Shattering the Chatter

Earlier this week, I heard a thought-provoking phrase: Chatter is speaking to the choir.

The thought being that people congregate with others who think in similar ways and beliefs to them. For instance, there is a culture in on-line chat rooms where conversation goes back and forth freely, until those who question or ruffle-feathers with new ideas, are pushed out, sometimes blocked. The present trend is not an open chat room, but, rather, to begin on-line presence drawing people to chat based on a specific cause or ideology. The chatter in the room is speaking to the choir – like minded people, reinforcing beliefs and attitudes, and polarizing the group from a diversity of opinion and open public debate and conversation.

Within the church, it has been said that: the preacher is preaching to the choir.

The phrase means that on a given Sunday morning the congregation comes to this place, like minded people, similar in ways and beliefs, to hear the Word and participate in a worshipping community, without too many surprises. The community has parameters within which it is comfortable, within which the Good News is proclaimed, and an unspoken rule about what is acceptable and what is not. If a person no longer agrees with the chatter --- they stop coming or find a community that is inline with their thinking.

When we read scripture together, like the Gospel from Luke, it is interpreted based on our regular chatter.

The preacher preaches the Good News, that Jesus goes about healing, that Jesus has the authority and power to cast out demons.  The chatter emphasizes the grace of God for the one, the possibility of grace for us all, and that Jesus was about bringing God’s kingdom to the present.  From the inside perspective, the choir hears and accepts the Gospel as truth – comforting, and full of promise and hope- of course within this chat room, hearing includes room for thoughts, questions, tangents. We hear the Gospel of the healed once-demon possessed man and hear it as Jesus speaking to the choir; interpreted to fit into our chatter.

What if I told you that this story sets Jesus up -not to be chatter- but, rather, as the dissonant voice?

Jesus comes and stands in the middle of this space, to shatter the chatter.  Jesus has come inciting revolution!

Perhaps it is the medium, or the years that have passed since Luke wrote, that causes us to miss the notes of insurrection.  Today Jesus’ revolution would have been front and centre, on-line, in a revolutionary web-site, with interactive chat, flashing participate buttons, streamed video of the work of God’s kingdom, clips debunking fake news, passionate testimonials of how life with Jesus changes everything. And there would be the nay-sayers, polarized ideologies, trying to take down the movement.

But, lets worm our way out of the on-line world of conspiracy theories, radical groups, and calls to revolution; and take a closer look at Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.

Let us begin our interpretation in the statement:

Jesus comes and stands in the middle of this space, to shatter the chatter.  Jesus has come inciting revolution!

The story took place in the Trans-Jordan, the Eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, an area influenced and controlled by the Greco-Roman cities of the Decapolis. The population of the Decapolis was primarily Gentile. In the region, the raising of pigs or swine, indicated a Roman presence.  Pigs were not raised in areas unless there was a Roman presence – Romans ate pork- Jews did not. Rome was the occupying power.

The stage is set: this story is political!

The text tells us that the man was seized by demons. Luke uses the same word for seized, as he does in Acts when Christians were arrested and imprisoned for sharing the Gospel. An outside force, the authorities, took away freedom and imposed their power. The man’s demons were brought on by the authorities who imprisoned him with the demons. The demon possessed man was found in the wilderness; no longer housed or clothed or cared for by his home city.  The Decapolis’ system that addressed mental health, homelessness, incarceration; those who fell into servitude or poverty; was broken, or never existed. 

The stage is set: this story is social! Specifically, social justice in the hands of those in power!

The heart of story that points to revolution is the response Jesus received when he asked the name of the demon that possessed the man.  Legion.  A Legion is a Roman term and is defined as the basic Roman military unit consisting of 5000 men. All Legions worked under the authority of the Empire and marched with the symbol of a golden eagle.  Each Legion could also use their own emblem, the famous 10^th Legion used the emblem of a pig which they used to mark bricks and coins. Legion, the demons that oppressed the man, were connected to the Empire.

Legion knew who Jesus was, and asked not to be tormented by the Son of the Most High God.  The Empire watched those who rose up to stand against their power.  Legion asked to not be thrown to the abyss – to drive the point of the story home, Legion was directed into the pigs – the very symbol of the occupying power. In a dark turn of the story, this did not save Legion; Legion did not have a new host.  Jesus’ action was not a gracious or comforting alternative to being cast aside --- it meant death because the pigs ran down the hill and drown.  A complete wiping out of an occupying force that was a burden to the people for whom they were responsible.

Jesus’ point, Jesus’ action– was insurrection- an overthrowing and complete annihilation of political power that had no concern for social justice! No vision, no heart, for the kingdom of God.

The swine herders ran back to the city to tell the authorities what had happened. For them the situation was devastating.  They lost the pigs that were under their responsibility.  They lost their livelihood. In another story told in the Gospel, the prodigal son, after he had spent all his money found a job looking after pigs – eating the leftovers from the pigs’ meal, he was that hungry.  For him, pig tending was hitting rock-bottom.

We are not told what happened to the pig-herders, although their announcement in the city, caused a frenzy where the locals wanted to move this Jesus along.  As people came out of the city, they found the once demon possessed man sitting at Jesus’ feet.  There was fear. They were afraid of the man; afraid of Jesus’ power.  The word used for fear is one meaning “held captive,” Luke uses the same word when referring to the men guarding Jesus when he was on trial.  They held Jesus captive – in prison.  Fear held the people of Gerasene captive.

In the story, casting out Legion was casting out the demons that held the man captive.  The healing was freeing the man from occupying powers. In broader terms, the people were being invited to freedom from fear, freedom from occupying powers.

Jesus was there inciting revolution! Political and social!

The people choose to continue in fear; they asked Jesus to leave. They did this because freedom is dangerous and costly…we find that out later when Jesus was killed in order to stop the movement, an insurrection where the poor, the forgotten, the sick, the demon possessed, were graced with hope, with life.

Legion was tormented by Jesus insurrection! Freedom from occupying power was Legions political and social death!

Shortly after Jesus’ time on earth, the region where he had walked, was in a full-scale insurrection, known as the Jewish Revolt. According to the historian Josephus, Roman general Vespasian went to Gerasene – the place of the pig story, the people that chose to live in fear, possessed by social demons, occupied by Legion.  Vespasian and his Legion killed 1000 young men, imprisoned their families, burned the city, and attacked villages throughout the region. The Jewish Revolt led to the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.

There is nothing warm or fuzzy or comforting from the Gospel reading this morning. The once-demon possessed man wished to stay with Jesus; to follow Jesus.  Rather, Jesus sent the man home to declare how much God had done for him. In other places, Jesus told people not to tell others that they were healed, changed, or empowered.  Jesus’ wasn’t working from the inside here – he wasn’t working to send a message to the chief priests or the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem; he wasn’t preaching the words of the prophet or re-iterating the Mosaic Law to God’s people.  Jesus was confronting the occupying power. Jesus was inciting revolution against the Legion -the demons- of Empire.

Legion – the demons- of Empire are alive and well throughout the world today.  Legion is the systems that don’t work to bring the kingdom; that possess people so that they live and remain in poverty, in mental illness, dispossessed.  Legion is the cause of the demons humanity wrestles with: demons of addiction, self-loathing, homelessness; the chattering of conspiracy theories, spreading fake news, building chat rooms of hate and exclusion. Legion’s power is exemplified in abuses of power, in propagating fear, and polarizing issues; presenting demi-gods of money, progress, raping the environment for gain; possession that causes apathy, closing eyes to Treaty Rights, ignoring the LGBTQ2+ community… I can go on. We are a society – a people- possessed and oppressed by demons, occupied by Legion.

This insinuation should stop the chatter; stop our chatter.

We are a society – a people – possessed by demons, occupied and oppressed by Legion.

Except…

… that Jesus stands in our midst, through the proclamation of the Gospel reading –

with a declaration that we have a choice; we can be freed from occupying powers-

no longer tormented by Legion (or Empire) because Jesus destroyed Legion-

Jesus healed the man by offering freedom-

Jesus incites us to insurrection. 

Insurrection is leaving our own chatter and confronting the chatter that is not bringing the kingdom of God; it is agitating Empire by freeing the possessed; defeating demons one demon possessed human at a time.

How? It is really simple…and it is the test of whether we have truly chosen to be healed and set free; or to live in fear and oppressed by Legion;

Like the once-demon possessed man, we are told to return home…outside these walls…and declare all that God has done.

Stop chattering. Go and declare all that God has done.

LC† Living in the Spirit: DAY 2

LC† Living in the Spirit: DAY 2: Image by Diana Robinson † A Greeting Answer me when I call, O God! Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer. (Psalm 4:1) A Reading...

The Early Days of Women's Running and the Early Church

While away on vacation I ran the Toronto Marathon.  At the race expo, I had the pleasure of meeting Kathrine Switzer; the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with a bib number.   That was in 1968, when women were not allowed to run the race.  Inadvertently her name was overlooked as she registered with the men’s team, to which she belonged, from Syracuse University. Over the rest of vacation, I read her memoire of the early days of women’s running.

In the early days, everything was unknown territory.  Track and field events let women run up to 800 metres, but that was it.  The conventional wisdom was that women’s bodies simply could not endure more, and what woman would want to run more anyway.  Kathrine did.  She loved running. As Kathrine trained for unprescribed distances, always with another runner, she continually ran in fear, that, all of a sudden, her body would stop, not being able to take another step. Experts at the time said that running long distances would make women’s baby making parts fall out.  Imagine that.

Kathrine was running in unknown territory…she was outside the box, in a wilderness, where there was no scientific research, and no studies or books to consult.

The year she ran Boston, she ran with her coach and two other male teammates. The other runners were skeptical until they saw that she had trained; this wasn’t a publicity stunt.  The runners encouraged her, supported her, protected her from the crowd and the press.  Particularly she drew negative attention from women who shouted the nastiest of insults. Her teammates pushed aside the raise organizer who tried to remove her from the course.   Fellow runners showed respect; invited her to run with them again; among the runners there was love one for another.

Following this race, running clubs and university track teams started to host longer races for women to participate in.  Such clubs held their events at schools and in small town America, by doing so, they grew small town spirit and curiosity.  People began running just to try it---- it was a sport that didn’t cost a lot of money (there were no fancy shoes in those days).  Businesses provided items free of charge, householders set up water stations, school children handed out cookies; there were plenty of volunteers, spectators, runners, mentors. The running movement grew quickly.

By 1972 women could officially run the Boston marathon. This didn’t mean that in a twinkling of an eye everyone was on board, that attitudes changed instantly.  It took another 12 years for those passionate about running to convince society and the powers that be, that it was safe for the women’s marathon to be added to the Olympics; that was 1984.

A seismic shift has happened since 1972 to today. That first official race had a handful of women runners; today registrations for half-marathons across the country are over 50% women; those running the full marathon grow in numbers as well.

I tell this story because for me it reflects the feelings and nature of Peter’s story from the book of Acts.

Peter is in unknown territory.  When he goes to Cornelius’ house –that of a non-Hebrew- he is setting aside conventional wisdom, turning over cultural beliefs, and disobeying laws that he has practiced his whole life. Everything is changing and there is no how-to manual for guidance.

There were plenty of nay-sayers. There was lots of debate and arguing about how Jewish one needed to be before one could be a Jesus’ follower.  There were people, like Saul the pharisee, who persecuted Jesus’ followers – taking them off the course; killing their passion to share the Good News.

In the early days of the Jesus’ movement those who were committed were very committed.  They were passionate in sharing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and in loving one another. And in doing so, their numbers quickly grew. Every other day it seemed, there were a thousand more in the community.

I once heard someone say: The Bible is the story of human beings figuring out those whom God has already included.  Would you like me to repeat that? The Bible is the story of human beings figuring out those whom God has already included.

The day that Peter went to Cornelius’ house he realized that God had already included Cornelius; God loved Cornelius filling him and his household with the Holy Spirit, just like Peter and the disciples had received at Pentecost.  Completely mindboggling!

Radical love. It costs something. 

For Peter and his friends, it meant being pushed out of the Synagogue, away from friends and family who didn’t change, who continued to stick by the law that had served them so well.  They lost their childhood faith, to accept a new interpretation of the faith they had held so dear. In the end, many lost their lives, because they passionately shared the Easter story, and dared to love one another.

Radical love.  It costs something. It means the letting go of attitudes, allowing for change in perception; radical love is a seismic shift that goes into unknown territory.  A place where there is fear and apprehension, and then to courageously move outside known boundaries with curiosity, discipline, and passion.  When was the last time you did this, or we as a church did this, to share the Good News and to show love for another?

As Lutheran clergy we have been studying a book called, Canoeing the Mountains; Christian Leadership in Unchartered Territory.  The author, Ted Bolsinger, speaks about Lewis and Clarke, as they and their crew canoed across America to find a water route to get to Asia. Everything was fine, until it wasn’t.  The expedition ran into foothills and the Rocky Mountains.  Everything they knew to be true, dissolved in that moment.  There was no water route to the Pacific. Lewis and Clarke could have turned back but didn’t.  They adapted and changed, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean (not in their canoes) and mapping out this new-to-them territory.  Ted describes this seismic shift – not unlike that of the first long distance women runners, or of Peter and the early Christians- as the place where the church is today.  We are in canoes, with clergy that have been trained to use canoes, and in front of us is the view of an immense mountain range.

We face unknown territory.

Growth of the running industry and the increase in running clubs, has been extraordinary over the past decade. As quick -- is the decline of the mainline church. I would hazard a guess that on a Sunday morning there are more runners than church goers.

Is that because they possess more passion? Demonstrate a more obvious sense of community – love for one another?  I wonder: Has the church’s passion fizzled out? Have we put ourselves comfortably on simmer rather than boil?

Perhaps church no longer expects enough? Dedicated runners are committed despite the weather or the terrain. Runners are disciplined, there is an expectation that it is going to hurt; there is potential for injury, one loses pride and ego- one gets over themselves and gains freedom; there is accomplishment, an exhilarating feeling for a race well run; there is benevolence in giving encouragement and advice when asked, a generosity of story telling, and an interest in hearing about other’s experiences…

When was it that you heard the church talked about in this way?

As people of God, we are in unknown territory.  Those things for which society once looked to the church, are now being found in other places… like Sunday morning long group runs.

This morning John’s Gospel pulls us back to reflect on Jesus’ last conversation with the disciples.  We hear a segment that gets repeated many times throughout the Last Supper: love one another. It started by Jesus washing the disciples’ feet as an example.  It was a radical action because it broke protocol, tradition was pushed aside, the disciples were made uncomfortable; perceptions were to shift.

We stand with canoes, looking at mountains.  We stand as a woman at the starting line of that 1968 Boston Marathon. We step over the threshold into a house considered unclean and eat with the residents. Facing uncharted territory, looking out at the unknown, God says to us three times: I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you [have] love [for] one another."