ORDINARY TIME!

Incredible, simply. Incredible

Psalms 42 & 43; Gal. 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender

Listen to this story: Incredible, simply. Incredible.

Transgressive, disruptive, beyond the pale. Jesus and his friends deliberately go to ‘the country of the Gerasenes’ across the sea of Galilee. The opposite side of the land called Holy. Gentile country. Foreigners, unclean, they who do not belong. Who knows what you might find? Why go there? What good could come of it?

This story is set in a sequence of 4 stories: Luke wants to portray the deep and abiding authority of Jesus: for He generates calm, He exorcises, He heals, and He raises up. (Say twice.)

At the end of the stories, Jesus does one more thing: He gives His authority away to the disciples. Incredible. Because this means if they have it, we have it too. We’re disciples…anyway…

Incredible, simply. Incredible

My son. My son. Our first-born, the pride of his dad’s eye. Little did we know what lay ahead for him and for us. Loved from the moment of first quickening, he brought joy and laughter into our home. His gaze made me catch my breath - so fresh, filled with wonder.

As a child, Benjamin was a quick study. School was easy for him, his teachers found him always ready to take the next step. Oh, and his kindness to his sisters and brother. He never resented them - we had 3 more. Those were the good years.

When the troubles started, we didn’t know what to do. The first time He hit me, I never told anyone, not even my husband, Silas. It would have broken his heart. Which happened anyway.

Ben disappeared at night, that was another clue. In his teens now, a strapping 6 footer, good looking just like his dad, he started wandering away. I thought maybe he was just restless, needing room to roam. He’d come back in the morning, bruised, as if he’d been fighting. There weren’t any reports of trouble though. I listened carefully to the talk of the town, fearful.

Hmmm, talk of the town. That’s what he became and us too. Some said if it wasn’t Ben’s sin must be ours, Silas’ & mine. What had Ben ever done to deserve this? What had we done? My son, my son.

The dinner table one night. Ben started yelling in some strange tongue, ripping at his clothes. We all watched in silent horror as he writhed, knocking his chair over, crashing his plate to the floor. The other children ran to their rooms, desperately afraid. Silas and I tried to talk to Ben in soothing tones to calm him down. It was as if he couldn’t hear us. Minutes and minutes passed. Finally, he went limp.

What was happening to our lovely first-born? Before our very eyes, he started falling apart. He no longer took a bath, unless Silas strong-armed him into the tub. His eyes became pools of emptiness, those beautiful eyes that use to take my breath away. Except when he was ranting, then his face would blotch raspberry red, his eyes glowing like a candle in a darkened room. His voice rose, a screaming pitch of clamor - different tones that pierced our ears like knives. The other kids could not to be near him anymore. So afraid of him striking out.

That’s what finally did it for me. I saw how the other children were losing their way because of Ben. Silas and I talked long and hard about what to do. We prayed of course.

We had a few trusted friends who listened to us. Our rabbi said send him away.

Send him away? Ben, our Ben? Where would he go? How would he live? How could we keep living?

Somehow the word got out. Our other kids brought home the news from school. You know how children talk - what’s the matter with your brother? Is he crazy? My mom says he’s demon-possessed. Talk of the town.

I thought I would die, the night we told Ben he could no longer live with us. He was pretty docile at first, he listened hard to our words of pain-filled rejection. His empty eyes registered nothing - no remorse, no guilt, no love. When he exploded, Silas and I both were caught off guard. He came at me first - his mother, the one who gave him birth. Knocking me to the floor, he pummeled my body with his fists, as if to bruise his hatred into my flesh. Silas sent the other kids to the neighbors and then jumped on Ben’s back. It took all his strength to get Ben off of me.

Then Ben went for his dad. He was going to kill him. Screaming at the top of my lungs, barely heard among Ben’s voracious ranting, the men in the neighborhood came quickly. About 5 of them I think finally got Ben off of Silas. They couldn’t hold him, though. His strength was overwhelming. He ran out the door, stripping his clothes off as he screamed.

When we could, Silas and I gently cleansed each other’s bodily wounds. We couldn’t touch our soul wounds. The searing pain of Ben’s hatred ripped the very fabric of faith we held. My God, My God, why have you abandoned me? Why have you abandoned us?

Ben went to live among the tombs in the graveyard. Once in awhile, we got reports about him —ranting, hitting himself with rocks, bloody, bruised. We never went to see for ourselves, the graveyard and the pigs were enough to keep us away. Each time we heard about him, my heart would rip open again. I thought I shed as many tears as humanly possible, but there were always more. Silas and I tried to put our family back together. The other children needed us—they were scarred by Ben’s actions and I think they were afraid we might send them away too. Sometimes at night, I sit by the window, longing to have my baby Ben back again. Did I do everything to get him help? Had I sinned in some way? Were the demons my fault?

Neighbors stayed away pretty much. The kids got invited over to other kids’ homes to play - they couldn’t come in our home, as if it was possessed too.

Rumors started flying about this miracle man, Jesus. He had some teaching and healing in other towns and the word spread. I was beyond miracles by this point I knew there was no hope. I didn’t even listen.

It was a clear day when the swineherds came running back to town. Early in the morning we heard shouting in the street, heading toward our home. I was afraid they were going to burn us down. As they reached the front door I had the children run out the back. Silas opened the door to a cacophony of voices shouting about the mob, Legion, pigs in the sea. What in the world was going on?

He yelled for just one person to speak and the rest be quiet.

The largest man stepped forward saying that Jesus and his friends had come to our edge of the Galilee Sea. Jesus talked with Ben, asked him his name. “Mob.” and then the pigs had jumped off the cliff. He said Ben was sitting at the edge of the graveyard, calm, dressed, talking about mercy.

My Ben? My baby? I took off running. Just in case they were right.

Word spread quickly and people started running with me. What’s happening some shouted? I just kept running. About 20 yards from the tombs, I stopped. I stopped because I saw him, my Ben, our Ben, our baby, sitting, talking quietly with this stranger.

Ben?

He looked up, jumped up and ran toward me, scooping me up in his broad arms, dancing around in a circle. Silas came then, Ben grabbed him, trying to dance with both of us. Tears started falling, more tears. I had to catch my breath.

That’s when Jesus came up to me. I fell down at His feet, sobbing. He gently lifted me up, looked me straight in the eye, and spoke: “God’s mercy is given to you today.” He hugged me gently, touched Silas’ shoulder and turned to leave. Ben ran after Him, wanting to be with Him of course. Jesus simply told Ben to stay in our town, telling all who would listen about God’s mercy extended to him.

Well, as you can imagine, we became even more the talk of the town. There were those who said it’s not possible. Ben just had a nervous breakdown. Others thought we beat Ben as a child and he freaked out. There were some who thought we made too big a deal about Ben’s healing.

But some of us believed. Jesus is the Messiah and we would gather to tell the stories to one another. At first we only knew Ben’s. Word spread though, healing stories, feeding the 5,000, woman with the menstrual blood for 12 years. Each snippet helped our faith grow.

Incredible, simply. Incredible amen

Lift every voice. James Weldon Johnson, john Rosamond Johnson

Juneteenth

Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Juneteenth marks the anniversary of the announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas.

One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."

June 12, 2022: Draped In Grace Trinity Sunday

Trinity Sunday: Draped In Grace

Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender

This is Trinity Sunday, always the Sunday right after Pentecost, when the Lectionary gives pause to the mystery that lies at the heart of our Christian faith. “Father, Son, Holy Spirit”. The traditional formula of baptism, when sin is washed away, and we are born again, into this household of love. The declarations of all of our creeds and confessions. It is baffling, in that 3 in 1 and 1 in 3 makes our heads spin, which makes it hard to explain to others that we don’t believe in 3 Gods, rather a Trinity, a household interwoven in relationship and love. It is not a hierarchy, Father over the Son who is over the Spirit, rather it is in the few drops of water sprinkled, or the deep immersion, baptism, that takes us into the whole being of God. We might not understand it, we struggle for images to use, language to express this ephemeral mystery. Its truth, or folly, is this: we are connected to the power of the universe, the Creator of all that is and ever will be; we are saved by the blood of this God who comes in human form, Jesus Christ, never to leave us; empowered for our very breath by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, as we dwell within the Trinity. This is not a God-head that lives on high, somewhere UP THERE, rather we live IN this world saturated by the Presence of the Holy - Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer - as every leaf unfurls, each fish jumps, every blade of grass nurtured by an angel saying, ‘grow, grow, grow’. Sometimes called The economic Trinity, the focal point privileges the world and the Trinity’s engagement with it, making it, saving it, keeping it. Maker, Lover, Keeper.

It is important to understand that Scripture writers were NOT trying to explain the Trinity as doctrine, but as lived experience in a milieu that was built around a very different framework, that of public honor and public shame. Which came into direct conflict with Jesus’ death on the cross, His crucifixion, His glory; a very PUBLIC shame. Why would you boast in something so denigrating? Some ancient Israelites understood suffering as God’s displeasure - look at Job’s friends, or the question: whose sin is it? The parents?

Roman philosophy understood suffering as weakness, the smaller or less powerful man. Paul uses legal language to upend this honor/shame way of thinking: we are justified or vindicated by faith, like we are on trial for our faith. What we have been given is peace with God through Jesus Christ. This positive verdict of not guilty = forgiveness. Yes that Savior that died in what is usually thought a most shameful way, we now claim has opened up the broad horizon of hope, energized by the Holy Spirit. We are made whole in God’s sight, no matter what anybody else says about us. There is no shame that can cling for we are draped in grace.

Even when oppressed for our faith we are not disgraced, Paul writes. From prison btw, another place of public shame. It is this great reversal, what the Greeks call folly, he writes in another place, the foolishness of the cross. What kind of God would act in such a way? A relational God, defined by Her interconnection of 3 persons, 1 substance, for eternity, always. A God of love, a God of redemption, a God who moves toward Her creation, rather than away from it. These ones who bear Her image: born for relationship. She deigned to be born a baby, remember? Her love is poured out, like a flood, a continuous flow, we are dripping with the presence of the Holy Spirit, graced by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was sent by God, the one titled Father.

Let me ask you: how are u this morning?

Are you broken hearted this morning? Are you afraid? Do you feel alienated, detached, alone? Are you angry? Depressed? Grieving? Hopeless? Ashamed? Worried? Wounded? Worn-out? Its okay. The Trinity’s got you. This house of love will never abandon you, no matter what. It doesn’t take the pain away, it simply surrounds the pain with deep compassion and plenty of it. It is a great big house, this Trinity house, with lots of rooms. Enough for the whole 7 billion of us.

There are these really lovely verses in Isaiah I stumbled across in my study for this sermon and want to share with you:

Is. 30:20-21: “Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes will see your teacher. And when you turn to the right or to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”

I think Isaiah had an inkling of the Holy Spirit, don’t you?

What is always so hard is to listen carefully in the midst of suffering, to sit with the pain, to discover a message of life it might contain. We live in a culture that wants to manage pain, control pain, ignore pain, or cast blame on the ones who hurt. Rise above it, think positive, hold a vision of healing, pray more, don’t you have enough faith to believe? As if we were lacking some key ingredient for the recipe of the elixir of life. In a fallen world, there will be suffering, we know this. We hate it, but we recognize it.

Paul’s vision of hope is directly tied to his understanding of faith: it takes endurance to trust in God’s love over the long haul. But we must remember, he went away for 14 years before he began his missionary journeys. He says so in Galatians. We speculate he studied scripture and grew in his faith to be able to have such a deep and abiding sense of the presence of God.

From the moment of his dramatic encounter on the Damascus Road, to his long imprisonment in Rome, Paul strives to articulate his profound gratitude for Jesus saving him. He teaches us that faith is not our work to earn God’s love, rather faith is doing the spade work to discover God’s faithfulness in Her deep and abiding love for us in the midst of our daily lives. (Say twice) With all their joys and struggles! Heartbreaks and hopes! Sufferings and healings. We are awash in this love, for the Trinity surrounds, upholds, carries, embraces, holds on tight to their creation. You are not alone. If you do not take anything else away today, remember this: you are not alone. You are not alone. The love of God, the grace and redemption of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit is yours today and tomorrow, until the very last day, when in glory, you will see fully, what now is only shadowed. Draped In Grace. Amen