June 22, 2025 ☩ The Second Sunday after Pentecost

on
1 Kings 19:1-15a & Luke 8:26-39

“God Speaks in the Silence”

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In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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Our demons, our temptations, keep us separated from one another and destroy us.  We desire to be made clean of them and yet don’t always want them to be too far, just in case we secretly want them back… the comfort of what we know and the desire to savor temporary joys.  

Today, we recognize the freedom brought forth on June 19th, 1865 (Juneteenth) to slaves in Galveston, Texas by Major General Gordon Granger.  This came almost two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (Proclamation 95) on January 1, 1863.  This celebration of the continuation of the Good News of the proclamation of release to the captives is a part of the Isaiah’s prophecy as well as our own Lord’s claim to ministry early in the Gospel of Luke.  Some of our demons are commonly held as a society which uphold injustices - like those of racism that supported communally created inequalities - leave space for displacement of accountability by individuals.  They also create divisions in the human family.  They require the same togetherness to shed these dehumanizing practices, many of which shaped laws and systems we idealize as guaranteeing freedom, though only for the select. 

Temptations of these sins (as identified by the Roman Catholic Church) degrade our relationship with God and one another:
pride (holding grudges, desiring to be more right than others), greed(seeking income regardless of source, wanting more money for the sake of having more),
wrath(anger that desires to inflict pain upon others, retaliation, feeling as though we want others to hurt as we hurt),
envy(wanting what others have so we can be like them),
lust(desire of the physical nature that destroys the recognition of the sacredness of the human form as it was purposefully created in the image of God by simply turning it into a commodity), gluttony(wanting more than we need while depriving those who have need),
and sloth(desiring to do nothing, improperly expending our valuable time on earth, ignoring God’s call to us). 

Tertullian, third century theologian from Carthage in Northern Africa began enumerating sins (and also was the first theologian to use the Latin word for “trinity” – ‘trinitas’), which took another century or so to concretize, following the legalization of Christianity. 

Though we may struggle with temptation, we remain steadfast in our prayers – “deliver us from temptation, Lord” – and Jesus responds in helping us gain the firm separation we need from our internal temptations of sin and sends our troubles away- off that cliff on the shores of the Sea of Galilee (near Gergesa or Gadara). 

The judgement of our Lord is not a condemning wave upon our heads but a recognition that we are not bad, but good - good people who sometimes make bad decisions.  The separation by even thousands of demons of desire (represented by the name Legion) emphasizes this to an extreme extent.  Quantity of mistakes does not place us in a position of being undetectable.  Rather, we are shown a greater power/level of forgiveness and redemption when we feel most separate from God.   Our Lord does not show judgment, rather compassion, mercy, and protection.

To highlight how far Jesus literally went for others, today’s Gospel takes us from the region of Galilee, a Jewish region, where people from the north and northwest coast (regions of Tyre and Sidon, cities on the coast in Syrophoenicia) - this is where the Jewish culture was weak and intermingled extensively with the various polytheistic cultures to the north, and people from Judea(the region around Jerusalem) and Jerusalem itself - those who are much more deeply connected to the culture, practices, and traditions of the Jewish faith.  Jesus bridges the gaps of observances and adherence to Torah, the law, but then travels across the Sea of Galilee to the “opposite” side of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus is literally moving to the other side of culture, to a region of what would be treated as the non-Jews, what we call Gentiles.  It is here we find Jesus’ ministry and healing taking a multifaceted expression to show us the love of God. 

First: Jesus moved from unifying orthodox Jews of Jerusalem with those on the fringe to the north.  He now goes outside of the Jewish faith and addresses the non-Jew, the Gentile. 

Second: Jesus comes across a Gentile who is literally living among the dead in tombs, a person who struggles to bind his inner temptations, and is separated from his community.  Jesus restores to life those who walk among the dead.

Third: Jesus heals someone outside the faith, who at all appearances seems utterly lost.  This possessed man’s life of living among the dead and restoration to health and community demonstrates and echoes what is ahead for Jesus, the one who will walk through death to life.  Jesus foretells of his own death.

Fourth: While the demons sought to leave, they did not desire to go far.  They were sent nearby.  How often do we strive to remove temptation from our hearts but keep the temptation nearby. Ultimately, the demons do not survive, because they cannot unless they stay within us. Temptation only exists when our desires stay within us.  Without the desires that follow those sins, temptation will not survive.  Temptation, personified in these demons, is not an entity with life, but a parasite that requires people who hand over their lives to it.  And as such, little by little, we feel as though we are losing ourselves. 

Fifth:  Jesus will cross the miles of turbulent stormy seas, to find us in places where it is thought of- by our culture or personal inability to perceive the grace of God- to be outside the reach of salvation.  We just need to be as mindful as the demon-possessed man to recognize Jesus is right there in front of us.  Salvation in Christ Jesus comes to us, finds us where we are, and renews our very hearts.

Now we turn to the first book of Kings to garner the wisdom of finding God before us.  For Elijah, God was not found in all the awesome sounds and movement of winds and the earth.  Rather, God’s voice came from the unlikely place of silence.  May we take pause, embrace the awkwardness of silence until it becomes comfort, so we can better hear and recognize our God speaking to us.  Amen.