Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 8:26-39


It gets overshadowed by the more impressive points of the story. To be honest, it's hard not to pay attention when you're told your antagonist is a wild, naked man roaming among the tombs like a character out of a horror movie. In fact, I'm quite surprised some studio—desperate for a Halloween box-office win—hasn't put our man on film. He'd be heavily made up, probably modestly clothed, and at the climax we'd see the CGI demons come rushing out of him like lava from a volcano.


But the story here is about more than demons and wild men (and pigs). The story is about home.


At the outset of the story we're told that this man—whose name we never know—did not remain in a house. The word for house doesn't just mean that he didn't have a roof over his head. It implies living with a family—those who loved him. This isn't just a case of living on the outskirts of civilization; this man was alone.


This is why the end of the story is not to be missed. The temptation is to think that the conversation with Jesus is just coda. But it isn't. The ending of the story takes us back to the beginning and that statement about this man and his lack of a home. Jesus, out of love, sends this man to a place he had not been in a long time. He sent him home—a place of friends, family, community.


Talking about this story with a friend, the question came up "What if home isn't home?" What if the place that is "home" is just as lonely as the tombs, as life among the dead?


I, of course, did not have nor do I have any answer for that question. Sometimes it feels that the place we came from—be it the place we grew up, where we spent our formative years, or even a place that once was home but has since been taken from us by tragic events or bad memories—is not a place we want to which we want to return. Maybe the man who had been possessed feared returning to the village because he knew no one there would welcome him.


But what I did say, and what I do believe, is that home is more than a place. Home, in the end, is wherever we are allowed to be who we were created to be. It is with people who know our past—no matter how wild and naked it was—and love us anyway. No, they love us because that is who we were and part of who we are.


Finding our home can be difficult. It can feel like years before we are reminded who we are. It can seem that we belong among the dead.


But the day does come when a boat appears and someone, fearlessly, approaches when all others run away. And they ask "What is your name?"


God you know us and call us by name. Remind us who we are so we might live into whom you created us to be and find those who will love us for all we are and all we've been.

(Edit to Add: I posted a different devotion earlier today.  In the end, I liked this one better.)

Easter Sunday

Luke 24:1-12, I Corinthians 15:19-26

My wife, when she was growing up, went to a small country church. On Easter morning, they congregation would gather at the small graveyard near the church to hear the story of the women who went to the tomb only to find that Jesus wasn't there. It was, I've always thought, the best place to hold an Easter service. Where else to think about empty tombs and the resurrection of the dead than one of the many places where we are reminded that Christ's, and our, old enemy has not yet been wiped out.


Perhaps it's because I'm working on a sermon for my preaching class, but I find myself thinking about another scene among the tombs on this Easter morning. If you look back several chapters in Luke (around chapter eight), there's the story of the Gerasene Demoniac. Luke tells the story of a man who's long been possessed by many demons. He has not been home in a long time. And he lives among the tombs and graves like one of the dead. While he is physically alive, socially he is a dead man since no one approaches him, talks to him, or touches him.


Jesus, of course, frees this man—literally saves him in Luke's words—from the demons. In his right mind again, he asks if he can come along with Jesus. But Jesus tells him no and sends him to a place he has not been in a long time—home. He completes bringing him, in a way, back to life.


On this day we hear scripture and song that reminds us that the sting of death has forever been removed. The grave's victory has been snatched away in one quiet act before dawn. And this is good news—death is not the end. Death cannot separate us from God. And death will only separate us from each other for a little while.


But it is important to remember that this mighty act of God is not just an overcoming of physical death. It is also a defeat of all kinds of death. It shows us that even the social death that comes from illness, layoff, or other social catastrophe can be overcome. It shows us that there is, no matter how bleak the situation, hope in darkness.


It also challenges us to continue that work of resurrection in the world. You or I cannot raise those who are physically dead, but we can reach out and bring resurrection to those who are dead in other ways. There are those, like the Gerasene demoniac who live a life in the tombs who need our help in finding their way back home.


Risen Christ, resurrect in me the dead parts that have forgotten how to love. And make me an agent of resurrection in this world.