“Sent Away”
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 7
23 June 2013
The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour
Mill Valley, California
Isaiah 65:1-9
Psalm 22:18-27
Galatians 3:23-29
St. Luke 8:26-39
INI
The Characters
We have an odd set of
lessons that call us to attention this morning.
Each of them is demanding something of us, and now it is my job to
attempt to give us something to chew on, to learn, as we get ourselves ready,
spiritually, for another week. First of
all lets meet the characters in the Gospel – a brief description:
1.
Jesus – I
guess to be honest we have to understand that we are meeting Luke’s Jesus, and
his characterization of Jesus. Luke has
a program in his gospel that wants to call our attention to the poor, the
lonely, “the little ones”, the dejected, and the rejected. Perhaps we can see that in the parables that
come immediately before this morning’s reading.
There is the parable of the sower in which only some of the wheat
sprouts and produces fruit. There is the
parable of the Lamp in which Jesus calls us to set our lamps in a place that
the world might see the light. There is
the reading about “The Family”, in which Jesus, when told that his family has
come to visit him, redefines the family as “those who fear the Word of God and act on it.” Finally there is the Jesus who calms the
storm, and asks the disciples why they are fearful, and wonders where their
faith is.
2.
There is the
Demoniac – a possessed man. What might
we call him in our time – depressed, mentally ill, bi-polar, mightily
conflicted? We have so many labels in
our time. He is also not a Jew, and this
distinction is important.
3.
There are the
swineherds – also non-Jews, for Jews would not be keeping a herd of swine. Thus they are twice condemned to the
intolerance of the Hebrew reader. They
are also witnesses of the healing
that Jesus does, and they are the ones who call the countryside (both city and
farm) to notice.
4.
Finally there
are the people who are called by the witnesses (the swineherds) to meet Jesus
and to see the result of his healing presence.
Their reaction is fear and they ask Jesus to leave.
The Other
The Rev. Mthr. Stephanie
Spellers, a priest on staff at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul in Boston,
says this in her book, Radical Welcome, Embracing God, The Other, and the
Spirit of Transformation. She begins
by describing our, your presence here at the Church of Our Savior:
“God has graciously, prodigally welcomed you, because
it is in God’s very nature to seek you out and welcome you home when you feel
the least worthy of embrace.”[1]
She begins her book on
welcome, by describing how we have been welcomed here even in the midst of our
darkest moments, when things have seem lost and out of control. In the midst of the confusion of our lives,
God still welcomes us here. She does
not, however, end at this point. She
takes it a step farther:
“Can you do likewise with others, entering
solidarity with the outcast you find yourself least will or able to receive?
Can you make room within yourself to receive the Other?”[2]
The Other? What does she mean by the Other? For Jesus in the healing story, the other was
the Demoniac, the man possessed by demons, the non-Jew. There are other Others in our readings for
the day. In the first lesson Isaiah
describes two possible others, either an Israel that has forgotten God, and
God’s ways, seeking after other gods and other spirits, or perhaps it is
another other. Perhaps it is the nation
that did not know that it was not only called by God but created and cared for
by God – a people under God’s care, but pursuing another course, not hearing
God’s voice.
In the Psalm, in
verses preceding our psalm for this morning, the other becomes the psalmist
himself – “But
I am a worm, not a man, scorned by men, despised by the people.” Here he
pictures himself as the other, the outcast, whom no one wishes to
approach. It is doubly interesting in
that this psalm is reading on Maundy Thursday as the altar is stripped for Good
Friday. The words of description are
assigned to Jesus himself – he is the other.
I cannot describe the other for
you – you know it better than I. It is
the one that you have difficulty in accepting, the one who moves beyond the
boundaries of propriety that you have set for yourself, the one who leaves you
cold and unconvinced. Do you recognize
her – do you recognize him? Who is that
for you? It is important for us to
know. St. Paul challenges us in our
disaffection with the other, as he says in the second lesson:
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there
is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if
you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the
promise.”
So much for the
other. The characterization of the
demoniac in the Gospel changes radically following the healing. The people coming from both town and country
discover him sitting at the feet of Jesus
– the posture of a disciple. Later, the
man, now healed, asks to accompany Jesus, but Jesus “dismisses him”, “releases
him”, or in our translation “sends him away.”
Although the Greek verb is not the same, the sentiment is there. Jesus “sends him” just as Jesus will send the
apostles – “the sent ones.” This other
is sent to tell the good news – of what happened to him.
Starting to Love
“It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody.
You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at
the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you
don't do it.”[3]
Wonderful things have
happened to us in our lifetimes. Perhaps
they have not been as dramatic as what happened to the demoniac, or perhaps
they were more striking. If you have
some extra time this week – time with a goodly component of quiet and self
reflection, you might want to meditate on how God has taken your “otherness”
away from you and accepted you into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now we all have work
today. Jesus sends us away as well. The Deacon will do it with the words, “Go in
peace to love and serve the Lord”, and we will respond with “Thanks be to
God.” But what will happen then. Who is the other in your life that needs to be
welcomed, forgiven, loved, accepted? Who
is it that strikes fear in your heart, but is none-the-less welcomed by
God? Each of us knows, and the challenge
to love them is as Sartre says: “an abyss”.
He calls upon us, and not as Christian, but rather as a human being, to
have “energy, generosity, and blindness.”
Such values are easily married to a Christian point of view.
So, may the Spirit of our
Lord Jesus Christ give you the energy to embody and to speak the Gospel to the
others around you. May that same Spirit
give you the generosity to share your own life in God, with them. And finally, may the Spirit make you blind to
their faults, their troubles, and to their separateness from you. No Jew, no Greek, no slave, no free, no male,
no female – can you join with Paul in adding new categories of human kind that
Christ calls to be his own.
SDG
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