Jesus Interrupted...and Interrupting

FIFTH SUNDAY after PENTECOST- Preached at Nazareth Lutheran

Church, Rural Hall, NC   

(This sermon was dedicated to my dear friend, Sara Anderson.)

    Here we are, in the season after Pentecost, the long green season, that
is sometimes referred to as “ordinary time”- which is appropriate for so
many reasons, since most of us live day after day of our “ordinary lives”
throughout these months. And yet, because this is also the summer, we
may interrupt the everyday routine with vacations, trips, visits, activities to
which the long, hot, more leisurely days of summer lend themselves.

    But Luke’s gospel will have none of it…no vacations…no sense of

ordinariness. No…again and again, Luke has Jesus being interrupted by

the unexpected…by people and events which draw and demand his
attention. Two Sundays ago, it was a funeral procession; last week, it
was an uninvited woman at a dinner party; today, the interruption is a
man living naked among the tombs, among the dead…a man who has
been literally given up for dead by his family and community because of a
condition they could not understand, which they could not handle…forced
to live naked on the outskirts, on the margins. He no longer has a  life,

life, in any meaningful sense, rather being chained among the graves to

give the residents of his community a sense of security, (though Luke
tells us the man often breaks the shackles, driven by his inner demons.)

    It is here, in the region of the Gerasenes, a Gentile region across the

Sea of Galilee from Jesus' usual haunts, that Jesus in turn interrupts the

lives of the people living there. We’ve heard the story, know the story...
but can you picture the story? The naked man running toward Jesus,
crying out in a loud voice…a man obviously in the throes of powers

beyond his own, crying out in his pain and frustration, “What have you to

do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” The disciples cringing and

hanging back, as we so often do when confronted by people in the grip of

mental illness, confronted by people who look different or act differently

from us. And there is Jesus, facing down the forces which had captivated

this man- without fear, with a determination and compassion which tells

the man that he is being SEEN…that his illness is being recognized for

what it is…that Jesus is offering help and hope and healing when so many

others have judged and abandoned him, literally leaving him for dead.

“What have you to do with me, Jesus?” this man cries- and we can almost

hear the heartache, the despair, the desperation in his voice.

    So, what will Jesus do? Will Jesus ignore him or respond to his cries

with silence? Will Jesus ridicule him or perhaps tell him that he deserves

his suffering? What does Jesus have to do with this man, anyway? Well,

as so often happens when Jesus comes to visit, several totally unexpected

things take place. In order to rid the man and the place of these demons,

Jesus sends them into a herd of swine feeding on a nearby hillside. As

they take possession of the swine, the entire herd dashes off the cliff and

into the sea, where they drown. The swineherds, totally taken aback and

understandably upset at the loss of their herd, their livelihood, race into

town to tell everyone about the strange goings-on. And when a crowd of

the townspeople returns to the cemetery, they find the once-crazy, naked,

given-up-for-dead man clothed, quiet, and sitting at the feet of Jesus,

listening to him.

    Can’t you just hear the questions? “What’s going on here?” “Is that

really the same guy, the crazy, dangerous one?" The few witnesses to the

actual events sharing what they had seen…" Yes, that's him. And you
should have seen those pigs run off the side of the hill! Unbelievable!”
Now, you and I, we’d like to believe that had we been among those

villagers, we would have begun praising and thanking God for this most

miraculous healing…for the restoration of this suffering man to sanity

and health. But I suspect- if we are being truly honest- we would react in

much the way they did. For Luke tells us that fear seized them- not thanks

or wonder or amazement or awe, but FEAR! The presence of God’s power

in their midst was truly frightening to them, had upset the status quo,

had forced them into seeing the crazy man in a new and different way-

and they didn’t like it! Not one bit. After all, if this man Jesus could do

this, what else might he be capable of? Did they/we really want their

lives turned upside down? Far easier- and safer- to ask him to leave…so

that their ordinary lives could remain untouched, unchanged, comfortable.

And the question of the possessed man becomes their own- “What do you

have to do with us, Jesus?” For at some deep, intuitive place, they realize-

these people- that when Jesus comes to visit, he always brings the

possibility of new beginnings, and exorcises our old ways of living and

being.

     Now, we rarely run across naked, demon-possessed people in our

everyday lives- though it did happen to me once during my student

psychiatric nursing affiliation-but that’s another story. If we did, I suspect

we would turn and run the other way, filled with fear and loathing,

perhaps tinged by pity. But that was not, IS not, Jesus. In response to the

question, “What do you have to do with us, Jesus?” Jesus reaches out to

and attracts these kinds of people- people rejected and despised by the

rest of the world…people who are literally and figuratively outsiders,

whose lives have often been torn apart by who and how they are and how

they are perceived.

    

     Perhaps it would be important here to look at the setting for this story

in Luke. Jesus has chosen to get into a boat and go to the “other side” of

the lake, crossing boundaries- geographic, ethnic, religious…going into

Gentile territory, the other side of the religious tracks. It is on this voyage

on the lake that Jesus calms the storm which arises, bringing peace to

wind and waves and the fear-filled hearts of the disciples. And then,

immediately upon disembarking, he comes face to face with forces which

have wrecked a man’s life and enters what might be considered the

domain of death- a graveyard, a place considered to be unclean. In fact,

this entire scene reeks of the unclean- the tombs, the territory, the pigs,

the spirits, the crazy man. But Jesus risks being considered contaminated

for the sake of this one man.

     Jesus shows up in an unclean place for the sake of one human being

who has been judged by his community and culture as being unclean…

which seems to be the last place Jesus should be. And yet, this is where

God usually shows up. In places and with people often considered

unclean, undesirable, by the rest of us. Jesus enters into this foreign

place in order to bring healing and to show, with his very life, with his

very being, that there is absolutely nowhere God is not willing to go to

reach and free and sustain and comfort and heal those who are broken

and despairing…to show God’s unrelenting love for all people, no matter

what.

     This past Sunday, a terrible thing happened in Orlando, Florida.

A disturbed and despairing young man entered a nightclub filled with

happy, celebrating people, most of them part of the LGBTQ Latino

community in Orlando. He pulled out a semi-automatic assault rifle and

began shooting. At the end of the holocaust, fifty were dead, including

the shooter, and more than fifty wounded, the worst mass shooting in

America’s redoubtable history of mass shootings. And this at the

beginning of Islam’s holiest days, Ramadan…in the midst of the Jewish

holy day of Pentecost, Shavuot, which commemorates God’s giving of

the Law at Mount Sinai…in the midst of the LGBTQ community

worldwide celebrating Gay Pride month.

     This has been a week of sadness for so many…for grieving families

and friends. But it has also been a week of soundbites and rushes to

judgment, as it has been revealed that the shooter was a Muslim of

Afghani background, forgetting that he was born in this country and

was an American citizen. And people of faith, faith leaders, have made

statements about this being God’s retribution on the Gay community…

even to the point of saying that not enough were killed. But other

people of faith- many and diverse faiths- have been organizing memorial

services and vigils all around the country in solidarity with the LGBTQ

community. I attended one myself at First Lutheran in Greensboro on

Thursday evening, and heard wise and healing and compassionate words

from a Jewish rabbi, a devout Muslim, and several Lutheran pastors. And

many of us in attendance wept openly at the reading of the names of the

dead, as candles were lighted in their memories.

     As a person who calls myself by the responsibility-laden name of

Christian, I have been asking myself where Jesus would be standing in

all of this, my own voice echoing the question of the demon-possessed

man- “What have you to do with me, Jesus?”  And I can only come

back again and again to this story from Luke’s gospel, where Jesus places

himself firmly beside a man who has been cast out by his community….

who has been given up for dead…who has been ostracized and shunned

and judged by his own neighbors. I can only come back again and again

to a Jesus who reaches out to those deemed as unclean by their societies,

by religious laws and rules…to a Jesus who not only speaks love but

enacts it by leaving no one outside, even willingly stepping into the fray of

lives destroyed by the harsh  judgment of others who deem themselves

more holy, more worthy of God’s regard.

     In light of this week’s events, in light of this incredible story from Luke,

we might ask ourselves, Where are we willing to go? Whom are we

willing to love? In the wake of yet one more violent crime of hate and

terror, we need to remind ourselves and each other that God is always

there, in the midst of and among those in the greatest pain and need,

bringing comfort and peace and love. And so we are called to BE that

compassion, that support, that love, in whatever way it is needed. We are

called to include every person marginalized by our society, even by our

religion, in our lives, in our personal prayer; to reach out to those living in

fear and insecurity with the assurance that God loves them and so do we.

The God who IS LOVE and continually offers love is asking us to refrain

from judging, and rather just to LOVE- even those different from

ourselves…even those with whom we might disagree.

    For there is no person that is God-forsaken…unclean…outcast…

abandoned. No one is left out. To put it another way: there are no

conditions to be met to receive God’s love. You don’t have to be wealthy…

or poor. You don’t have to be from one ethnic group…or another. You

don’t have to have believed your entire life, or have come to faith only

recently or to have any faith at all. Jesus seeks out everyone- even this

unclean crazy man possessed by an unclean spirit living in an unclean

place. Just so. God loves all: male and female; young and old; gay

and straight, transgender and queer; white, black, Latino, and Asian;

believers and non-believers; Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist…

the list goes on and on and on and on…

     According to Luke, Jesus says that all those people, all of US, are HIS

people. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Only

everything. For Jesus was killed for daring to be who he was, daring to

speak the truth, daring to show love that many in his day and time and

faith community thought scandalous. “What have you to do with us,

Jesus?” EVERYTHING! And for that, I can only say, thanks be to God!

Amen