Luke 8:26-39

Year C/I

Pentecost 2

June 22, 2025

‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’

How do we reconcile Paul’s words with one of the signs and wonders that Jesus performs in Luke’s gospel?

A lot of unpacking here.

What’s Jesus doing in Gentile territory?   Well, He wanted his message to reach the Gentiles.   So he healed and preached in an area known as Gadara or Gerasa a ways from the Sea of Galilee.  His act of healing didn’t go over too well with the locals, and they asked him to leave – no one wants their source of income destroyed, or their daily routine upset.  The Gadarenes knew how to handle the demoniac living in their tombs; they learned over time how to coexist with him and the evil forces that kept him a prisoner.   The herd of swine was most probably a source of income.  So, rather than rejoice as it may have happened in Capernaum, the people in this Gentile territory reacted in fear.  A legion of demons was cast out, and someone coming to their right mind could rejoin society. Displayed here was a power greater than the power of evil spirits.  Who was wielding that power?  God, through Jesus.  It was always God.  Jesus was here, and elsewhere, when he taught and healed, pointing people to God, not to himself.

This was where the ministry of Jesus was leading – to Jerusalem, to all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  He said that God welcomed all people to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Those who heard Jesus or were recipients of his healing powers were welcomed.  All were welcome.  All.

Which brings us to Paul’s letter to the Galatians.  I again say his words: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’

All of us, here, today, are one in Christ Jesus.

There is a hymn I sang in my youth with the stanza “and they’ll know we are Christians by our love,” but I think appropriate in these dark times, that we might consider substituting the word “Christians” with “God’s Children” to welcome into our circles others of different faiths, especially when marching in protest.

I never thought that in America I would have to worry for my family and many of my neighbors because of our Spanish surnames – sure this is California, but you never know.  That once again I would have just cause to say to the sitting government, this isn’t right.  This isn’t who we are.  We sent a message in the summer of 2020 that was loud and heard across America but here we are. So last weekend I was one of the five million plus who peacefully protested against the current administration and I will most undoubtedly do it again.  Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, looking around and greeting one another, some of us singing, some of us praying.  All of us, as one man said, ‘look like we got the memo from God.’ 

Indeed.  

Because it didn’t matter what we did for living, who we voted for, what house of worship we visited, the color of our skin didn’t matter, if we lived in the hills or in the flatlands.  We were one in our desire to live in harmony and to love and help one another.  Support those who do not have voices and those demonized by some in the current administration. We stand up together for freedom, against injustice, and, as the late Representative John Lewis said, find a way to get in the way of tyranny, injustice and hatred.

We’re beset by demons right now.  I’m not going to read out a list of the demons keeping us up at night – it would take days, weeks, months . . . .

As we age, we stop looking under the bed and in closets for the demons who try to possess us and make our lives miserable, distracting us from our relationship with God and God’s unconditional love.  At those times, like the healed man from the Gadarenes, we are welcome to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his teaching, be wrapped in his love, because it is God’s power through Jesus that is greater than that of any king on earth.