June 22, 2025 "Freedom for a Moment and a Lifetime"

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 65:1-9

Psalm 22:19-28

Galatians 3:23-29

Luke 8:26-39

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

grace and peace to you from the one who sets us free. Amen.

This week

Jesus and the disciples cross the sea of Galilee

 to visit the gentiles on the other side

and upon arriving

 they are met by a man possessed with demons.

And immediately Jesus orders the demons to come out of the man

but they protest,

they recognize Jesus and his power

but they don’t want to go back to the abyss,

and it seems like they need to inhabit a living creature

 to stay out of the abyss,

 there is a herd of swine nearby

and the demons beg Jesus to let them enter them,

 and Jesus gives them permission,

 and they leave the man and enter the swine,

and as they do the whole herd rushes down the hill

and into the lake where they drown.

Now the swine herds see this,

 their whole economic world destroyed in a moment,

and go tell others about it,

 and when the people come to see what happened to their pigs

 they find Jesus,

 and with Jesus the man,

 who is clothed and in his right mind

and this is truly an astonishing thing

 because as long as they’ve known this man

 he’s been out of his mind with demons,

when they tried to help him

 by keeping him under guard

 bound with chains and shackles

 the demons would break the bonds

 and drive the man, naked into the wilderness

 where he eventually came to live among the tombs,

 I imagine the community

 having rather given up on him,

shrugging their shoulders saying

‘we tried our best, it’s probably better for everyone

 if he just lives out there,

 he’s going to do it anyway.’

 and when they see this man,

 clothed and in his right mind,

 they are afraid,

they know what kind of power it would take

to heal the man

and they are so afraid that they ask Jesus to leave,

and he does

 but not before the man he healed

 begs to go with him,

 but Jesus denies his request

I can understand why the man would want to go with Jesus,

 not only has he healed him,

 but leaving with Jesus would be a nice fresh start,

 he could go where no one had known him

 as that crazy naked guy living in the tombs.

He knows that even healed

people will always look at him

and think of him when he was possessed,

 even so

Jesus sends him away,

 but he does give him a task, a job to do.

 “Declare how much God has done for you.”

 and the man does

but he twists it a bit,

 he goes throughout the city proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him.

This is more complex than a usual healing story,

 so what is going on here?

As one commentator remarked:

“the healing and liberation central to Jesus’ mission is epitomized here in microcosm. The man begins unhoused, naked, isolated, shackled, living among the tombs and therefore considered perpetually unclean (compare Numbers 19:16), and out of his right mind. By the story’s end, he is welcomed, clothed, unchained, in his right mind, and sitting at Jesus’ feet. He goes from outcast to insider, pariah to apostle, living-without-a-home to feeling right at home.” https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/6/18/the-beautiful-struggle-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-second-week-after-pentecost 

Which got me thinking,

if this is the epitome of Jesus’ healing and liberation,

 is healing, liberation, salvation even

 an action of a moment?

 or a work of a lifetime?

And in good Lutheran fashion

I think the answer is yes,

 both and.

On the one hand

I think we tend to think of liberation as a moment,

 particularly for an individual.

Here in this story

 there is a moment when the demons leave the man

 and he is healed.

 But you could also argue

 that he will not truly be free

 until he has been restored to a place in his community,

 the community that first bound him out of fear,

 and now are afraid because of what Jesus had done through him.

 Jesus knows that the community needs healing as well,

 and that is the task he sets for the man,

 to tell the story of his healing

and in doing so restoring the community.

 His liberation is a moment in time

and a work of a lifetime.

And this holds true to other experiences of liberation in the world.

This past Thursday we celebrated Juneteenth,

 a holiday that marks a moment of liberation

 for people that had been enslaved in the United States.

 When the people in Galveston, Texas

 finally heard the emancipation proclamation,

 in that moment they were set free,

 and yet the racism and economic injustices

 that came with slavery persisted,

albeit in other forms,

but there was still much work to be done

 to liberate and restore the whole community,

the work of many life times,

we are still dealing with the after effects of slavery

that continue to divide our country.

 There are those who encounter liberation and who are afraid.

 Liberation is both a moment and the work of a lifetime

We see this with our baptisms as well.

 There was a moment in time

when the water and the word were poured over us

and at that moment we were claimed by God,

 set free from sin and death

 and raised to new life.

 And

 each day we still must die to sin and rise to Christ,

working to live the freedom we have been given in community

 even as the powers of sin persist in the world around us

 drawing us from God,

calling us to see others as the world defines them

rather than as the children of God that they truly are.

This matter of identity

 is what Paul is speaking to in his letter to the Galatians,

 gentiles have become believers

 and yet there are Jewish Christians

who are insisting that the former pagans

 must now follow Jewish laws and traditions

 even as they follow Jesus as the Messiah.

 ‘Don’t you get it?’ Paul asks them

‘the former identities don’t matter in Christ,

it doesn’t matter if you were a Jew or a pagan,

 a slave or free,

 even male of female

 these are all imposed identities that don’t matter in Christ,

 in Christ, we are all one,

 that’s the only thing that matters!”

 and yet here we are today

 still working through

what it means to be identified with a certain nationality,

 or occupation,

or even gender,

and there are still those who insist

 on narrowly defining those identities

and when they meet someone

who has been freed from their narrow definition of identity,

who has been liberated,

 they are afraid.

So what are we to do in the face of that fear?

 How do we claim the moment of salvation throughout our lifetimes?

 Our gospel offers two things to hold onto.

First, the truth that the forces of death

are self-defeating and self-destructive.

The demons wanted to enter into the pigs

to avoid the abyss

and yet when they entered the swine

 the swine rushed into the water and drowned,

my study Bible notes

 that according to traditional lore,

 demons are destroyed by drowning (Harper Collins Study Bible).

In their attempt to save themselves

 the demons end up destroying themselves.

 Eventually all the forces of death will self-destruct.

This doesn’t mean that we sit back

and just wait for that to happen,

 we are to work for an end to the powers that defy God,

  but when our actions seem small and ineffective

(even if they aren’t)

we can take solace in the self-destructive nature of the forces of death,

 even as we trust in the gift of freedom in Christ

And this is the second thing we hold onto,

Our freedom in Christ

And not only have we been set free in Christ,

 we have been given the task

of living into our freedom in Christ within community,

proclaiming what God has done for us

 and in this way

sharing the life-giving liberation we have experienced in Christ,

so that all may experience salvation,

both in a moment and for a lifetime. Amen