The Flying Pigs of Gerasa

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

And now for something completely different.

Possession.  Casting out of demons.  Flying pigs drowning themselves in the Sea of Galilee.  Oh, my!!!

For those of you who haven’t covered this passage in a Bible study, I’ll give you a bit of background for that last one.  – The city of Gerasa was about 50 kilometers southeast of the Lake, which we now call the Sea of Galilee.  Pigs, which have no sweat glands, would die long before they reached the sea by running.  They must have flown down the hill.

So we have possession, casting out of demons and flying pigs all in one short story.  This story seems to be completely out of our world view, and for the most part it probably is.

In Jesus’ time, most mental illnesses and some physical illnesses were thought to be caused by demons or unclean spirits.  These demons were eternal somethings (the word literally means minor divinities) looking for somewhere to settle down.  When they got into somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, for instance a human being, they caused all kinds of problems.  Casting them out would instantly fix these problems, but there were very few people who could do this.  Jesus was one of them.  This particular man was possessed by many spirits, enough so that they called themselves legion (which would make 6,000 of them).  Jesus was probably the only one with enough power to cast out that many.

Today we don’t blame sickness on demons, at least not usually.  We do still have the rite of exorcism available to us in the Anglican tradition.  And from historical accounts, some of which are quite recent, exorcism sometimes works.  Though I’m not sure when it was last used in this diocese.  There is no cannon or policy on its use.

But as I said, we don’t often blame sickness on demons anymore.  So how do we make sense of this reading in our current world view?

Today’s version of this story would be about faith healing.  We have our own legion of demons to choose from: cancers of all varieties, depression, cerebral palsy, dementia, addiction.  The list goes on and on: diseases and conditions which are difficult or impossible to cure or even to manage with medicine.

We hear story after story about people traveling around the world for treatments which are not medically proven.  Some of these people get better.  Many don’t.  This is a type of faith healing.  This healing is sometimes medicine which just hasn’t been proven yet, but more often than not it is healing that happens because people believe so strongly that it the treatment will help.  They have faith in the medicine.  The power this kind of belief has over our bodies can be awesome and unexplainable.  This is not the kind of faith healing that this story is about.

Placing that kind of absolute belief in God is transformative.  It can sometimes accomplish the same type of physical healing, but that is only a side benefit.  The healing that comes from faith in God transforms our lives in other ways.

If we look at the man healed in today’s story we see a man who has been cast out of society in just about every way possible.  Jesus comes and the man kneels at his feet, acknowledging his power.  Jesus transforms this man.  Healing him of his afflictions does not make him just another ordinary citizen of Gerasa.  No – he returns to a city which is terrified of him because of the extreme change.  He goes back to a city where there is no real Jewish presence, where there are no followers of Jesus.  He goes back to that city to proclaim a message which will leave him separated from the rest of society in a different way than before: just as isolated but with a real purpose to his life.

Modern examples of faith healing are everywhere.  The most common examples are probably twelve step programs for addiction.  A key step in these programs is acknowledging that we can’t do it ourselves.  We need help from God.  People who are successful in these programs are not cured of their addictions, but their lives are transformed in a way that can only come from God.

Faith healing is like this.  Our body may or may not be healed – our souls are.  By putting that kind of faith in God we are healed.  Our demons are cast out.  Even the ones we never realized were there.  We all have them.  We all have the power to give them to God.

Thanks be to God.

Justified By Love Not By Law

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Whatever is Paul talking about?  That is one of his more convoluted arguments.  I think it needs a bit of unpacking to have any idea of what he means.

Paul uses a few very key words in our reading today: justified, the law, faith, Christ, and grace.

That first word, justified, means to be made right or proved to be right with God; in other words, to be shown or made to be righteous.  Being justified is the core of what Paul is talking about.

How do we become justified with God?  … How do we become righteous?

The Bible is full of rules.  Can anyone think of a set of rules in the Bible?  How about the Ten Commandments.  Or how about the summary of the law.  The Galatians ask Paul if we are made right with God by following all these rules.  What do you think he answered?  … “No one will be justified by the works of the law.”  That’s a pretty emphatic answer.  Has anyone here read “The Year of Living Biblically?”  A. J. Jacobs did a very good job of showing just how impossible it is to follow all of the laws all of the time.  I thank God that this is not the way to be right with God.

Paul even takes it one step further that Jacobs did.  Paul reminds us that Christ himself broke the law: “is Christ then a servant of sin?”  On several occasions, the Bible makes a point of telling us that Jesus is breaking the rules set down in God’s law.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke all talk about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners.  This is important because it breaks the ritual purity laws.  All of the Gospels talk about Jesus breaking the Sabbath.  He heals and does other work on the Sabbath and makes the point that the Sabbath (and other laws) are made for us, not the other way around.  That is extremely important.  The law is given to us.  We are not given to the law.

Back to the question: how do we become justified with God?

“And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law.”

This is where grace comes in.  Being righteous is about knowing that God loves us and responding to that.  It is about faith.  All it takes for our relationship with God to be right is for us to truly believe that we have a relationship with God and that God loves us.  God became human and walked among us to show us what this relationship looks like and to prove that love to us.

So if the law does not make us right with God, why do we have it?  Does it matter at all?

Absolutely!  The law is very important.  All of those rules show us how people throughout history have felt God’s call.  When we look at them either individually or as a whole, they show us what is important to God.  There are rules about taking care of ourselves.  There are rules about taking care of the poor and the sick.  There are rules about respecting each other.  There are rules about respecting and honouring God.  There are rules that show us where society was going wrong.

All of these rules are important.  All of them can teach us something about God.  Many of them require us to understand the people who wrote them for them to mean anything to us today, but they are all important.

Jesus told us that of all the laws, if we follow two specific ones, we have understood the heart of the law.  I believe those two laws are impossible to break if you are truly living by faith.  We call them the summary of the law.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

God calls us to love.  First we are to love God.  Next we are to love ourselves and everyone else equally.

If we follow the other rules but break these we are being ruled by the law.  If we follow these two rules we are living by faith.  If we break any other rule in order to keep the laws of love, we have understood God’s gift of the law to us.  We are justified.  By the grace of God, we are right with God.

Thanks be to God.

A Simple Story From The Old Testament

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

It’s wonderful to have such a nice, simple story from the Old Testament to preach on.  I’m tired of all of these deep, confusing stories.  What a wonderful change.

So here we have a story about Elijah bumping into a widow who was gathering sticks for a cooking fire.  This story takes place in the middle of a drought so the widow, who would already be poor, does not have enough money to feed herself and her son.  Elijah reaches out to her and, by the power of God, provides for her and for her son throughout the rest of the drought.

A nice simple story about our duty help the poor, and in the Old Testament, especially widows and orphans.  Well, that’s it.  I’m done with this one.  We have a duty to provide what we can to help the poor.

But wait a minute.  Why were they having a drought anyway?  And what does that have to do with our story?

King Ahab and Queen Jezebel (and many of the Israelites) were worshiping Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility and storms instead of the God of Israel.  As a punishment for this Elijah decreed a drought.  When Elijah talks to the widow, she says “As the Lord your God lives.”  She follows the God of Israel, not Baal.  Because of this, God provides for her in the drought.

So obviously this is a story about the dangers of idolatry.  If we turn from God and follow false idols, all that we have of true value will wither and die.  If we follow God’s call, the least we have will become a great treasure.

Or it’s a story about our duty to the poor.

But wait a minute.  If this were just a story about idolatry, God would have filled her jug of oil and jar of meal as soon as Elijah and God knew that she followed God.  But they weren’t.  Elijah sent her to make food for him first.  If she made the food for Elijah, then her jug and jar would not run out.  She had to prove her faith.  She had to believe that if she gave her last crumbs to Elijah, she would still have enough for herself and for her son.

So obviously this is a story about the power of faith.

Or it’s a story about the dangers of idolatry.

Or it’s a story about our duty to the poor.

So much for a simple story from the Old Testament.  I guess nothing in this book is truly simple, is it?

Before I leave our simple story about Elijah and a widow, I want to share one more layer from it.  And I think this one might be the most important (though all of them are important).

I think this story is about the grace of God that we see when we are good stewards of the gifts we have been given.  What does it mean to be a good steward?  Well, the simplest meaning is to take care of the gifts that we have been given.  But as this story has shown us, simple just doesn’t cut it.  There is much more.

Does anyone remember the parable of the talents?

That simple meaning of stewardship would be like the servant that buried what he was given to make sure that he didn’t end up with less.  This type of stewardship is not favoured by God.  It doesn’t do anything to make the world a better place.  It doesn’t further God’s kingdom.

The next level of stewardship would be like a conservative investment.  We take what we have and invest it in safe, stable, traditional ways.  We get some return and still have almost no risk.  This is marginally better, but it still isn’t the type of steward God is calling each of us to be.

No, God is calling us to be sacrificial stewards like the widow in our story.  Because of her faith that God will provide, she is able to give more of her gifts than she can really afford to give.  Just as she gave her last crumbs, we are called to use all that we have and all that we are to make the world a better place.

She also gives us another important message about stewardship.  Stewardship is not about money!

That’s right.  Stewardship is not about money.  It is about gifts.  Everything we have is a gift from God.  There are many gifts.  We are given gifts of talent, gifts of time, gifts of inheritance, and yes, gifts of money, and many other gifts.  A good steward in God’s eyes gives of their gifts as they can afford and even more.

And the grace of good stewardship, the grace of sacrificial stewardship, can be seen time after time both in this book and in our lives and the lives of everyone around us.  When we are generous with the gifts we have been given, when we give as much or more than we can afford to give, we are blessed with even more gifts from God.

This is the true message of stewardship and of this Old Testament reading.  The gifts that God has given us are meant to be used.  When they are used, they bear fruit.  When they are horded, they wither away and die.

Or is it about the power of faith?

Or is it about the dangers of idolatry?

Or is it about our duty to the poor?

New Expressions - Sing to the Lord a New Song

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Finding new expressions of worship and faith that would help us bridge the gap between our current traditions and the spiritual and worship needs of our communities. Setting our parish on a path of study and renewal.

Somehow we have to reach out beyond these walls and do something new that will have meaning for people who are not here.  We have to trust that when we do that, we will enjoy the support of our God.  We need to have faith that God’s support will carry us through and bring us the support we need to spread the Gospel in new ways which will feel uncomfortable and foreign to all of us.

Not only do we need to do all of these things, but we must remain true to ourselves, our traditions, and, most importantly, to the Gospel of Christ.

What a balancing act we have ahead of us.

How do we do this?  Where can we look for directions?  Is there a map?

All of our readings today speak directly to this balancing act.  Each of them gives us part of those instructions.  Each, in its own way, gives us a small piece of our puzzle.

Our first clue comes to us from the time of Elijah.

‘So Ahab sent to all the Israelites, and assembled the prophets at Mount Carmel. Elijah then came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”’ (1 Kings 18:20-21 NRSV)

God will not stop us from worshiping false gods.  God will not step up and smack us on the side of the head and say “You fools! This is wrong!”

So how do we know if we’re following God or going off on some tangent?  If we look at what happened with the Israelites, when the prophets of Baal called on him, he did nothing; when Elijah called on the LORD, he made his presence known.

When we do something new, something that truly glorifies God, in some way we will be able to see God’s presence.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians gives us another clue.  When Paul wrote this letter, it seems that the church in Galatia had somewhat lost its way.  They were trying to appeal to people by saying what they thought the people wanted to hear instead of telling them what Christ’s message was.  As we move forward into our new calling, this is a real danger.  In fact, even if we were to change nothing, this is a real danger.  Paul could easily have written this letter to the Church in Canada!

“Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10 NRSV)

We are caught between two dangers.  If we continue to worship “as we always have” we are remaining in that place of comfort.  We are pleasing ourselves.  If we choose a style of worship because we believe it will appeal to others who are not here, we are trying to please people.

Choosing what we do in order to please anyone, ourselves included, is sin.  When we do this, we turn our worship into idolatry.

Does this mean that we can’t worship in a manner that appeals to anyone?  Should we look for something that absolutely no one likes? –We seem to have a dilemma.  We can’t worship in a way that pleases people, but no one is going to come here and worship if they don’t like the worship.

Thankfully Paul doesn’t leave us without an answer.  He doesn’t actually say that worship can’t please people.  He just tells us that pleasing people can’t be the reason we do it.  No matter what way we worship, whether it be what we call “traditional” or if it is some “new expression,” we need to be seeking God’s approval.  We need to be spreading Christ’s Gospel.

Our Gospel today isn’t about worship: very little in the Gospels is directly about worship.  But it does relate to our balancing act.  Our Gospel tells us that if we have faith in Christ God will answer our prayers.  When we seek God in our communities, we will find him.  When we ask the Holy Spirit to guide and support us, she will be there.  The key to our future is faith.

Finally I come to the psalm.

There are two key phrases in our psalm today.  The first is an echo of our other readings.  “Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name.” (Psalm 96:7-8 NRSV)  Ascribe to the LORD.  Give credit to the LORD.  Assign to the LORD.  It is not about us.  If we make it about us, it has no meaning: it has no power.  So we give it to God and we have hope.  We give it to God and we share in God’s purpose.

And finally, “Sing to the LORD a new song.”  The Gospel, the good news, continues to be written in our hearts.  As the world changes, God’s call changes.  Our job is not to do God’s work, but rather to look for where God is working and join in.

God is singing a new song.  Can we?