head with your left hand.  Jump up and down!  And if you jump up and down, you’re out.  You only do what Simon says, if Simon first says, “Simon Says!” 

Simon, a rich leader in town, invited Jesus to dinner at his house.  At such a banquet, the guests would lie comfortably on their side on pillows, with their feet pointing away from a common space in the middle where the food was served to them.  These were open air villas, and it was not uncommon for the uninvited to gather around just outside where they could see in.  And at Simon’s house, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, saw her chance to come near to Jesus.  And standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair.  Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with ointment from a jar of alabaster she brought along. 

From the very beginning, Christian interpreters have jumped to conclusions about this woman’s sin: basically that she must be a harlot.  But today, thanks to Feminism’s fresh perspective, and research, we find that’s not likely what her sin is.  First of all, she comes to Jesus weeping, and as sensual as it might sound that she has let her hair down to dry her tears on Jesus’ feet and anoint them, this was also the very common practice of grieving women, and women who had been shamed by the system.  And, to point out the obvious, no one, not Simon or Jesus, describe her sin as that of a harlot in the story, but instead, what her sins are, seem left open on purpose by Luke, that we, the reader, might be allowed to fill in the blank of our own sin, as we come to see ourselves in her – after all, there but for the grace of God go we. 

Simon Says: “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him — that she is a sinner."  Simon is confident in his Intel that he thinks he has on her, though he doesn’t share any details, only that in his open disdain he is happy to have it known to all that he condemns her, and believes Jesus – if he wanted to show his Prophetic Intel skills – should have shunned her.  Simon Says: bad Jesus, don’t let her touch you!  But Jesus doesn’t do what Simon says!  He doesn’t play Simon’s game.

In the wake of the NSA Intel scandal this week, President Obama, and the leaker, Edward Snowden, agree on one thing at least, that the country deserves a conversation on privacy vs. safety.  Did the Administration follow the provisions of the FISA Court?  Is a countrywide collection of metadata a violation of the 4th Amendment?  Does the government’s use of it, even if they don’t listen to actual conversations, actually protect us from terrorism?  Do we really know anything, seeing the powers the government has under the Patriot Act for collecting Intel are totally classified?  Is this data collection any different than giving up our credit card and Social Media information?  This is a good discussion to have! 

And more to the point for us.  What are people of faith supposed to believe about the NSA’s huge data mining?  And what does the bible and Christian tradition tell us about privacy and Intelligence?  When our cell phones reveal where we’re at all times, and patterns of calls can discover impending corporate takeovers, sensitive medical information or reporter’s sources, is this acceptable?  It is a technology that has caught the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – “the mastermind of 911.”  But doing this to everyone?  So much of this process is classified and secret, and we are asked to just trust the person in the Oval Office.  And, maybe today you do, but who’s to say the next one in charge won’t use these broad powers to monitor groups s/he considers “the enemy?”  That’s exactly how the FISA Court came in to existence during the Nixon Administration.  And since 911, the system was subverted and has been used against the Quakers, for instance, and also in the last couple years against Occupy Wall Street. 

“It's remarkably easy to use connections made through cell phones and social media to convince people that they're being watched 24/7,” says Daniel Schulz, an Intel watcher. “This makes dividing and conquering a snap,” he says, through “a visit from the police or, even better, an anonymous e-mail or call.” 

After Jesus forgives the woman who anointed him, by declaring that “her faith has saved her,” and sends her to “go in peace,” Jesus departs as well, to go “through other cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the realm of God.”  And, “the twelve were with him,” Luke says, “as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.” 

Simon Says: don’t have any contact with, “them.”  They look suspicious – women who were sinners, who had evil spirits and infirmities, but Jesus doesn’t do what Simon says!  “The twelve were with him” too, but it’s these women “who provided for [all of] them out of their resources.”  This counter-cultural group of redeemed outcasts, like some kind of traveling circus, are sponsored and paid for by this, Women’s 501(c)3 of Galilee.  Two of the women, Mary Magdalene and Joanna, were also at the cross of Jesus, on Good Friday, when all the others had abandoned him. 

Jesus says to Simon: Simon, look at them, really look.  Your Intel on them is not only wrong, it’s not the way to the realm of God, or the creation of the new community of God that’s emerging here among us. 

“Historically,” says Daniel Schultz, “[although the collection of Inel] is what… States have been about. It’s not blackmail they're after, or even evidence of seditious activity. It's convincing people that they can't trust anyone.” 

In the end, a life of faith, means living our values even when it's costly. If it’s our connections to others that make us human, what we need is to work to build stronger communities – to build trust, and refuse to fear our neighbor.  

Metadata Intelligence can be great for Social-Media community making, but disastrous for real communities, where real people need to connect and be supported, need to love and be loved, to share art, ideas, and humor, or just hang out together with a beverage of your choice. 

Simon Says: our safety is worth demonizing and ostracizing others, even if it turns out that innocent people are dehumanized, or victims of violence.  Jesus Says: the realm of God is not like this.  Instead, says Jesus, God wants us to widen the circle so that the outcast, those who have been filled with shame because they alone have been named and called out as “the sinners,” may be let in, to show the rest of us the log in our own eye, and so increase the love we all have for Jesus, who teaches us to invite everyone, the whole community together in hopefulness.  These women get it, the Women’s 501(c)3 of Galilee, who provided for them out of their resources.

I don’t think we’ll get to the beauty and complexity of forgiveness and the grace of God until we are somehow given to see that Jesus is really on the side of the sinner. When you glimpse this, it’s always breathtaking.  Paul Tillich says, “Here we approach a mystery, which is the mystery of the Christian message itself in its paradoxical depth.” Jesus, of course, doesn’t do what Simon Says.  He doesn’t play that game.  Instead, what’s earth-shaking, is that the mighty are brought low, and the humble are raised up.   And we all meet together at dining tables of grace and love, forgiveness and celebration, sharing of the one loaf, one body.  

The Holy Baptism of Claire Elizabeth, 

"Centurion and Call to Service," Pastor Fred Kinsey 

Second Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 4(9)C

• 1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43  
• Psalm 96:1-9  
• Galatians 1:1-12  
• Luke 7:1-10

Whether the Scouts or with Soldiers, it’s the training that creates the camaraderie, and the trust, in what is sometimes simply called, “the service.”  I can’t speak personally for the military service, but I experienced it in scouting, especially at our camping Jamboree’s.  Pitching tents together, cooking meals, being tested on the mission statement and core values, reading maps with your compass, and acquiring other survival training skills, is all very empowering.  Working together in ‘service’ of one another – rewarding!  When we took care of each other, we felt there’s nothing we couldn’t do.   

And in between all the work and trust-building, out there in the wilderness, we had some fun too.  Like when we stealthily launched the camp-fire breakfast’s left-over gooey-oatmeal, off spoons, at a neighboring tent!  That’s about as dangerous as it got in my scouting experience. 

Jesus, of course, never had the pleasure of joining Scouting, or the military.  But training; and camaraderie; and trust; were strong elements of his mission, and purpose, and work, too.  And so he understood immediately the discipline and level of trust the Roman Centurion had in him, when he sent his friends to request Jesus’ healing services, even from a distance, for his servant, near-death.  Luke’s gospel doesn’t shy away from including those who are “in the service.”

But preaching about soldiers, I know, is often criticized for not reflecting soldiers’ real experiences in war – just as most in civilian society seems to get it wrong.  Iraqi war veteran, Logan Laituri says, “Our culture too often thinks in binaries: good and evil, us and them, hero and villain. But war isn’t like this,” he says. “War builds soldiers up, and breaks them in half, and sometimes they can’t tell which one is happening to them.” 

Laituri quotes a West Point ethicist, who lectured at Duke Divinity School in November of 2011, that, “there is both beauty and tragedy in war,” he says.   “It is that charity and monstrosity, that exist side by side,” says Laituri.  One day a soldier might see a friend abuse a detainee; the next the same friend jumps on a grenade (to save his squad).  Is he a sadistic monster or a chivalrous hero?”

It is often said that American troops are among the best trained soldiers in the world.  Like the Centurion in our gospel, they too, follow orders from above, and without question carry them out.  And to help avoid a conflict of interest, our military’s Commander-in-Chief must be a civilian, and, to further guard against misuse of power, war must be declared by Congress, and not by the Commander-In-Chief, the President - by Constitution anyway.  All of this requires, from us, more discussion, of course.  But the point I’m trying to make is, that even though our leaders took us to war in Iraq on false pretenses – for better or worse, the Soldiers mostly followed orders and performed as they were trained.  When you talk to veterans about the sacrifices they made, they are usually as humble as the Galilean Centurion who sent friends to tell Jesus, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.  You see, the Roman Army, was very well trained, too.  And the Centurion understood that “he was a man set under authority, with soldiers under him;” as our gospel says, “and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes.”  The ‘chain of command’ is the backbone of any well-trained military. 

Another Iraqi veteran, Derek Burchill, tells his story of returning home after being called up from the Minnesota National Guard.  Burchill explains that [since being home] navigating traffic in Minnesota is unsettling …stopping -- even slowing down -- could be deadly [In Iraq].  "They would send little kids out in the middle of the road, so that the convoys would stop,” Burchill explained.  “And that’s how Soldiers not on the move became sitting ducks, wide open to insurgent attacks. So, [after that],orders came down the chain of command that 'you don't stop for anything, even including little kids,' which is really sad,” says Burchill. “But it was our lives or theirs.”

I don’t think this is the kind of training and fierce loyalty to the chain of command that Jesus is amazed at, with the Centurion at Capernaum.  And it is worth noting here, I think, in light of Mr. Burchill’s experience, that the month of June is now designated as PTSD Awareness month, which is a big step for the U.S. Dept. of Veteran Affairs.  Because in one fashion or another, people have been pushing for this kind of service for at least a hundred years now, since the so-called, “War to End All Wars.” 

Other soldiers like to emphasis the up-side, like the many kids they befriended, and sharing American candy with them.  Or how they helped build roads and other infrastructure in Iraq during the efforts of the counter-insurgency.  The picture is murky, not black and white.  And so, who bears responsibility for all this?  How do we count the costs?  Who is responsible, when everyone is just following orders up and down the chain of command?  What is our role in a democracy?  What is our responsibility as a people of faith? 

What Jesus is amazed at in the Centurion, is the trusting faith of a humble man of service, who happens to be a Roman soldier.  It’s interesting that at the time Jesus entered Capernaum, there weren’t any occupying troops in that region of Galilee, and so this Centurion was probably a retired vet – a pensioner.  When he was on active duty, as a commander of around a hundred soldiers, we don’t know what kind of a military man he was, but as a retired vet, he obviously had a very generous, trusting and believing side to him.  In the words of the Jewish elders in town, it was he who built a synagogue there in Capernaum, for he loves our people – which sounds something like the rebuilding efforts, the U.S. soldiers point to, as an accomplishment and point of pride. 

What Jesus is willing to build, are coalitions of people in service to one another.  And to build them with anyone who will recognize the realm of God that is coming near in his presence, regardless of socio-religious boundaries.  Healing is an important sign of God’s realm among us.  And the healing power of God reaches out to all – without distinction.

In the gospel of Luke there is a threefold encounter of Jesus with the military service.  In the very beginning of Luke, as Jesus has just come on the public scene, a soldier came to him on behalf of the whole military service, asking, ‘And we, what should we do’ about the nearness of the realm of God?  Jesus said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’ (Lk 3:14)  Our retired Centurion in Capernaum, in the middle of the gospel, seems to have taken this advice to heart! 

Military honor codes, the chain of command, training, camaraderie, and trust, remain important.  But when these fail, as Jesus knows, due to extortion, threats of intimidation, and lies to cover up misdeeds, can we face up to the truth of what we have done?  In the unusual case of sacrifice by a young American soldier in Iraq, who blew the whistle on corruption in high levels in the ‘chain of command’ -Private Bradley Manning- we know we can’t be nostalgic, or romanticize war.  If the training of our soldiers was taken advantage of in this corruption, how do we hold each other accountable to such failures?

It is rather significant, isn’t it, that a Roman Centurion at Capernaum, an outsider, is welcomed as a believer, and becomes an example that Jesus employees in his training of all those who would be followers and disciples.  “I tell you, not even in [my community] have I found such faith,” he says.  Jesus trains us for the realm of God by always welcoming the stranger as an honored guest, just as “Abraham and Sarah entertained angels unaware,” because they were well trained by their faith community.  And so we too practice this service of radical hospitality, which includes all those who come to us in dialog and discussion, in peace and when seeking healing. 

Our training, is a training for service to one another, which we learn by a daily engagement with Jesus, the one who is always our host at the table.  We are the guests, whether we are walking through these doors and sharing the meal for the first time, or the 5,000th time.  And at that Last Supper, Jesus trained all his followers to wash one another’s feet, as a sign of how we are to be ‘in service’ to one another.  Just as Jesus loved and served us; just as the Centurion had a confident trust in serving, and being served, we are invited in to the realm of God to create camaraderie, love and trust for one another. 

At the end of Luke’s gospel, there is another Centurion, the one whose orders are to execute criminals on crosses.  But at the cross of Jesus, his testimony is in service of the whole world, totally obliterating our binary, black & white ways of thinking.  When Jesus breathed his last, the Centurion proclaims, “Certainly this man was innocent.” 

How we live in service to one another, is of vital importance.  Jesus’s service to us is to offer pardon and healing to all, as a way to build trust, and camaraderie.  Jesus’ service to us, offers a love that is stronger than death.