This Short Story: A Story of Mercy, Freedom, and Community

 

We have been on an exciting journey celebrating 7 weeks of Easter. Pentecost. Holy Trinity. Today begins what is known as ordinary time in the church year. There is no outrageous miraculous event where Jesus rises from the dead or where a room is filled with a violent wind and tongues of fire. Ordinary time is marked with scriptures of Jesus teaching in the hill country around the Sea of Galilee. We spend the summer learning and digesting the words and ministry of Jesus and how to apply the teachings to our lives. It is kind of like going to school, sitting in a classroom rather than being out on field trips.

 

Today is ordinary time … And yet today is an extraordinary day. This is Laura’s confirmation day.

 

To our ears the Gospel today sounds extraordinary and yet, this story is one of many recorded in Luke’s Gospel. The story is rather ordinary for the disciples and those walking with Jesus. Jesus has been telling parables and performing one healing after another. Healing is common practice in Jesus’ ministry. What is not ordinary is that ordinary time begins in a place that can only be described as ‘outside’ of expected.

Jesus and the disciples have taken a boat across the Sea of Galilee, venturing into Transjordan, an area that is predominately populated by non-Jews, and therefore an out-of-the-ordinary place for an excursion.

An ordinary day for Jesus and the disciples, morphs into extraordinary -not just because of the place- but the lessons to be taken to heart from the experience. The excursion is an extraordinary story of mercy, freedom, and community.

 

A Story of mercy –

Did you notice that it is the demons who ask Jesus for mercy? It is rather narcissistic on their part as they had shown no mercy to the man they occupied. Ancient stories and tales from the world at the time of Jesus, would consider this ordinary. Spiritual powers were tangible and active. Spiritual powers – like demons- recognized and submitted to powers stronger than themselves.

What is extraordinary is that Jesus shows mercy to them and grants their request. In the same action the pigs are not shown the same mercy, or those whose livelihood depended on the animals- but we will come back to this in a moment. For now, take note that that which was labelled demon, - a force that isolated, bound and held captive – everything that Jesus wasn’t, was given mercy.

 

A Story of freedom –

The Gospel of Luke spends much time encouraging the coming of the kindom of God. Recall the passages written in metaphor, the kindom of God is like. Then there are Jesus’ parables with grand descriptions of God’s kindom. The parables always turn economy and empire inside out and upside down. This ordinary healing story is not about the physical healing as much as it is stressing that God’s kindom is NOT empire! Jesus brings Freedom from the ruling powers and authorities that are in the world and hold the world’s people captive. The ‘demons’ are named Legion. Legion is a name that describes the largest Roman military unit of 5000 men. To Jews who heard the story the presence of pigs symbolized the occupying Empire of Rome. This story is about freedom from that which puts and holds people, collective humanity, in bondage – whether that be empire in from of governments, movements, economics, greed, status, race, gender, societal -isms, ideals, status quo, and so on.

 

A Story of community –

As the story unfolds and carries on, the people come back to find the cause of all the commotion. They find Jesus sitting with the man, or the man sitting with Jesus. The people were afraid. For the first time in who knows how long, the man is no longer isolated from the possibilities of community because he is no longer unclean. And yet, the people are afraid and ask Jesus to leave, not bothering to also sit down with Jesus and the man.

Chelsea Brooke Yarborough from the Association of Theological Schools in Pittsburgh writes, “Deliverance is a step in healing, not the whole experience. The deliverance was from the demons, but the healing was that there was a community of people that this beloved could now be a part of – most immediately, the community of Jesus.” As Paul later writes, One in Christ Jesus. Baptized into Christ you have clothed yourselves with Christ.

 

This story of mercy, freedom, and community leaves the reader with many questions. It is not a neat little story where all the ends are wrapped up between, Once upon a time and a happily ever after. This story is more like the short stories many of us were given in high school English classes – stories that took lots of discussion to understand them in part, asking questions, ferreting out answers, determining the point or more often than not, an array of equally plausible interpretations.

 

Consider for a moment the present – think of the news from around the world and the issues closer to home. I am positive that each of us can identify places, peoples, and situations that are in desperate need of mercy, freedom, and community. We know that there are troubles and sufferings the world over, much of it caused by those in positions of power -the Empire- who have little or no regards for the commonwealth of the earth’s creatures. Perhaps this is why Christians continue to pass down this short story from Luke. The body of Christ is to continue wrestling with the questions that come up:

What is it to show mercy? To whom? Does mercy for one, potentially harm another, or offer the other new options? Who in the world today withholds or thinks not of mercy – how is it we can show mercy to them?

How does Empire hold the world in bondage? How does living clothed in Christ usher freedom into the world and offer humanity release? And is the church a community who sits with Jesus and the man, a community who sits with that which scares us, and is actively present  and bringing God’s kindom?

 

On social media this week, I saw a poster from a protest in the US that said, “In this country, compassion is deemed radical.” Putting on Christ through baptism means living radically in ordinary time.

Confirmation Sunday is a good day to be reminded of this. For me the vision statement of the ELCIC expresses and applies the story of the Gospel. It says, God’s grace and unconditional love call us to be a diverse, inclusive community that celebrates all and upholds life-giving relationships. Isn’t that a radical statement that inspires – a community of people to work together to bring this, God’s kindom now?

The tagline -that quick easy phrase to remember is - Living out God’s grace and unconditional love. That is living a story of mercy, freedom, and community. In Laura’s promises today, in our renewal of baptism through participating with her, we are reminded who we are in Christ and how we are to be living God’s kindom.

 

At the end of the story the man wants to go with Jesus. But, Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” The man had experienced mercy, freedom, and community. The man had experienced the kindom of God. There was nothing else that Jesus could teach him or do for him.

So the man went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

 

This is ordinary time in the church. We spend much of our lives feeling ordinary and doing ordinary things. We live in a world where compassion is no longer ordinary – it is radical, according to the protest sign. Mercy, freedom, and community are also no longer so ordinary. In this time, living Jesus’ way is extraordinary.

Living out God’s grace and unconditional love, in today’s world is an extraordinary radical way of being.

Jesus says to us, Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. So confirmed and affirmed in faith we go away, proclaiming through the city how much Jesus has done for us.