Proper 7C
June 23, 2019

O God of love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Those of you who have heard me preach know I often have scripture readings to complain about. (Think the late Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes.) Today I want to say that there should be a lectionary rule about not having too many good readings from scripture on the same day. The story of Elijah, Psalm 42, Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and the Gerasene demoniac story – I mean, come on. It’s just too much. I love these scriptures – they are touchstones for me in my own life of faith. Very often, they are at the top of my head and the tip of my tongue. Today there’s too much to say about what I love.

The story of Elijah is that he was on the run. Israel’s much-maligned Queen Jezebel, who, working with foreign allies for peace and prosperity for her people, had had enough of the insurgent Elijah and she sent a messenger to tell him that his days were numbered. Her fury had to do with the large public demonstration Elijah staged to show the power over nature of the god whose Name is too holy to pronounce. Elijah’s god produced much needed rain to end a deadly drought and famine – that part was fantastic. But then in a hideous display of celebratory aggression, Elijah had all 450 of the prophets of the losing god Baal seized and killed.

Elijah took off into the wilderness, afraid and alone, exhausted and suicidal. But twice, messengers brought him bread and water and told him to get up and eat something. He journeyed to Mount Horeb, (also known as Mount Sinai), the Holy Mountain of Divine encounter. He found shelter in a rock crevice, and heard the Divine voice ask him, “What are you doing here Elijah?” Of course the inflection when that question is read out loud is up to the reader. I always hear it as a kind of “what the heck, Elijah?” Elijah’s answer was defensive and angry – zealous and jealous and furious are all translations of the same word. He was fearful, despairing and self-righteous – always a toxic cocktail! His response failed to mention all the killing he’d just done. The word of the Holy One instructed Elijah to come out – come out of the darkness of his hiding place and experience the presence of the Divine. But before he came out, there were the usual signs of the revelation of the Divine – a rock-splitting windstorm, an earthquake, and a fire, but somehow Elijah knew that the presence of the Divine was not in any of those cataclysmic events. Elijah experienced the voice of the Divine in the sheer silence that followed. 

And then Elijah heard the question a second time. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And in a response that I find so reassuring, Elijah gave the same self-indulgent litany of complaint. Even a great prophet who was experiencing the sure presence of the Divine, could not let go of his own well-scripted story. (That creates all kinds of room for us, doesn’t it?) I imagine a loving Holy One Who said, “return on your way, get back to work.” I imagine that it was in the silence that Elijah got some perspective, that he got somehow brave enough to go back home and get back to the work of calling people to listen to The Holy One. This is the kind of silence we all need in order to hear that ”God is still speaking,” as they say in the United Church of Christ. God is still speaking in the very quiet voice of a little girl – the “bat kol,” a daughter of a voice, an echo of a sound, only perceptible in sheer silence that follows cataclysmic events whether they are personal, communal, or international. 

Psalm 42 is one of the all-time greats. Nefesh – the word that gets translated as soul here is literally neck, and the salty tears of the psalmist make the desire for the spring of the living God so much more intense. Crying is dehydrating. The poetry of thirst is so evocative and so true, deep does call to deep. If you want homework this week, take your bulletin home with you and read or pray Psalm 42 every morning when you wake up. Get in touch with your thirst. The thirst for the Divine means that the Divine exists. We might not get satisfied, but that doesn’t mean that the Holy One does not exist. [1] 

Our Gospel story from Luke is rich with meanings, and it can be read in many ways. It is about a deadly serious situation of occupation by a legion of demons, unmanageable behaviors, traumas, people seized with fear about the disturbances and seized with fear about the healing! It sounds like a story ripped from the headlines – the headlines of first century Palestine and twenty-first century Boston. The way this deadly serious story is told, though, is through a hilariously funny political satire. To get the joke you have to imagine that this was not a story that was trying to be realistic or factual or even fair. This is a tall tale that gets at the truth of how oppressive the Roman occupation of Palestine was. To get the joke, you have to know that Gerasa was a city sacked by the Jews in the revolt against Rome between 66 and 70 CE, and then it was brutally recaptured by Rome shortly after that. (The Gospel of Luke was probably written around 85 CE.) You have to know that a legion is a unit of the Roman army comprising 6,000 soldiers. You have to know that pigs are unclean for the people of God. Eating them is dangerous and against the law. 

Jesus is shown to be negotiating solo with the spirits of 6,000 occupying soldiers about to be stopped from tormenting a poor man to the point of insanity, and Jesus agrees to the demons’ request to be put into a herd of swine and off the cliff they go. This is a story that would produce belly laughter. It’s highly subversive and thoroughly entertaining comedy. It gave Jesus’ hearers (and Luke’s hearers) respite from taking themselves and their problems and even their oppressors so seriously. Belly laughter is good medicine and good exercise especially for a community bound together by fear like the communities of Jesus’ followers, like the communities we live and move in.[2] Once the Gerasene man has been freed from the legion of demons, Jesus’ instruction was, “go back home and declare how much God has done for you.” In other words, “go back home and get to work.”

Now, I want to spend a few minutes with you reflecting on the Apostle Paul. (You may groan if you need to.) At Emmanuel, we have a history of difficulty getting lectors to read the Epistles because of the dislike of Paul or others writing in his name. I will concede, it’s not very popular to like Paul in progressive branches of the Christian family tree. Paul is widely considered to be the father of anti-Semitism and misogyny. Some just consider him a jerk. I don’t think he is any of those things. I don’t just like Paul. I love him. You might wonder what a nice feminist like myself is doing loving an apostle like Paul. I do experience Paul as prone to irritability, vulnerable to both anxiety and self-righteousness. Those are all traits that I battle in myself. Those are all traits I regularly encounter in communities of faith (although I’m not naming any names). And underneath those traits is what makes Paul so appealing to me. The through-line, the heart, of Paul’s theology is: distinctions and hierarchies with their commensurate exclusions that are so important to so many human beings, make no difference at all in Jesus Christ – and must make no difference at all in the Body of Christ, in beloved communities of followers of Jesus. 

Our portion of Paul’s letter to the Galatians gives an example of his sense of the radical inclusivity of God as revealed to him by the life and teachings of Jesus. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer subservient or independent, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” This is in stark contrast to a common saying in Greek philosophy, “I was born a human being, not a beast; a man and not a woman; …a Greek and not a barbarian.” But this is completely in sync with a saying in Rabbinic Judaism: “If a poor man says anything, one pays little regard: but if a rich man speaks, immediately he is heard and listened to. Before God, however, all are equal: women, slaves, poor and rich.” [3] Paul is not arguing for sameness or for removing difference. He is asserting the idea that cultural and natural distinctions count for nothing in the eyes of God. What counts, according to Paul, is the practice of love. The law is nothing without love. Faith is nothing without love. Not feelings of love – acts of love.

I wonder, how many times a day, on average, do you remember that in the eyes of the Holy One you are no better and no worse than any other person, and respond accordingly? How many times a day, on average, do you recall that no matter what our differences, the Divine is so vast and we are so small, that the differences between us are immaterial, and act accordingly? In Paul’s letter, he is reminding the Galatians that they are free. Whatever small cell or narrow place they had been in before because of religious teaching and preaching (and we all have encountered it), the door is now open, he says. “Come out,” Paul is saying. “Come out.” In Christ – that is, in the Redeeming Urge of God, there is not Jew or Greek, there is not slave or free, there is not male and female; for all of you are one. This is an amazing statement of religious doctrine. If and when you are ever looking for a Biblical proof text for the full inclusion of women or queer folks or people of color or anyone else in the margins of our economy or in the margins of Church, this is a great one. The differences between male and female no longer matter for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. If and when you are ever looking for material to use in defense of Paul, in response to folks who just don’t like him…. Well you probably are never doing that, but I often am. Here is a fine piece of theology from the principle architect of the early Church. 

What I hope you will remember from today is that you are no better and no worse than another person when it comes to how you are, who you are, or what you have done or failed to do. I urge you to disable or at least dial down your better than/worse than calculator and remind yourself as often as necessary that we are all one. Go on your way, return to your home, and tell what God has done for you, and love one another for Jesus Christ’s sake. Come out of your hiding place, acknowledge your thirst, tell others what the Holy One has done for you.

1. C.S. Lewis used the analogy that sexual desire means that sex exists. One might not get satisfied, but that doesn’t mean that sex doesn’t exist.

2. Thanks to Mark Davis’ blog for this idea – see http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/06/unbinding-unbindable-bound-man.html

← Back to sermons page