This weekend was our annual Synod Assembly. The theme was “I Love to Tell the Story”, and much of our time was spent “telling the story” of how God is at work in and through the Lutheran congregations and agencies of southwestern Pennsylvania, and the wider ELCA. The stories we heard highlighted community and relationships, service and care, and the never-failing grace and love of Jesus. In worship and presentations, budget proposals and conversations, we saw examples of how the story of Jesus is connected to our individual and congregational stories.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples have crossed the Sea of Galilee, leaving familiar territory and arriving in the country of the Gerasenes. Immediately upon their arrival, a man who had demons met Jesus and fell down before him. The man had suffered for a long time. As a result of the demons, he had been isolated from his community, living not in a house in the city, but rather on the outskirts, among the tombs. He was bound in more ways than one - held captive by the many demons inside him, and also by chains, shackles, and guards put in place by the fearful community.
The story of Jesus is a story of healing and liberation and life, and this encounter is no different. In a rather dramatic fashion, Jesus sends the demons out of the man and into a herd of swine, which rush down the hillside into the lake. The swineherds are, understandably, upset about what has transpired, and run off to the city and surrounding country to tell the story.
Soon a crowd gathers, and they are surprised and fearful to see the man they knew from afar as “Legion” not naked and chained and shouting, but rather sitting at the feet of Jesus to listen and learn, clothed and in his right mind. Themselves seized and bound by fear, the people ask Jesus to leave them.
When Jesus gets back in the boat to leave, the man from whom the demons had gone begs Jesus to go with him. And yet, Jesus instead sends him away, saying “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” In other words, go and tell the story. Tell the story of liberation and life. Tell the story of healing and freedom. Tell the story of belonging and identity. Tell the story of what God has done for you.
We, too, are sent from this place to our homes and workplaces to “tell the story” and declare how much God has done for us. We have encountered Jesus in many different ways - through worship and individual devotion and prayer time; in giving and receiving care and service; in story and song. The stories we share are stories of liberation and life, stories of healing and freedom, stories of belonging and identity. They are stories both old and new, stories both comforting and unsettling.
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| Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash |
This weekend, we as a church and as a nation are telling a number of important stories that are worth lifting up.
Today is Father’s Day, which many of us use as an opportunity to share the stories of love and care provided by fathers and father-figures in our lives. Some of our fathers and father-figures were instrumental in sharing the story of Jesus with us, through their words as well as actions. In telling these stories, we give thanks for those who provide fatherly guidance and care. We also pray for God's comfort and peace for ones for whom the stories of this day are filled with grief or anger.
Today, June 19 is Juneteenth, which is also known as “Freedom Day”. It is the anniversary of the day when news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation finally reached the people of Texas (two years later), announcing that the Civil War was over and the enslaved were free. Though it has been celebrated in Black communities since that time, only last year was Juneteenth named a federal holiday.
In many ways, this designation makes it easier to tell this story of freedom and celebration “to those who’ve never heard,”. It also serves as a reminder of the sin and other things even in our own day that act as barriers to liberation, wholeness, and life. One way we are telling this story today is through the sending hymn we’ll sing together, called “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”. It is often called “the Black national anthem,” and was sung frequently during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Yet another story we tell this weekend is a painful story of loss and hatred. Friday, June 17 was the seventh anniversary of the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine – the nine people shot and killed because of their race on June 17, 2015, during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
While racism and the damaging effects of white supremacy are of great concern to Christians in general, this story is of particular importance to us as members of an ELCA congregation because the shooter was a member of an ELCA congregation, and the pastor of Mother Emanuel Church, who was killed in that attack, attended one of our ELCA seminaries. We tell this story to honor the faithful witness of those who were killed, and as an encouragement to continue with diligence the work of anti-racism - work that is rooted in the gospel message of justice and love of neighbor.
Our lives are made up of stories - some triumphant, some heartbreaking, some joyful. Some stories are passed down to us through the generations, while others are still being written. As Christians, we know that our stories are woven together with the story of God, and in particular, the story of Jesus’s love shown to us through his life, death, and resurrection.
In telling these stories and others that are near and dear to us, it is our prayer that both “those who know it best” and the ones who have never heard might witness the freeing love and grace of Jesus at work in their own lives.
When we gather for worship around word and sacrament, we experience together the healing and liberating work of Jesus. Through word and song and meal we hear again the old, old story of Jesus and his love, and are equipped and strengthened to share it.
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