By Rebecca Messman

Burke Presbyterian Church, Burke VA

August 7, 2022

Acts 9:1-19

Acts 9  ¹ Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ² and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³ Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴ He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” ⁵ He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ⁶ But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” ⁷ The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. ⁸ Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. ⁹ For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

¹⁰ Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” ¹¹ The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, ¹² and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” ¹³ But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; ¹⁴ and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” ¹⁵ But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; ¹⁶ I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” ¹⁷ So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁸ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, ¹⁹ and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Let us pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Many of us know about Paul’s dramatic life change on the Damascus Road. How he was struck blind and knocked clean off his horse and then became the most famous Christian ever. However, we might not remember that before this story, Saul had been hate-breathing, religious-persecuting murderer who would have worn jack boots if they had been available to him in those days. We might be blurry about the fact that Paul came to find his way again, came to the way of Christ, came to his new path, not on his own in a kind of solo laser light show, but through the critical help of several other people, through their conversions that get far less press.

The Bible mentions that Paul’s traveling companions also heard the voice of Christ. They stood there speechless and then leaned into a miracle. They were the ones to lead him by the hand to where he needed to go. They were the ones to stay by him for 3 days, that holiest number of days, to see what happened.

Then there was a Christian named Ananias who also heard the voice of Christ. To say he was hesitant to help Paul was an understatement. Saying yes to this call meant risking the lives of his entire family because Paul was known for persecuting Christians and Ananias was a Christian. But had Ananias refused to let Brother Saul change, had he insisted on remaining in the safety of his tribe alone, had he refused to lay hands on a real enemy, scripture suggests Paul would have remained blind and who knows what that would have meant for the world.

For the conversion to happen, it was not just Paul. It took them all.

The way of Christ insists that this world does not change simply by people seeing the light on their own or blasting out their best argument with no further involvement. The way of Christ relies on the feet of people who don’t have the full story but are willing to hang in there together far longer than is convenient, like those traveling with Paul. And the way of Christ needs the hands of people who are willing to let change happen even if that change feels extremely risky.

A preaching professor of mine said, “You know, I’d rather see a sermon than listen to one any day.”  In our world, people can listen to sermons anywhere. On a podcast, case and point, I heard a church leader say, “Words are more portable and affordable than ever.” And as people stare into the light of a billion phones, as we are discovering that sometimes our words can bring more heat than light, more reeling than healing.

Today’s story teaches us that, yes, sometimes God knocks people right off their horse, a sudden change overtakes them and there is no going back. One day, a man marched up to me after a sermon where I had spoken about God’s mysteries and good ole doubting Thomas, he said, “I appreciate those words, I do. But I have survived a near death experience. I have been enfolded in a loving light that made me happier than anything and ever since that happened, I don’t doubt or fear death anymore. I am a different person.” That happens. I have met people who had epiphanies, in AA or the hospital or when they became a parent or at the end of their rope at work. Indeed, there are those people. And, there are other conversions, far more frequently, that involve a change of the direction of the feet and openness of the hands more so than the blinding of the eyes. People willing to go where they’d rather not go, like the companions of Paul. People willing to open their hands in compassion to the very ones they have every reason in the world to fear, like Ananias.

It was not just Paul. It took them all.

Maya Angelou said, “I have learned that people will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

One thing I haven’t seen very often at all is someone who experienced an enormous life change that sounded like: “It was a comment on Facebook that told me how foolish I was, that made me stop and think.” “It was that guy who yelled at me during the meeting, and those who wouldn’t look me in the eye, they really opened my eyes.” No, most will say something like, “I can’t believe she sat by my bedside for that many hours.” “I was expecting him to chew me out and call me a fool, but instead, he forgave me.” “I deserved an angry rant and instead she went out of her way to be generous to me. Who does that?”

“I received compassion from the people I deserved it least from when I least deserved it, and that helped change me.” Those are the words of a former white supremacist skin head named Christian Piccolini, who left a life of racial hatred and violence not because someone told him how wrong he was. His eyes were closed to that truth. He changed because he received undeserved love and compassion from the very ones he’d been antagonizing. Once it was an African American teenager who wept with him about what it is like to see your mother suffer from breast cancer. Then it was Mr. Johnny Holmes, the African American custodian of his former high school, whom Christian had menaced with his rants. Mr. Homles saw Christian later in life and initially jumped back in concern at the sight of him. But then he listened as Christian apologized, told Mr. Holmes how he had changed. And Mr. Holmes embraced him and said, “I forgive you. Now you go out and tell everyone else about your change.” And that is what Christian has done for 18 years. His TED talk has been viewed 4.5 million times.

In my own life, I think of Professor Fenn in seminary. He was often late to his own class and rarely noticed when his tie was curled over his shoulder. Hardly an arresting presence. But in seminary, there was a moment when I was knocked to the ground by the death of a friend, blinded by grief. Up until that season in my life, I had been an insufferable overachiever. And that loss made it impossible for me to get my work in on time – especially the 20 page paper for Fenn’s course that was the sole determinate of my grade. One day, I begged Dr. Fenn for an extension. He looked into my red stinging eyes and said, “Don’t turn it in. At all. I want you to write. Write it all down until what is inside is out. Let the grief come out in words. And don’t worry, I’ll give you an A- anyway.” In his gift of deep listening and compassion, he taught me grace, more than any lecture ever did.

The way of Christ looks like shocking life change, unbidden, breaking in, breaking through, breaking down the dividing walls of hostility, as Paul would go on to write to the Ephesians. But it also looks like putting yourself in a place where such encounters might happen, outside of bubbles and comfort zones. In the visit with that cousin or sibling or part of the country you don’t really understand. It also looks like opening your hands in compassion and service and forgiveness, for those who don’t really deserve it, including yourself. It looks like extending grace one more time, being generous one more time, breaking the bread one more time, because that is how Christ has treated you.

For conversion to stick, it was not just Paul, it took them all.

Amen

By Rebecca Messman

Burke Presbyterian Church, Burke VA

July 24, 2022

John 1:35-42

³⁵ The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸ When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹ He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰ One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹ He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴² He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Let us pray: Lord, we want to see you. Amen.

The first words from the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel of John are: “What are you looking for?” After the beautiful cosmic beginning of John, “in the beginning was the word, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it,” the text cuts to Jesus walking by on a normal afternoon. He asks the disciples who are standing there, “What are you looking for?”

“What are you looking for?” It’s a beautiful question Jesus asks, free of judgment and assumptions. Genuine curiosity on the soul level rather than a set of pre-packaged answers on a pamphlet. This seems to be how Jesus operated. He asked 307 questions in the Bible, from “Why do you worry?” to “Who do you say that I am?” to “Do you want to be made well?” to perhaps our favorite, “Do you have anything to eat?”

Sometimes when people engage me in conversations about faith, often on the sidelines of a soccer game, or when people say they want more information about the church after a quick visit, or when someone on a plane starts to treat me like a church suggestion box, I have made it a practice to ask this same question: “What are you looking for?”

This would be a good question to ask in our country, where the fastest growing religious categories are the ‘nones and dones,’ the 29% of Americans who describe their religion as “none” and those who are exiting faith communities, mostly Christianity. “Done” with the church. I’ve just learned about others who might constitute a new category. One magazine cleverly calls them the “Umms” – those whose relationship with God is, umm… complicated. Those who long for spiritual belonging and at the same time, feel disillusioned by the behavior of the church and disembodied from community of kindred spirits and discouraged by the hard news of the world. What might they be looking for?

Well, that afternoon at least, the disciples didn’t answer Jesus’ question. Who knows why. They could have said “We are searching for closeness with God.” Or, “we want out of this backwater fishing town.” Or, “we want a decent dinner, but it’s just 4 pm.” But I suspect that they didn’t simply know the answer to his question. There wasn’t a fully baked answer in them as to what they sought. It was more of a restlessness, a yearning that bounced around from inspiration to frustration and back again on any given day, an itch that a lot of us feel inside a lot of the time, a stirring of the spirit. A stirring deep within them, as my wise friend Rev. Andrew Connors describes as, to know something or feel something or be something that is beyond what they can know or feel or do on their own. Something, someone, somewhere, somehow worthy of this cathedral of devotion inside them and also capable of steering it in the right direction.

“What are you looking for?” In response, they muttered, lamb of God, rabbi, teacher, messiah, anointed one, so many names from their different angles, but all words pointed to that same stirring, same yearning, same ineffable hope.

The church could learn from what Jesus does here, his appreciative inquiry. Sometimes we the church set ourselves up to be the answer to all the questions. To deliver the answers ourselves rather than to equip people to look for God in the afternoons of their own lives. To imagine the church as the destination itself rather than a mighty ship rigged for discovery of God’s future. To treat the scriptures, hymns and confessions as an old treasure chest that we control rather than powerful navigational tools and guides from other theological wayfarers to take people farther on their journey than we have been. To tell people the questions they should be asking rather than listen to them describe the grief, the call, the beauty and pain that has broken them open to search in the first place. Sometimes the church sits people down in a pew rather than hike with them as a community up to the holy ground places even beyond their initial questions.

Gary Haugen is the CEO of International Justice Mission, a non-profit that works to combat trafficking and poverty around the world. A few years ago, he spoke to a group of Presbyterians about how safe the church has become, to its own detriment. He said, we speak of things that are so safe that in general they could be handled without involving God at all. But, what people are really longing for is something deeply meaningful and dangerously adventurous because it risks changing the world around us and within us. Then, he shared the story of when he was 10 years old, visiting Mount Rainier with his father. There they were at the visitor’s center at the bottom of Mount Rainier, looking up at all these trails winding their way up into the cloud cover, a patch of bright red warning signs from lawyers at the trailhead telling of potential hazards for travelers.

At ten years old, Gary told his father, “You know, I think I’ll just go back down to the visitors’ center.”  His father tried to persuade him, “I know it will be hard, but I think you’ll be glad you came.”  “No, no,” insisted Gary “I’d really rather spend the day at the visitors’ center.”  And he went back down.  He spent hours in the visitors’ center watching films about other people hiking the mountain loop again and again.  He began to feel sleepy, bored and small, no more so than when his family returned red-faced, clear-eyed and smiling. Haugen asked, “What if the church decided to no longer be simply people who come to the visitors center to hear about other people going off to do interesting, adventurous, and important things in pursuit of God’s vision? What if the church were those who dared to go up that mountain?”

As the disciples let Jesus’ big question marinate for a minute, they asked him a soft ball one. “Where are you staying?” Were they really wondering about his accommodations or buying time to think? Was it like, “Before I speak to the animating purpose of my life, let me say that the Holiday Inn Express is really nice.” Was it like, “Regarding the horizon of my deepest hopes, I wonder if you have checked the reviews of that establishment yet.”  Or was it more like the first bid of those who are gathering their courage? Was it a wild guess that where this man puts his body and where he spends his time might tell them more about the living God than anything else – the time he spends healing the sick, crossing boundaries to welcome the outcasts, retreating from the constant claims upon his time to make space for silence and prayer, entering conflict without fear, giving his life for the sake of the world.  Where Jesus locates himself teaches us more than words about him.

And that is where their journey begins. Jesus responds: “Come and see.” Over and over again in the Book of John, Jesus responds this way, “Come and see,” unwilling to give them the brochure or let them watch the film. He invites them to get involved. To hold nothing back.

C. S. Lewis said it this way, “”It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

An inner city pastor friend of mine told me a story about a woman who set up a meeting with him. Her son Oscar continued to ask to go to church. It all started when they were on a trip to Italy and toured an old cathedral. Oscar had gone all the way to the front where the candles flickered red. He was drawn to the kneelers, and then he said, “Mom, teach me to pray.” She was not a church person. This was way out of her comfort zone and kind of freaked her out, but nevertheless, she knelt next to him and whispered, “God, thank you for Oscar and this beautiful church and for our family and … amen.” She told my friend that one thing led to another, and even though I told him we weren’t church goers and he’d probably find church boring, he insisted. We wound up here on Sundays and now he comes up for the children’s message. I am a secularist. I don’t know what’s going on.” My friend smiled, “It sounds like Jesus is messing with you.”

But then she asked him this beautiful question. “I don’t really know what I am searching for here, sorry, this is awkward, but what does it mean to have Jesus in your life?” Then my friend thought about it and responded, “Sometimes it is hard. Jesus has a way of making you do things you wouldn’t otherwise do – like forgiving some of the biggest jerks in your life, or associating with outcasts and folks who stand for everything you disagree with. But it is exhilarating. Sometimes,” he said, “It is the only thing that gives me courage.” He told stories of how even though people had shouted in his face, he had seen the city change, really change. New housing. Kinder laws. People who had been on the streets now serving as deacons. He told stories of how even when he felt lame as a father or terrified of disappointing people at work or thoroughly burned out, a prayer like the one Oscar had prayed in the cathedral could still fill him with hope again for no rational reason.  “Jesus helps me realize the way to do what Arundati Roy wrote a few years ago – ‘to live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.’” And even then, he’s not afraid of death because of this stubborn resurrection hope that promises the best is yet to come. But eventually he said to her, “You really shouldn’t take my word for it. You’ll have to see for yourself.” (With gratitude to Rev. Andrew Connors for his brilliant Well (lectionary preaching group) paper on this text.)

Maybe for you that means going along with these folks whose eyes sparkle when they talk about Kibwezi. Maybe for you that means taking a risky step to visit a person in a hospital or in hospice or in prison even though you have to check your pre-printed responses at the door.  Maybe you help with this brave project called Community Table, where BPC is really trying to share a meal with our neighbors even though we have no idea who will come. Maybe for you it means kneeling in the silence of prayer for six minutes when yesterday you could only tolerate four.

Either way, you wind up red-faced and smiling as if you’ve seen the face of God, because … you have.

Annie Dillard, “I cannot cause light –  the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.”

By Rebecca Messman

Burke Presbyterian Church, Burke VA

July 10, 2022

Genesis 32:23-32

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

Let us pray. O Lord, like all Israel, we wrestle with you. By sunrise, we come away with a blessing not of the triumphant fist pumpers, but of those who are limping and beloved. Open our hearts to where this story writhes in our lives. Amen.

Do you know this story? In the dead of night, by the Jabbok River, a cheek to jowl struggle rages between Jacob and this unknown other. The wrangling battle only ends when Jacob chokes out a blessing from the stranger just before daybreak. Jacob limps away, forever changed right down to his name. Israel, which translates to the God-wrestler.

This story is ‘epic’ – a word that is pretty overused these days. A hamburger or a playing Minecraft could be really great, but not really epic. An epic is the hero’s journey. And kind of like hero movies in our cynical age and the Marvel universe, the Jacob hero has major flaws that are the main things getting in his way.

This story was already old by the time of Abraham, some 4,000 years ago, and may be as old as humanity itself. If you don’t know this version in particular, I suspect you know a very personal version of it. The night you barely slept at all and confronted what might have been your biggest fear. How all your classic moves were bested, and all that remained was your white-knuckling need and a kind of muscular hope that you clung to like a drowning person. Struggle is too generic a word for this kind of wrestling match. It goes way beyond “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Maybe it’s more like what Kate Bowler said with a chuckle after many cancer treatments, “What doesn’t kill you diminishes you significantly.”

To understand the brilliant depth of this story, we have to know what led up to it. We have to go way upstream from the Jabbok, I guess, to when it was Jacob and Esau and a sibling rivalry for the ages. Jacob, the famous second born, was apparently grabbing on to his brother’s heel from birth trying to get ahead. The name, Jacob, actually means heel-grabber. Which is hilarious, until you think about the power of names, of reputations, how being labeled in your family affects you long term.

Regardless, we are to know that from the first, Jacob was a go-getter. The Bible said he life was in tents, meaning he literally stayed in the tent while his brother, Esau, who was outdoorsy, impulsive, and always sort of red, spent his days in the fields hunting. Esau’s name, get this, meant hairy. Esau was once was so hungry he traded his birthright for red lentil soup. Here are the mental images of opposites. I picture Jacob listening to indie rock and having strong opinions about coffee. I picture Esau with Cabela stickers on his truck and wearing camo. Can you see them? Are you one of them?

Their father, Isaac, had them when he was older. And one day, when Isaac’s skin was paper thin and his eyes were milky blind with cataracts, there was something important he couldn’t put off any longer. We might call it talking through the will, or handing over the family business, but in those days, that transaction required a special blessing. Once it was given, it couldn’t be undone. It was no secret that Isaac loved his big burly son, Esau, more, which always makes me sad to know, and probably Jacob too, but feelings aside, the time came to make things official. And Jacob sensed that moment coming before his brother did.

Jacob wasn’t a liar, per se. An opportunist? Probably. He was someone who had done the moral acrobatics and probably convinced himself that Esau wasn’t up to the responsibility of leadership, such a simpleton, so reckless. And his mother, Rebecca, agreed with him. That might have been rationale enough for him to do what he did, to answer to a name that wasn’t his. What harm was there in that? he wondered. Granted, donning fake arm hair, like he did, to make sure his blind father couldn’t tell the difference was completely shady, but it was strategic. It worked.

And somewhere in a hot tent that smelled of stew, Isaac passed along the blessing to the wrong son, to the trickster, the heel, the go-getter. There are no elevating, obvious and boring morals to be found here. Only two parents who don’t seem nearly as upset about this as their oldest son, Esau, was, who becomes murderously angry when he found out what has happened. I imagine barstools knocked over and the yell of someone who felt both hurt and foolish. And, that’s what led Jacob’s mom to tell him to go hide out for a while until Esau cooled off.

At this point, those who expect the Bible to be just a nice boring fable, assume Jacob will get what’s coming to him. Maybe Esau knocks his lights out or maybe someone in the hill country robs him blind. But no, that was when Jacob dreamt of the famous ladder stretching all the way to heaven, with angels descending. And rather than bellow down a warning, God offered another blessing. “I will be with you.” Up to this point, we see in Jacob a man who is type A, a cool-headed competitor in a cynical world who nevertheless wins. The one who has all the resources and quietly assumes he deserves them. The entitled one who starts to confuse wealth for wisdom. The one who mostly believes God’s presence with him is intended to bring him material and existential comfort.

When people throughout the centuries talk about the “God of Jacob,” we have to wonder… is that what they assume too? God as mascot of the winning team? Or even God as the trophy, hoisted by those who are doing great, and a big vacant place on the shelf when you lose. Many people passively believe this.

Well, wait for it. Many years passed, and life eventually did swindle the swindler, but that was not the interesting part. The interesting part was that eventually this cynical dog-eat-dog world forced Jacob to go back home. To face Esau. A kind of prodigal son 1.0, Jacob was forced live up to these blessings he had taken for granted and cross rivers now without the bridges he burned. And that was when this wrestling match happens. At the ford of the Jabbok river. After he had sent everyone else across, when there were no credit cards or higher ups around to vouch for him.

The questions that pound in Jacob’s brain on a dreamless night are the same big questions we all have: Can this old fight raging in every heart, every family, every country, every faith ever be fixed? If so, how? With an inspiring speech or lots of money? Will it come down intellectual maneuvering that Jacob would probably win or physical violence that he wouldn’t? And the answer is as surprising to Israel as it still is to us. The answer springs out in a dirt and sweat, dead of night, cheek-to-jowl battle. At first, the adversary lets Jacob think he is going to win this, lets him spend all his energy, lets him believe his own press, and then, with a touch to his hip, renders Jacob powerless in the dust, clinging to the adversary like a life preserver in the waves, demanding to know who this is, demanding a blessing because that’s all Jacob knows to do.

And of course, Jacob thinks he is going to see the face of someone awful, the punisher, some sweaty angry retaliator that he can loathe, but instead he sees the face not of death but of love, clear-eyed and fierce, scarred and yet slightly smiling, and it humbled him like love always does. And as he spit the dirt out of his mouth and wiped his lip, a blessing came that could not be grabbed by cunning nor wrenched by force but could only be received as a gift. It was the gift of a new name, a new identity, a new start. It was the evaporation of this big lie at the root of all his struggles, the idea that we could ever find peace through intellectual maneuvering or violence or money or pretending to be someone we’re not or hustling for our worth or blaming our enemies or blaming our past… A muscular kind of love squeezed him out of a breakdown and handed him a breakthrough.

Just before daybreak, the man said, “You are no longer the heel grabber. You are Israel, the one who struggles with God and overcomes.”

The God we encounter here is not boring or moralistic or interested in doling out rewards on one tribe. The God we encounter here is clear-eyed and fierce, older than the rivers and yet with us as we really are right now. God meets us in the struggle, pries open our hands, and gives us all these good things that never come through cunning or force… things like peace, joy, and love. And we greet the dawn limping and winded and yet grateful somehow.

It reminds me of something the poet Mary Oliver said, “Someone I once loved gave me a box of darkness. It took me years to realize that this too was a gift.”

This story pounces on me so often. When I realize I’m up to my old tricks again, Jacobing my way through the week, this story asks if I would even know what grace is if it grabbed me by the shoulders. When I see the hot conflict on the news, this story asks if perhaps we – our church, our country, our world – might be at a moment of a new identity, something more mature than the entitled lonely path we have been on for a long time. When I hear about someone I love who is really struggling, in dreamless nights of thudding disappointment and anxiety, this story stubbornly insists that God is there, real and loving whether we can choke out some creed or not.

The last we see of Jacob, now Israel, he is limping home against the red sunrise. It reminds me of Jesus who staggered out of the tomb, on broken feet[1] and wounded hip, toward Easter morning, with hard-won love on his face and resurrection coursing through his veins. They lost and yet they won…. and that blessing has made its way all the way to us. Not a trophy for the shelf, but love itself that will not let us go.

Amen.

[1] The frame of this sermon is deeply influenced by a sermon written by Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat, May 1985. https://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Defeat-Frederick-Buechner/dp/006061174X

By Rebecca Messman

Luke 8:26-39

²⁶ Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” ²⁹ 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.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. ³¹ They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

³² 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. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

³⁴ When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ 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 became frightened. ³⁶ Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. ³⁷ Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “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.

Let us pray. Lord, in my words, may your people hear your timeless word. Amen.

My grandmother would frequently and proudly tell people about her three boys. Listing off their birth order, she’d say, “It goes Don, Tom, Korea, Carter.” My Dad, Tom, was born in 1950, and then there was a gap for a few years when my grandfather fought in the Korean War. During those long years when he was gone, she would show her little boys these big shoes in the closet to remind them they had a father. And then she would gleefully recall the day when they went to the airport to welcome him home. “Now little Tommy was very concerned about why I was kissing some man and gave this mean toddler scowl … until he saw those shoes. And he made the connection. That must be my Dad!”

That is the sunny paper plate family reunion version of this story.

And if we prefer sunny Bible stories for Father’s Day, we’d probably pick a different one than today’s from the Gospel of Luke. Maybe we’d prefer the resurrected Jesus grilling on the beach with his friends. Or an old chestnut about how good Joseph was as a carpenter and all-around fix it guy. Or how about Jesus gone fishin’ again? But the Bible doesn’t spend a whole lot of time in Hallmark territory. Neither does life for that matter. So, today the Bible gives us a story of identity and healing from brokenness and wonderful, costly restoration.

In today’s story, Jesus gets out of the boat in the land of the Gerasenes, described as opposite Galilee. That doesn’t just mean geographically opposite, it also means culturally and ethnically opposite. Other. In other words, brace yourself for all the contrasts that are about to come.

Jesus gets out of the boat already windswept from calming the storm on the sea, during which storm his own disciples had said, “Who is this guy that the wind and waves obey him?” Then, he meets this man with a storm inside him, a man who immediately identifies him, “Jesus, son of the Most High God.”

The contrasts continue. The Bible says that the man was possessed by demons, thousands of them. His very self was occupied by a brutal destructive army that had laid waste to his life, but it is also clear that the man was dis-possessed in every other way. He had no home and was living among the tombs. He had no clothes except for shackles on his ankles and lots of bruises. And the most heartbreaking fact of all was that this man had no name, no identity, no personhood. “Call me Legion, for we are many.” How heartbreaking it is to be identified only as the devastating thing that has happened to you.

Another sad detail is that the town couldn’t even ignore him as much as they wanted to – someone guarded him there, not to clothe him or befriend him, but to keep him from disrupting their tenuous calm.

So there he was – naked as a jaybird, completely exposed in every way, and yet mostly invisible to the town. He was possessed and yet dis-possessed. He was tormented by demons and also demonized because of it. That is what happens when suffering is combined with stigma.

And what follows is absolutely stunning. The demons seek permission from Jesus to depart from the man. Then, they rush headlong into the helpless pigs nearby, who rush into the sea and drown. And after the storm inside the man is calmed, there he sits, clothed and in his right mind. And instead of bringing the man along with him as a motivational speaker or show and tell, Jesus tells the man, “It’s time to go home. Tell your story there.”

Now, those in town who knew this guy and those who needed those pigs, they have mixed emotions about this. Of course they do. They were scared. When what was at a distance, dispossessed, disinherited, and disaffected, comes home, or when the shadow side of your life that had been causing years of quiet grief finally steps into the light, it can be terrifying. But having known a lot of families who have been through something like this on a smaller scale, I imagine there comes a point when you realize there is a steep cost either way. Sure, his restoration cost that town a lot, but so did the compounding cost of maintaining the tenuous calm for all those years before the healing came. But for the first time in a long time, their fear is in the direction of wholeness not alienation. It is in the direction of the being able to possess the whole naked truth, not just the easy sunshine part of it. I am reminded of that famous MLK quote, “True peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the presence of justice.”

So, let me go back to that nice family story. When I was in my 20s and starting seminary, I asked my uncle why we were all so Presbyterian. My grandmother was on every committee until her late 80s and my grandfather was a fixture in that church as much as the organ and sang nearly as loud. And yet my uncle’s answer totally surprised me. Sure, we had ancestors from Scotland and cried at the sound of bagpipes and all that. But our church connection went way deeper. And I still gulp at the depth of it.

Don, Tom, Korea, Carter. My grandfather, Papa, had been in the First Marine Division in Korea. As a former pilot, he was sent to be a forward air controller, the lonely guy ahead of the troops with a radio who called in close air support. At night, sometimes my grandfather was able to hear the chatter of the Chinese army. They were that close by. And then there was the battle of Chosin reservoir, where his division earned the name “The Chosin Few.” All I can say it that it was a place of horrific casualties and bitter cold. My grandfather hardly ever talked about it. But I have read about it. Maybe you have too. I’ll never fully understand what he and others went through, though I can appreciate why he never liked fireworks and why his feet gave him troubles decades after the frostbite abated and why he always struggled to sleep. And that’s where the deeper story steps into the light. Because apparently when he landed in California after leaving Korea, he wasn’t ok. He was a man living in the tombs. His spirit was tormented by the armies in his mind and by losses that he could not bear. He was Legion. And even though my grandmother was eagerly awaiting his return to Virginia, caring for two sons, one of them my three-year-old Dad whom he hadn’t met yet, somehow he couldn’t get on that plane. Now we have language for it, PTSD. But then they called it shell shocked or hitting the bottle.

After two weeks like this, the minister from the Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg flew out to California and put his arm around my grandfather and said, “Buddy, it’s time to come on home.” And that is when the safe family story picks up again, with the famous greeting at the airport and the man with big shoes to fill and the kiss with my grandmother and the awareness that my Dad had a father.

My uncle said, “If you wanna know what heals a broken man and what makes a woman an elder in the Presbyterian Church for life, that’ll do it.”

That story is part of me. Maybe that story or one like it is part of all us in one way or another. It is a story of identity and healing from brokenness and wonderful, albeit costly, restoration.

I’ll never know the whispered conversations that caused that Presbyterian from Lynchburg to hop on a plane in 1953, but I imagine his faith compelled him. He must have remembered how Jesus summoned new life out of tombs all the time. He must have remembered how Jesus commissioned the church to be his body into the future, willing to go to all the places that are opposite of our personal Galilee to put an arm around those who are dispossessed and assure them they are claimed by God.

Pastor and Professor Willie Francois said, “A stigma can make human beings invisible. And it takes an “ap­pearing act” to make seeable the unseen—the dispossessed, disinherited, and disaffected. This is holy work for people of faith.”  Or to say it another way, the opposite of stigma is community. Community that is willing to go the distance and hold what is hard and not run away even if the pigs do. We can be that person, that church, who goes toward not away.

Now, maybe you and your family do not have the luxury of being at the end of this story yet. Maybe you don’t have the space yet to tell your story with grainy black and white photos and decades of good memories to buffer the hard stuff. Maybe you feel like you are mostly identified with affliction or maybe you love someone who is out there hurting and truly an act of God is what it would take to bring them around. Or maybe you are the one feeling left out and exposed. Maybe you feel shunned and bruised.

Know this: God will continue to show up for you. In all the storms and the tombs of dead dreams. Love will shrink the distance between the shores. The extravagant boundary-breaking, stigma-erasing, wound-tending, community-mending, church-sending, cross-defeating, name-giving, other-claiming, world-reconciling eternal-life love of God is here and will never let us go. God’s refrain is always the same: You are seen. You are named. You are loved. You are accepted. It’s time to come home.

Amen.