WWJD: Get Political

 WWJD: Get Political

A Sermon by Rev. Debra McKnight

Scripture
Luke 4: 16-21
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’


Sermon
This scripture invites us into the moments following his baptism, when Jesus is driven into the wilderness and his metal is tested. He clarifies his calling and he comes back to his home town synagogue, it would be like going to your hometown church with all of your Sunday School Teachers and the folks that watched you grow up and then he drops the mic. He reads this scripture. And it's political, totally political. So political folks say, "who does he think he is, isn’t this Joseph’s boy?' and they run him out of town.

Jesus is political and we never think of him in that way. Politics is not a nice word and Jesus, we like to imagine is so nice and sweet and pleasant. No one hears the word politics and thinks warm and fuzzy thoughts. Politics has become a dirty word; we don’t think it is good to be a “good politician” and if someone gives a political answer then we know they said a lot of words without answering the question. We are watching commercial after commercial and they mostly prove our metaphors right. We think about the stench of politics, we imagine a swamp that needs to be drained and a room where it happens that makes us rightly skeptical of the folks who want to be there. We think about back room deals and the sausage getting made…and we don’t mean small batch craft sausage with ingredients that make us really proud. But the hard truth is, if politics is dirty then it is our own fault and failing, born of our own collective inaction. Because deciding how we live in community is important and powerful; and it should be beautiful.

Politics is a part of life, it is a part of our country and our state. There are workplace politics and families have politics, you know them when you have to balance this tension or this ego or walk carefully around the sacred elephant in the room. We try to escape from it but there is no where to go, it's even in the church. Which is always the last place folks expect them to be for some reason and church politics can erupt in disruption over something like the color of the carpet or the tables in the fellowship hall. Politics are a part of every thing where we are connected to other people. So the question isn’t how do we escape politics, it is how do we engage in a way that is healthy, loving, and born more of hope than fear?

My high school civics teacher said, “This is all about how we decide who gets what, when.” I think Mr. Wiles wanted us to care about government, even if at that point we were mostly concerned with getting our own stuff and our own 'whens'. Deciding who gets what, when, is hard work, because it requires us to to engage, to care, to lean into the needs of others, and balance this wildly diverse social fabric.

I realize it can be tender when church folks engage the politics of the world and it should be done with care, prayer, and intention. But I have heard of folks saying things like, “Preacher, you should stick to the Bible.” And I want to say, “Have you read the Bible?” It is Holy Political, the stories are filled with folks making political choices and faced with real, sacred life. There are prophetic voices saying, “widow and the Orphan,” “Remember when you were in bondage in Egypt and God brought you out of slavery to be a different kind of community. Israel was to rest on the Sabbath, protect the vulnerable and to celebrate the year of our Lords Favor, when every 77 years all debts would be forgiven, land returned, folks enslaved would be freed and generational poverty prohibited. These hopes were often aspirational rather than practiced but the seed is there. There was debate and greed and violence and there were certainly folks hoping to "make Israel great again.” There were politicians who showed the very best and absolute worse of humanity, and sometimes all of that was one guy, like King David. The Bible is political. When you hear someone angry at a preacher for getting too political, it probably means that the preacher was on the “wrong” side. It probably means that they are pushing us to hear something we don’t want to hear and to dwell in the tension of needing to think about how the world we are creating is so far away from earth as it is in heaven.

Our faith invites us into values that are meant to be embodied in the world around us, faith is lived and it is an act of building the world, perhaps as Jesus prayed, 'on earth as it is in heaven.' Mary is political in her magnificat, lifting up the lowly, tearing the mighty from their throne, sending the rich away empty; that’s political and that probably why we sing it in Latin, so no one has to hear it. The early Christians were political, they called Jesus Prince of Peace and its not because it would look cute on a Christmas Card. “Lord of Lords and King of Kings," "Prince of Peace," "Savior of the World;” these are all phrases for Caesar, the big guy in Roman and it is a bold political statement to say some crucified, near-homeless, peasant rabbi from an occupied country is their Savior or Lord or Prince of Peace rather than Caesar. This is what makes them a threat to the political system of their day. And they take that risk because they believe in the bold, risky mission Jesus called them to join.

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

It's a mission statement. No church ever needs to spend money on a consultant to choose one; it's right here. This is the plum line, the guidance and the measure of our practice. Are we bringing good news to the poor, because doing that can make you pretty unpopular. Are we about the release of captives? Jesus was surrounded by a community held captive by the Roman empire; taxes were established to keep people in debt or debtors sold into slavery. Jesus is surrounded by people who need healing and recovery, he brings this and, while we may have a different technology around healing, we are called to be a part of ensuring everyone has access. From the very start, Jesus looks at the world around him and begins teaching and then showing people how to be good news to the poor and how we could let the oppressed go free. In a world of scarcity, he sat thousands of people down on a hillside and suddenly a few fish and a few loaves of bread turned into a feast. He didn’t just talk about abundance, he showed people how to open their baskets and share, that feast was a real miracle, not manna from heaven. This is why he was a threat. No one ends up crucified for running a few prayer circles and preaching self help. Jesus prays, he teaches prayer, he studies the scripture, and it is “his custom” to go to the synagogue, but this transformation is more than personal, it is for a communal good. Everything is tangible, everything is about earth as it is in heaven, healing, liberty, good news for the poor, the year of our Lord’s Favor when all the debts would be lifted from the people. All of it is real and now, that’s probably why when Jesus went to his home town to rally folks into this work they chased him out and almost of a cliff.

This is the faith we inherit-- history has made Jesus meek and mild, and salvation personal and individual. The more we became a part of the Empire and the more Christian Kings, the more we became about heaven rather than earth as it is in heaven. The more Jesus became sweet and nice rather than powerful, transformative and honestly a real challenge to follow. But all the years of garbage theology, can not erase the seeds of hope waiting to be found. Faithful people, who dive below the surface always find Jesus and his mission waiting.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, is one of those people. He came to discover a faith that was challenging and relentless, he said, “There is no holiness without social holiness." Our movement, which began as a campus ministry small group at Oxford, engages the spiritual practices, and the means of grace for the intention of changing the world. Early Methodists, studied scripture and worked to abolish slavery, they prayed together and set up health clinics, they spent time in small groups and they built schools for children who did not have a place to learn to read. They set up micro-lending and programs for the folks in poverty and they rallied to change the British tax structures that created poverty. They changed themselves and the world for the better.

We carry this in our very DNA as a church. As a modern church, we gather every four years at General Conference to debate, create, recreate, study and re-cast the Social Principles. They are part of sanctifying grace, this grace of practice. They are guidance in our Book of Discipline, which frankly I wouldn’t suggest you read unless you need help sleeping but this part, this part is powerful. It is a public stand and a commitment made by the whole body of the United Methodist church, every word has been advocated for, edited, debated and argued at the Methodist Olympics otherwise know as General Conference.  The Social Principles cover creation, community, our economic systems, our social fabric, the political community, and the world community. They are divided into six sections and they cover everything from human rights, reproductive rights and health care, to ending racism, sexism and ableism. They represent a set of interests that are beyond our own individual interests. They are a part of the values we pass on to the next expression of our Methodist movement. They are not perfect and I am certain every Methodist does not agree with every part of them. And there is work that is ongoing to align the church with God's love, particularly in regards to heterosexism.

Rev. Neal Christie of the General Board of Church and Society, suggests three important thoughts to guide our exploration of the Social Principles. First, the church is called to be principled by not ideological. We are not aligned with a party or with a candidate. We are called to make an ethically and theologically informed public statement about the brokenness in the world. The Social Principles offer us a way to respond to the pain in the world. Second, the church is called to be clear and civil. This is rough, I think, because there are so many great memes and social media invites us to land blows or at least make the people we disagree with look dumb. But, that is not what we are doing here, the ends and the means matter and we are not called to heap hurt on a broken space. Rather, we are called to advocate for justice through a process of self-reflection, our engagement must be direct and compassionate. Bishop Will Willimon said it well at the Festival of Homiletics when he said he was limited. When asked about immigration (by his proctologist…mid-appointment) he said, “I’m a Christian. I’m limited. The Bible is clear about welcoming the stranger, treating the alien as resident.” Finally, the church is called to be engaged, but not used. We engage in dialogue with every institution in society; state, county, and country; with school boards and non-profits, with civic groups and with businesses. We are here to be a voice for justice in all of these conversations, seeking more than making a difference, but rather making a different world. Often churches are the first stop for helping, we host food banks and serve meals, we build houses for habitat and set up homes for refugees, we show up to help in a thousand different ways, but we are not here to be a balm for a wound the systems of the world intend to keep making, we are here to heal. So we must ask, why are people homeless? Why are people immigrating? Why are people struggling with medical debt? Why are people trapped in loans they can never pay to payday lenders? Why are people hungry? We are here to make more than a difference, we are called to make a different world.

The work before us is hard and it requires us to engage in the politics of the world, to acknowledge the heartbreak and build our strategies for transformation. The work is hard and the commercials are awful but we are called to care about who gets what, when. The work is hard but we have the gifts to deploy, the Spirit to guide us and the community to walk beside. We are seeded with resilience and courage, gifted with the stories of the past and called to write new chapters to God’s song. The spirit of the Lord calls us, may we have the courage to follow.

May it be so. Amen.

Me Too Lady Wisdom

Scripture Reading                                                Proverbs 8:1-11
                                                 


Wisdom is not silent; She boldly raises Her voice above the din. She stands upon the most desolate peak, and the busiest highway, at every intersection, gate and doorway: Listen to Me, all of you! Listen to Me, for I speak of noble things. Truth comes from My lips; My words are just and simple. Reason and understanding will show you the righteousness of My words. Accept Me rather than silver and fine gold. For I surpass rubies; nothing equals the gift I offer you.


Me Too Lady Wisdom

This scripture invites us to hear Lady Wisdom, the powerful feminine divine. In Greek she is Sophia, and she persists even in a history that might have edited her voice out entirely given the chance. Perhaps this is the first time you have heard that her voice is a part of our tradition and, if so, you are not alone. Perhaps it is because other parts of the Bible would tell her to be quiet in church. We have a history of limiting women’s voices and bodies, just like all of the cultures and histories our tradition has been woven through. We are gathering in this season of Me Too and Never Again to reflect on the church’s work in changing the systems that fuel sexual and intimate violence, harassment and stalking. We have a history of struggling to value voices and bodies and this is a season when we not only work to change, but make amends for the sins of our silence and violence in the past. 


We are in an epidemic of violence: 20 people every minute are abused by an intimate partner, 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner. Every 73 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted, 1 in 33 men and 1 in 6 women have experienced attempted or completed rape. The majority of this violence is committed by someone the victim knows; 45% in their own homes and 12% in their work place. 63,000 children a year experience sexual abuse and violence and 34% are under the age of 12. This is an inexcusable epidemic of brokenness and it has lasted for a long time this way. Why? Why do we struggle to act? Why do we struggle to condemn and change? Why do we permit such toxic, controlling behavior primarily by males? 


I believe the church has failed to speak up, not only against this violence in homes and schools and churches and work places, but we have fueled it by our limitations of seeing the divine. We see God as male, it is our default position. And probably, if we are honest, we take a page from the Sistine Chapel and see God as a very buff, bearded Santa Claus. The Bible presents a diversity of names and metaphors for God. I have woven them through our worship. Praying to God as Living Water that quenches our thirst, God as the Cypress or Oak, rooted and stretching, strong and flexible. God as mountain and God as sea, vast, bold, all-encompassing with boundless resolve. God as Mother Hen gathering us in the shelter of her wings or God as Mama Bear or Mama Eagle, which should remind every greedy predator to stay away from her beloved children. 


Every week we pray, “Our Father” in the Lord’s Prayer and no one has ever sent me an e-mail to complain. No one has ever messaged, “Pastor Debra, I think it would be more Biblical if we called God Papa or Daddy,” which, to be honest, might be true. Jesus is using a term of an intimate parent, not an authoritarian Father. No one has ever complained or laughed or looked surprised by a male pronoun, but pepper in She or They or Mother and eyes get wide, even if people are not offended, they are surprised. That is when I get an e-mail. What does it say about us when calling God a “girl” is the most offensive thing we can do to God? What does it say about how we value the feminine, the mothers, the girls, the bodies that are not cis-gender heterosexual male?


The ways we name God are ways of naming our values. And churches have valued masculinity (and mostly a pretty toxic masculinity) to a fault and have been unwilling to see the brokenness this creates. We see this in practice and policy as the voices of Women and Queer folks of faith are marginalized from the table. This attitude is alive and well in this day. All you need to do is Google, “Why can’t women be pastors?” and you will find gems like “Why Christian Women Don’t Need To Be Pastors To Be Equal with Men.” (https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/01/why-female-christians-dont-need-to-be-pastors-to-be-equal-with-men/) In this and other articles, the pastor or professor agues that “equality isn’t sameness” and rejecting the notion that excluding women is sexist because God’s design is for men and women to be different. And even though he can be a pastor, he names that being a pastor isn’t a sign of being more important in the church’s work. Most offensive (and I suppose enlightening) about his ministry is that he loves women so much, he wouldn’t send them into hard spaces. He then proceeds to compare ministry to military battle and that we wouldn’t want a woman to have her “face blown off.” Which honestly suggests he thinks getting a few mean e-mails is like being sent to a war zone and, frankly, is why women have also had to fight to use their gifts in all of the branches of military service.


Most of these kinds of articles rely on a few verses attributed, often wrongly, to Paul or the sin of Eve in the second creation narrative (that’s right second, there are two). Not one of these men and many other explain the presence of women with Jesus and with Paul - not Mary, not Martha, not Lydia, not Priscilla, not Phoebe - and when they do, they name this as irrelevant, anomalies and point that women doing things that God made women to do isn’t sexism, it’s love. It’s not sexism that a woman’s voice is bound to home or service without authority over men, it’s love and it’s ordained by God.  Not one of them consider the changing context of the Christian community in the early days of Jesus and later Paul, and not one of them consider the changing context of this day except to lament and long for the way they imagine the 1950s. And it will not surprise you that they use masculine language over and over, they almost never even refer to the Divine as a non-gendered God. 


We are “His children” doing “His Will” and He is Lord, God and King. Mary Daly reminds us that the way we name the sacred impacts how we see each other and ourselves. “If God is a man, men are gods.” Language matters; it impacts how we see others and ourselves, it impacts the voices we value and the voices we grant authority, it makes us more open to hearing, seeing and honoring the sacred. And if God is default male, male is default authority and highest values of the most worth. 


The theological lens we use is a choice. It is a choice to limit or include voices, it is a choice to value or devalue bodies and beings. It is a choice and I am asking you to push your own boundaries. Do you default to a male pronoun for God? Do you imagine God as Zeus’s cousin or kin to Santa Claus? It’s ok if you do, but I want to ask you to imagine God in the feminine for a moment. What does it open up to call God Mother? To see the sacred in the queer young person using They as a pronoun. What does it do to imagine God in brown and black hues, what does it do to imagine God as the sacred forests and the majestic mountains? Would we value creation rather than exploit her gifts and resources? If we could see God in the Queer youth, would our rate of homeless queer youth be zero? Would we have the lowest maternal death rate if we could see God as Mother and her power in birth rather than domination? Would we change the systems that lead to sexual and gendered violence if we saw bodies as valuable, even if they are young and vulnerable as Tween Jesus in the temple when his parents searched high and low for him? Would we end all forms of degradation and exploitation if we saw it as violating the sacred and destroying the divine? I believe we would and I believe we have a choice. It starts with you and I, expanding the sacred that we see and inviting others to look with new eyes and to hear with new ears. Lady Wisdom is speaking, will we be the Church that listens?


May we have the courage, Amen.

National Coming Out Day - 2020

Reflection by Sangeetha Kumar
October 11, 2020

Good morning, everyone! Happy National Coming Out Day! Thank you to my sweet Urban Abbey family for asking me to speak, I am truly humbled. Thank you to my family, friends, allies, and all who have supported me, challenged me and stood beside me during MY coming out as bisexual. Most importantly, thank you to my beloved partner, Erin, and to my beautiful stepsons, Kadin and Cameron, who breathed life into me when I didn’t think that I had any life left. And lastly but not leastly, (I know that’s not a word) I thank my Jesus who knew the inner parts of me before anyone else knew a thing.

To give context, "National Coming Out Day was inspired by a single march. 500,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights on October 11, 1987, generating momentum to last for 4 months after the march had ended. During this period, over a hundred LGBTQ+ identifying individuals gathered outside Washington, DC, and decided on creating a national day to celebrate coming out – this began on the 1st anniversary of their historic march." Quote from https://nationaltoday.com/national-coming-out-day/

It's interesting how marches start movements, marches move and movement marches and those moving marches continue to this day…But let me march on to more spiritual matters. Today, I am not going to share my personal story but rather share my thoughts on what coming out means.

Over these past few weeks, I have been praying about what to say and what scripture to use. And the only thing that kept coming up over and over in my mind was the passage of Lazarus. Many of you have heard the story of Lazarus, if you haven’t, please read John 11. It is a heartbreaking, confusing, confounding story of heartache, longing, waiting, betrayal, grief, sadness, tears, disbelief, joy and ultimately glory. It encompasses the shortest verse in all of scripture: Jesus Wept. (Think about that for a moment, the Son of the Almighty God is weeping—for one of us!) Jesus is asking Mary, Martha and all else who came to see and comfort them to move the stone where Lazarus was buried. They were confused and dismayed and even warned him about the odor! (There was no Febreze back then!) And Jesus responds with a prayer to his Heavenly Father that those around Him would believe Him and see this miracle and then He said, “Lazarus, come out!” Some translations say, “Lazarus, come forth.” Now you might be wondering, “What does this have to do with National Coming Out Day?” Well, here is the thing. All the emotions I mentioned—heartache, longing, waiting, betrayal, grief, sadness, tears, disbelief, joy and ultimately glory—are all the emotions of coming out—of coming forth. Lazarus went from death to life. THAT is the process of coming out—going from death to life; from being someone you are not, someone that is not life-giving, someone that is false, to being someone that is life-fulfilling, someone that is authentic and someone that is real. Death to life.

Let me take this one step further. Coming out for the LGBTQ+ community is about freedom. It is about liberation. It is coming out of hiding, coming out of despair, coming out of lying and coming INTO something that is genuine. I say this to students that I work with, there is a funny thing that happens when a person who is LGBTQ+ comes out. People all around you give you their thoughts and opinions about the issue at hand. For example, if you say, “Hey, I am interested in Joey.” If you are a woman interested in a man, people celebrate it and rejoice. If you are man saying you are interested in a man, people say, “Well, I agree or disagree”. Think about that. No one ASKED for permission or confirmation. They were just expressing their attraction and excitement, yet somehow people feel the need to approve or disapprove of a non-heterosexual relationship. Another thing happens when people come out, people who they are coming out to are now faced with what they think about “this issue” and the person coming out is left with having to process with the other person about the other person’s thoughts, beliefs and opinions are about the issue of being LGBTQ+. I feel this is unique to the coming out process, which is why it is hard to come out and scary at times, because ultimately, a person is accepted or rejected.

Going back to the idea of liberation…liberation is freedom. Freedom to be who you are, believe what you believe, think what you think, value what you value. There has been no other time in my life where that notion has been the most compromised other than now. People, we are in an election year during a pandemic! Who would have thought?!?!?! My point is this: liberation for the LGBTQ+ community means liberation for all! No matter gender, race, religion, sexuality, creed, social status, ability, etc.—each person has a right to live free. If you suppress one, you suppress the other. If you free one, you need to free the other. Christ called Lazarus forth, he commanded him to literally come out, and he meant that in his entirety—that ALL of him should be restored to wholeness in his coming out of the grave. That is what this day means—it is a restoration to that which is whole. This is an important thing to understand right now—in a time when people feel polarized, marginalized more than ever and people don’t listen much anymore—people are longing to be understood and to feel whole again. I feel this goes beyond our sexuality and speaks to our souls. Our souls are created to be free and to find freedom in the God who created us. When a person comes out, they are taking a risk—each and every time—because in case you didn’t know, a person who is LGBTQ+ has to come out over and over and over again, pretty much every time they meet someone new. But the risk they are willing to take is necessary in order to be authentically free, no matter the cost at times.

Finally, people who come out often feel that they have to choose between their sexuality and their faith. I say no. Urban Abbey says no. God knew this long before you did. God loves you and chooses you to be a part of the Kingdom. Think about this: if we are all created in the image of God—every single person on this planet—well, that is a BIG picture of God and the more we understand who are fellow humans are, the more we can understand the depth of God. As Jesus called Lazarus to come forth and to reveal His glory in overcoming death and producing life, He is still doing that today in the countless people He is calling forth to come out. As Rev. Debra says, “May it be so.”

A prayer for Mental Health Awareness Sunday

A prayer for Mental Health Awareness Sunday
By Rev. Debra McKnight

All Loving God, Living Water

We pause in care of our community,
    knowing our neighbors struggle,
    people we love struggle and we struggle
        with the health of our minds, bodies and souls.

We pause in heartbreak and hope, seeking for all to be whole.

We pause in gratitude for researchers and providers,
    therapists and doctors,
    nurses and social workers,
        advocates and allies that stand in the hard moments
            and work towards healing, hope and care.

For those diagnosed and those without,
    for those with access and for those without,
    for those exhausted in searching for the right care, the right medicine,
        the right insurance and the right provider that makes their life their own
            we pray.

For the ways we discount and demonize, the ways we have stigmatized and enflamed fears
    for the moments we have put the diagnose before the person
    for the wounds we have salted with our thoughts and prayers
    for the words and questions that have made what was bad worse
    for all the moments we failed to show up; frozen and caught unaware
we pause for forgiveness and seek to build a new way.
    
    
Draw us beyond our own comfort and our love of cliché
     from cheep platitudes to real presence
    steel our hearts to be silent when we don’t know what to say
    and open our ears to hear beyond the compulsory ‘fine” we all seek to be.  

Draw us beyond the easy boundaries we make
    and into the worries that threaten to swallow our neighbors whole,
    grant us courage to show up and listen until our hearts break,
    grant us the grit to do what needs to be done,
        offering phone calls, casseroles and everything in between.

Draw us to learning and listening, reading and researching,
    that opens our hearts and our minds and advocates for a world where all can be whole.

May it be so, Amen

Salvation, Fear and Cliff Diving Pigs

 Scripture Reading--Luke 8: 22-39

As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me’— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swine tenders saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Reflection: Salvation, Fear and Cliff Diving Pigs

Rev. Debra McKnight - October 4, 2020

Jesus is working around the Sea of Galilee, maybe he loves the water and maybe it’s because Herod Jr. is “developing” the area which is costing the local communities, creating hardship for the small fishing businesses and making profit for Rome. Jesus is walking among the folks who need him, find him, and this time it’s a naked man living among the tombs calling out, “What have you to do with me!” Most of us would be flustered…Jesus however picks up the conversation like everything is totally normal and asks, “What is your name?” This scripture can feel so strange to us because the language and the methods of healing are so different, unfamiliar to us. We don’t use the word ‘demon’ a lot…ok, I don’t really use it ever, unless I am reading the Bible. It bothers me. Not only because the whole scene sends our minds to some horrifying exorcism movie, but because I have heard folks use that language and mean it. It reminds me of people trying to pray the demon out of someone they should be loving and these prayers didn’t happen 50 years ago, they are happening to folks right now in churches in Omaha. But none of what you and I might bring to the text really reflects what Jesus is inviting us to hear. We may not use the language of being possessed by a demon, but we can understand what it feels like or looks like to not be self-possessed, to be possessed by some struggle, sickness or addiction.

And if we are really honest we might know this man living in the tombs. We might see his silhouette in the folks dwelling among the vacant buildings or resting on the sidewalks after all the businesses have closed for the night. We can see them caring everything they possess in a cart or the duffle bag slung over their shoulder. We can hear this man in one who shouts at us as we pass by with the other folks who are a little frightened, a little grieved, and mostly unsure what to do.

We live in a country where one in five adults experience some struggle with mental health each year and one in 25 experience a severe crisis. Perhaps you have witnessed or experienced the struggle for a healthy mind, body and spirit. Maybe you have advocated for someone you love to receive care, better care, or longer stays in the hospital. Perhaps you have witnessed when insurance companies change coverage and suddenly that medication so essential to the one you love is $700 dollars a month and the process to find new medication leads them to spiral into crisis. We may use different language and even different technology, but if we are honest, we have met the man living in the tombs. And the thing that made Jesus unique is that he did, too. Healing was the work of the temples; all the things Jesus does, whether it is healing the bent over woman, restoring vision or casting out these spirits, happens in the temples…for a price. The miracle of Jesus isn’t the method, it’s the access.

What we know about this man is that he is naked. He is living in the cemetery or among the tombs and he is strong, strong enough to break the chains and unwilling to be restrained. We are left to imagine his journey. We can imagine his family loving him and something happened: some trauma, some loss, or just coming of age and this struggle took hold. Maybe they took him to the temple for care and couldn’t find the healing, the right doctor, or the right medicine. Maybe they tried to keep him at home and maybe the neighbors loved him and prayed for him. Until one day when he became a risk to himself or others. Maybe they got scared, but they tried to chain him and that didn’t even work. Maybe they tried and tried, but got tired or exhausted and made peace with him living among the dead, dwelling among the tombs, existing but not really living.

This is where he encountered Jesus who asks him his name and the demons answer, “Legion.” This names that they are mighty, powerful, and a multitude. It also names the Roman Occupation, the Roman Legion that brings trauma and violence and sickness to the community. The demon is smart enough to know it’s leaving and negotiates with Jesus. Rather than being sent into the abyss, the demon is sent into a herd of swine. It is easy for us to miss the symbols here. The legion of the Roman army stationed in this particular region has a symbol (a mascot if you will) and their mascot is a pig. Not only that, but we have to ask the questions of why there is a hillside of pigs in a region where Jewish folks don’t eat pork. This is a cash crop, big business, part of the oppression of the people and we can see that in what happens next.

Jesus sends the spirits, the sickness, into the pigs and the pigs are not having it. They run off the hillside and into the sea. The ones tending the pigs run to tell the story and the folks from the community arrive to see for themselves. The first thing they see is that their once wild, naked unwell neighbor sitting with Jesus, is clothed and in his right mind. He is well, he possesses himself and they respond with fear. They are not afraid when the man is naked, wild, breaking chains, but now they are afraid.

This is the most astounding part of the story. They are afraid. So afraid they ask Jesus to leave. He has healed a man, perhaps the son of their neighbor, perhaps as the kids played within the city square, perhaps the one who was beloved and lost to sickness. The story says Jesus heals, but the word could also be translated to saved. Jesus saves. Healing and salvation are the same root, SALV. And there is nothing about this saving moment that is some magical afterlife. Jesus does not ask the man if he is his lord and savior. Jesus heals him; it's what he said he would do in the beginning of Luke and it’s what he does over and over. Salvation is a present action. Salvation transformed this man and the community responds not in gratitude, but fear; not in joy, but in worry. They send Jesus away. They witness salvation and they ask the sacred to get out of town.

Why? Perhaps the one who owns the pigs and just watched his money jump off the cliff is too much for them to escape. Maybe they can’t handle salvation and healing if it changes everything they had gotten used to, even if they wish it could be better. Or maybe, just maybe, it served some folks to have a wild, naked scary neighbor living in the tombs. That is the question we have to ask ourselves when we struggle to change, when we struggle to heal, when we refuse to make changes to our healthcare system: are we like the ones who saw healing and salvation and then sent Jesus away?

We have a modern healthcare system that needs so much change and, even as we profess to value community and equity, we can not make the hard choices to really invest and change. We have corporations profiting from healthcare for the mind and body. They get paid first and they do not provide the care. Our neighbors have to choose between medical debt and well-being. We have more research to do and gains to make in access to mental health care. More providers and social workers, doctors and nurses are needed. The changes we need feel so overwhelming and perhaps even unsettling because there are so many competing agendas that it is tempting to send the sacred away and choose fear over healing.

Even as Jesus left the town, he asked the man to stay. The one who was now clothed and in his right mind and this man had asked to go with Jesus. And Jesus says, “No.” It seems harsh on the surface, right? But it is a reminder that everyone who follows Jesus has a special call. This man stays and reminds the community what salvation can be, what healing can look like if they choose love over fear. We can do that, too. Perhaps as we work for vast change we can work on our own life and community. We can work on our language, to always put the person before the disease. To stop saying things that hurt or wound or dehumanize. We can stop saying anything to a person struggling with mental health that you wouldn’t say to a person struggling with physical health and we can start thinking, “Would I say that to someone with cancer or about some one with heart disease?” We can stop saying “committed suicide.” We inherit not only a broken healthcare system, but the sins of the church in relating to mental health. Suicide has long been named a sin and a big one, so serious that the Roman Catholic church had official practices of limiting care after one died by suicide. And while they have changed, the residue clings to us all. To die by suicide should be approached as a tragedy and a loss, not as a shameful sin.

Will we be the community that sees salvation and sends the sacred away or will we invite change? We can be the people who work for new systems and advocate for budgets that bring care and expand access. We can also be the people who show up with a casserole and send a card when we know our neighbors are experiencing a mental health crisis just like we would if they were struggling with cancer. We can be the people who send a text and make a phone call. We can be the people who listen without judgement and who apologize when we say the wrong thing.  We can be the people who embrace healing rather than the town who sends Jesus away.

May we have the courage. Amen.