2 Pentecost/Year C – June 22, 2025
Scriptures: Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:18-27; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
(written by Rev Julie Platson)
Opening Prayer: (Feasting on the Word: Worship Companian)
Almighty God, creator of all things seen and unseen, through your Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, you show your power and mercy. You cast out evil, tear down walls of division, comfort and challenge your people, and show signs of your kingdom coming into the world. Grant that we may lift up the discouraged, strengthen the doubting, and join with all who seek to thank you for your goodness. Amen.
What struck me, initially, in this morning’s gospel, was the depth of someone’s despair and suffering…I couldn’t turn away…I just kept going back and back again to the man in today’s gospel reading who we heard was filled and tormented with many demons…
It made me wonder…what was it throughout his life that kept him captive to such despair and suffering? What were the demons in his head and those around him constantly telling him? What was the tipping point…for him, and for others who find themselves in such despair, when it felt like they were dying a slow death, when they saw no chance of ever escaping the depths of their deep-seeded fears, and persecution…when they saw no chance of ever being loved and accepted by God or others…
We don’t really know much about the man with demons, before his interaction with Jesus…other than, for a long time he wore no clothes, and lived in the tombs…and that from time to time, even in shackles and being chained up…he would break the bonds and be driven out by the demons to the wild…
But, we do get a glimpse in today’s gospel, what happens after he meets Jesus…
We see what happens when Jesus notices him, responds to him, and asks him, “What is your name”?
We see what happens when the demons tormenting the man beg Jesus, to set them free….
We see what happens to the man, when his demons are set free…
We see what happens to the man, when Jesus heals him…
We see a new man, a man transformed by the love and mercy and grace of God, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed, in his right mind again… with stillness in his body and mind, for the first time in years, with no demons tormenting him…only a new hope…eager to follow the one who finally healed him and set his spirit free…
But Jesus tells the man…this is how you can follow me: “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."
Go out and proclaim the good news to someone else…go tell it…. everywhere!
So, he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
That’s how we can follow Jesus, too…. by giving thanks for the mercy and grace and love of God in our own lives and those close by us that we have been witness to, and then we go… we go out into the world, our neighborhoods, proclaiming the good news to someone else…wherever our hearts, and hands, and feet may take us…
Why? Because we have seen for ourselves, how this love and mercy and grace of God has the power to uplift, to heal and to transform one’s life.
And we all know someone, somewhere, right now…whose spirits need a boost, and some encouragement, and hope…that all will be well…that we will get through these troubling and despairing times, together…
We need not stretch our imaginations at all to bring to mind, in these unsettling times, how many people, worldwide are anxious, afraid, deeply troubled, suffering needlessly, and on the brink of giving up perhaps, because they see no chance of ever escaping the depths of their deep-seeded fears and persecution they are faced with every day…and they are struggling to see any signs around them that affirm they are worthy to be loved and accepted and respected, and will not be forgotten or cast aside by God or their community.
Now, more than ever…we must not look away…or give up on the idea that anything will ever change…With God, and one another working together…walking together in the way of love, we will pave a way forward together…that will restore God’s dream of the beloved community, it was created to be…
We need not re-invent the wheel for walking the way of love that has the power to uplift people out of their despair, and promote healing and transformation of people’s lives…because Jesus has already shown us the way…
It’s up to us now, to go…to go out into the world, proclaiming hope, with the healing power of God’s love and mercy and grace, made known to us in Jesus, and through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us now…
Us, as in it will take every one of us…to do something…just one thing…one day at a time…
Retired Bishop, Steven Charleston sums this thought up quite simply…
A single person can alter the course of history.
A single word can heal a broken heart.
A single act of kindness can restore a community to hope and health.
We may be ordinary people, but every single one of us can be an agent of transformation…
Yes, every single one of us can do something. But, we aren’t meant to only do things alone. That is the gift of gathering together each week for worship services. It’s a time to come together as a community for our spirits to be lifted, nourished, replenished, encouraged through the scriptures, story-sharing, music, prayer, communion, fellowship…and to strengthen us to go out into the world to be agents of transformation, to be bearers of God’s love and mercy and grace…bringing hope, and healing, and peace, and love, and joy into to the lives of all God’s people.
Let us pray with the words of WLP hymn #772… to be grounded once again in the mercy and grace and love of God, made known to us in Jesus, and through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us now…
Closing Prayer/Hymn: (WLP) 772
1 O Christ, the healer, we have come
to pray for health, to plead for friends.
How can we fail to be restored,
when reached by love that never ends?
2 From every ailment flesh endures
our bodies clamor to be freed;
yet in our hearts we would confess
that wholeness is our deepest need.
3 How strong, O Lord, are our desires,
how weak our knowledge of ourselves!
Release in us those healing truths
unconscious pride resists ourselves.
4 In conflicts that destroy our health
we recognize the world’s disease;
our common life declares our ills:
is there no cure, O Christ, for these?
5 Grant that we all, made in one faith,
in your community may find
the wholeness that, enriching us,
shall reach the whole of humankind.