Proper 7, Year C,
2016
1 Kings 19; Ps 42-43;
Gal 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
Rev. Adam T. Trambley
June 19, 2016, St.
John’s Sharon
From
Psalm 42:
My tears have been my food day and night, *
while all day long they say to me,
"Where now is your God?”
while all day long they say to me,
"Where now is your God?”
I will say to the God of my strength,
"Why have you forgotten me? *
"Why have you forgotten me? *
And the answer comes, repeated multiple times throughout Psalm 42
and 43:
Why are
you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so disquieted within me?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your
trust in God; *
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
This week has been a tragic one.
Dozens killed in the shooting in Orlando, and then Friday a local
teenager killed in a car accident on I-80.
This week a year ago, we were praying for those killed in a Bible Study
in an AME Church in Charleston. Many of
us have been hit in many ways by these tragedies, and they have resulted in
intense, and not always charitable, discussions about who we are as a nation,
as human beings, and even as Christians.
We may carry great sadness, fierce anger, overwhelming fear,
isolating numbness or almost any other emotions in the wake of such
events. We cry out, “Where is God now?”
and “Why have you forgotten us?” We have
pain, we have turmoil, we have questions.
I don’t claim to have answers, at least none that satisfy me.
Why are
you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so disquieted within me?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your
trust in God; *
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
This
morning’s gospel reading doesn’t really have any answers, either, but I think
it sheds light upon the seductive answers that we too easily try to grab a hold
of. We, like the people of the country
of the Geresenes, use any number of false answers to make us feel protected from
the evil in our midst, but those efforts only serve to block our way forward.
When
Jesus gets out of the boat in this Gentile area, he encounters a man with a
legion of unclean spirits. Given that
“Legion” is also the name of a group of Roman soldiers in the area, the evil
that has overcome this pour soul could be seen as any number of personal,
psychological, military, political, addictive or social kinds of oppression, or
maybe some of all of them. The
townspeople had tried to restrain him, and he couldn’t be restrained. He lives in the tombs, surrounded by
death. As Jesus is casting out the
demonic legion, they beg him not to cast them into the abyss, and he complies.
I have never understood why Jesus listens to them, unless he knew that they
couldn’t help but go to their deaths wherever he sent them or because he is
much more merciful even to unclean spirits than we are. The spirits that sent the man to the tombs
enter a bunch of pigs. Then this deviled
ham commits sui-cide in the lake. (Sorry.) The people of the town see the
demoniac clothed and in his right mind and talking to Jesus, so they become
afraid and beg Jesus to leave. The man,
now healed, asks to go with Jesus, and Jesus says “no”. So instead he finds a way to praise God right
where he is. Later traditions identify
him as the first bishop of that area, but we can’t know for sure.
Why
have you forgotten me?
Where
now is your God?
We
should first just say that there is no explanation here as to why this man had
all of these demons, or how they got to that country in the first place. We can build any number of scenarios, but the
evil is just there. Just like so much
evil is just here, or in Charleston or in Orlando, or on I-80, or in so many
other places that are filled with people just trying to live decent, normal,
everyday lives as best as they can.
The
first response of the villagers is to try to bind this demoniac, to tie him up,
to keep him as far away as possible.
This response is also one of our first ones to tragedy. We look for ways to build walls between
ourselves and the places where disasters are occurring. We reassure ourselves by saying that we are
different somehow so that similar tragedy can’t happen to us, or we yell
shrilly to ensure that whatever we see as the tragedy’s cause stays as far away
as possible. If we can convince
ourselves that God is punishing people for some sin, and we aren’t sinning that
way, then we decide that we won’t be similar victims. We aren’t gay. We don’t go to nightclubs. We don’t associate with the wrong kind of
people, maybe because we aren’t the wrong kind of people. We are careful when we drive, and never go
over the speed limit, at least only by a reasonable amount, and never are
distracted, unless it is for a good reason.
The dishonesty in all this is usually pretty clear to everyone except to
us when they are our rationalizations.
Or, we the villagers sending demoniacs to the tombs, we send away
whatever we see as the causes of our suffering and pain. We can’t let Muslims near us. We can’t let immigrants near us. We can’t let
guns near us, at least not the kinds of guns that we ourselves don’t own. We can’t let the mentally ill near us. We need a really big wall, and whenever a
mentally ill, immigrant on a terrorist watch list with an automatic weapon and
a suspended license drives dangerously around the wall, we should immediately
receive an alert on our phone. Yet none
of that is the answer.
Now
we should, of course, act together as a community to make good public policy
when we see dangers. The lane divider on
the freeway after the last teenage tragedy will hopefully save future lives,
and there are some very meaningful steps we should take. But we can’t eliminate all evil from our
lives. Effective gun control wouldn’t
have saved Elyssa Griffin and highway safety measures wouldn’t have made a
difference at Pulse.
Why
are you so full of heaviness, o my soul?
Why
are you so disquieted within me?
The
Geresenes’ other response to tragedy which is not to be commended was their
response of banishing Jesus with great fear when they saw what the needed
response might cost. They didn’t want to
accept their own culpability for what had happened or the cost of change to
overcome the evil in their midst.
Specifically, they weren’t happy with the pigs dying. They made money off their pigs, and were not
interested in losing that income, even if it meant somebody’s healing and
freedom. At the same time, pigs were
unclean animals to the Jewish people at the time. They could eat the same food
as humans, so when food was scarce and expensive, the more the rich fed food to
their pigs to make sausage, the less food was available for poor people who
were starving. We might mourn the loss
of a heard of bacon, but those in Jewish and Christian circles hearing this
account two thousand years ago wouldn’t have.
We
all bear some responsibility for the fact that the catchphrase of our society
could be, “I am not my brother’s keeper.”
We all bear some responsibility for the fact that we want to be able to
get from point A to point B on the highway at faster and faster speeds, even
for good reasons. We all bear some
responsibility for deciding to drive when we are really too tired, or can’t see
well enough in these conditions, or just aren’t so sure of what we are doing,
or really need to change the radio or have this snack or check this text since
it really is important. We all bear some
responsibility for not investing enough time and money into our communities to
ensure that people having issues are both supported by and accountable to
people that can help them. We all bear
some responsibility for not being willing to change or give or do what we might
know deep in our hearts is needed to make it harder for evil to win. We all bear some responsibility for not
pouring our hearts out in prayer regularly for so many people that need it.
I do
not mean to say that if we only did everything right we could eliminate all
these tragedies and evils. We
can’t. Or at least, we are broken and
everyone else is broken and we just aren’t able to do the things we would need
to do to eliminate evil from our midst.
And if we were perfect, we’d probably end up crucified like Jesus. But the fact that we can’t actually create
the society we need doesn’t mean we don’t bear some responsibility for the
society we do have. In recognizing our
own guilt, we also recognize our need to repent and turn to God and work harder
in the future, even knowing that we will still fail and that those around us
will still fail and that we will face other tragedies and have to repent and
try again.
Why
are you so full of heaviness, o my soul?
Why
are you so disquieted within me?
Another
answer to tragedy, that seems like it should be a good one, is also dashed by
our gospel reading. We, like the former
demoniac, might beg Jesus to take us out of these tragic situations and just be
with him. Lord knows we have suffered
enough, cried enough, struggled enough, prayed enough, and called out to God
for help and healing enough. But Jesus
says, “Return home and declare how much God has done for you.” In the end, that is all we have. No answers.
No walls. No reformed society
where such things never happen again. No boat ride into the sunset with
Jesus. Nothing that ultimately satisfies
us or makes the tragedies we’ve seen “worth it” in some way or grants us the
peace that this all won’t come ‘round again.
Just “return home”, “be where you are,” “and declare how much God has
done for you.”
We
are here in church to declare how much God has done for us. To give thanks and praise. Others lined up for blocks to give blood in
Orlando. Others are undoubtedly
preparing meals and otherwise caring for the extended family and friends of
those killed in Friday’s accident.
Others are using their gifts in whatever ways they can to “bless the
dying, sooth the suffering, pity the afflicted, and shield the joyous” for the
sake of the God who loves us all.
An
important part of what God has done is to suffer and die for us, so that no
matter what happens to us and no matter what we do, we are never separated from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
No one killed in a car crash, no one shot in a terrorist hate crime, no
one numbed by pain or overwhelmed by fear or awash in anger is ever separated
from the love of God. Jesus went through
death so that when we go through death, we are still with Jesus. All these tragedies are still senseless
tragedies, but they are tragedies where God is present and making some kind of
loving way forward for both the living and especially the dead. And we can only declare what God has done for
us, even in the midst of death and a community of tragedy, in whatever way we
are given to declare it.
Why are
you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so disquieted within me?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your
trust in God; *
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
