A WORD FOR TODAY, June 18, 2025
Peggy Hoppes
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Blessings. Peg
A WORD FOR TODAY, June 18, 2025
Lectionary Scriptures for June 22, 2025, Second Sunday after Pentecost: Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 3; Galatians 3:23-4:7; Luke 8:26-39
“He went his way, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.” Luke 8:39b, WEB
The book of Isaiah was written to the Hebrew nation at a time when there were great changes occurring in the world and in the nation. It is a story of God’s judgment and salvation. Isaiah is considered a prophet, and much of his writing points toward the future. However, his writing is more than a prediction of what will happen some day; it is a revelation of God, His purpose and His plan. As we read the book of Isaiah, we are reminded that God’s plan is right and true and that we should trust in Him to carry it out. Our verses from Isaiah are the beginning of the end of the book. After sixty-four chapters of warnings, calls to repentance, and promises for salvation, God speaks to the people.
You would think that the people would have learned their lesson. They were exiled to Babylon because they did not listen to God or obey His Word. They were a people who had found something they thought was better than God, things they thought would save them better than God: neighbor, ally, friend, or self. Though thought they did not need God. They wanted to go their own way, make their own path, be independent without the helper that was waiting.
God was harsh and honest about His people. They would not call on His name. They were rebellious. They walked in a way that was not good. They followed their own devices. They provoked God, made improper sacrifices and offerings. They followed rituals, ate food and did works that were abominable to God. These things were cultic, practices done by the religions that were popular in their day. They were worshipping false gods. God said, “They said, ‘Stay by yourself, don’t come near to me, for I am holier than you.’” God’s people had declared themselves holier than Him!
He refused to be silent. Still, despite their sin, He was still there for them. He was still ready to be their God and to lead them in the ways of righteousness and truth. Despite their hatred, He offered them a promise: someday they would see Him again and they would turn to Him. Someday they would be saved, and they will inherit all that He had to give them.
Isaiah looked forward to that time, but he lived and wrote well before the exile. When the people finally returned to Jerusalem under King Cyrus of Persia, they found their home in ruin. There was no food, the walls were falling down. The Temple had been destroyed. After seventy years in Babylon, they weren’t even sure about their faith. They struggled to rebuild, despite help from Cyrus, because others fought against the repairs. The fields were barren, they were isolated, and many wept at night because they saw no hope. Where was God and the fulfillment of His promises?
I can almost hear them crying out the words of Psalm 3, which is a song of prayer, trouble, and trust. Though it was probably written by David when he fled from his son Absalom several hundred years before the exiles went to Babylon, they could identify with his lament. It is a model prayer to help those suffering to get through trouble and overwhelming odds. Though there are foes, God sustains those who trust in Him. It is a battle song. David, and whoever prays this prayer, calls on God to be a warrior. This is what God wants from His people. This is the type of prayer that God would respond with grace and salvation.
The people had stopped crying out to God and had turn to other worship practices. They burned sacrifices to Baal in the high places and stopped listening to God’s voice in their lives. He called out to them, but they did not hear. He showed Himself repeatedly to His people who did not look for Him. Yet, with every warning, there is a promise. There is hope. God promised David that his house would be eternal. God had a plan, and He would accomplish it despite their sin. They did not deserve to be saved, but He would save them.
Sadly, the same is true for many people who claim to have faith today. They reject the parts of the Bible that make them uncomfortable. They rewrite the scriptures to fit their own agendas. They do what they think is right, but in doing so they trust in their own devices. This is not a condemnation of any particular type of church. I'm sure we can find something that grieves God in every church, from the issues of the day and even the way we do worship. I saw a meme this morning that asked the question, “How was worship?” The answer to this question, according to the meme, reveals what we really worship. Our experience has become the gauge, thus revealing that we don’t worship God, we worship our experience of worship. In essence, we worship ourselves. When Israel chose to chase after the false gods, they were trusting in their own ideas, wants, and needs, and not God. We do the same when we choose to conform to the world and to follow our own ways. It is hard to believe, but there are leaders in Christian organizations that open admit that they do not even believe in God! They are atheists charged with caring for God’s people, but they lead God’s people down paths of destruction, much like Israel in the Old Testament.
God was still ready to be their God and to lead them in the ways of righteousness and truth. Despite their hatred, He offered them a promise: someday they would see Him again and they would turn to Him. Someday they would be saved, and they would inherit all that He had to give them. That promise was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
We live with the same hope today. We are still sinners. We still walk in ways that are not according to God’s Word or will. We follow our own devices. God is angry at us, too, because we have stopped trusting in Him. But despite our own rebellion, God has offered us the same promise. We will see Him. Someday, the whole world will see Him and bow down in worship before Him. The question for us is this: do we know Him today? Are we following Him in our lives now? Are we walking His path, or will we find ourselves missing Him, especially when He does something that doesn’t fit our expectation?
When we read the stories of Jesus, we see that He often did not do things according to people’s expectation. The crowds did not always like what He did, as we see in today’s Gospel story. Jesus was in the region of the Gerasenes. This was near the Decapolis, the Ten Cities, and was a predominantly Gentile area, though we can’t tell from the story whether the man who was set free from the demons was a Jew or a Gentile. We only know that he had been possessed with many demons, Legion was its name, and these demons caused the man to do horrific things. He was violent and was forced to live a solitary life among the dead.
In those days bodies were laid in tombs hewn from rock. These caves were often used by people who were outcast by society as a place to shelter. This man was living there when Jesus came into the region. The demons within the man cried out to Jesus, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torment me!” The demons knew Jesus could send them to the abyss with a word. They pleaded with Jesus to have mercy and to send them into a herd of pigs. Jesus agreed, so when the demons left the man, they entered the pigs which then ran off the cliff into the water.
When I was learning to drive, I had an old Volkswagen which was a stick shift. I hated that car for multiple reasons, but partly because I had a bad experience with it. During driver training, my instructor took me on a road that had a stop sign at the top of a steep hill. I was doing fine until that moment, but then it was a terrifying eternity for both the instructor and me as I tried to get that car going again while hanging perilously on the side of that hill. Every time I tried, I ended up rolling backwards instead of going forward.
When asked why I don’t like driving a stick shift, I have often joked, “I don’t want to think when I drive.” Now, I never meant this in the “dumb blonde” sense. I know that the mind must be extremely active while driving the car, but I don’t want to be distracted by struggles of driving a stick shift like pushing in the clutch or changing gears; I prefer to focus on the road, the traffic, and the direction. I know it becomes second nature when driving a stick shift car, but I prefer an automatic.
We can be easily distracted, not only when driving a car but in life. There is always something, or someone, craving our attention and deterring us from our goal.
Who else but God could do such a miraculous thing as command demons to leave a man? This should have been one of those events that caused awe and belief to the people who witnessed it, but they did not see it through the eyes of faith, but through fear. A man, perhaps one of their own, was healed of the most horrific ailment, but they did not care. The man was the only one to believe. For him, faith was personal and individual because there were no others with whom he could share this amazing experience. He asked Jesus if he could be a disciple, but Jesus sent him into the Decapolis to tell everyone what God had done for him. He was sent as an evangelist, and all the people were amazed. People began to believe because of his witness, and he was no longer alone in the world.
We can hear an echo of Isaiah in this story: “[God] said, ‘See me, see me,’ to a nation that was not called by my name.” The people, probably Gentiles because they had pigs, were not looking for God, but Jesus showed Himself to them, and in doing so He showed Himself to the world.
Despite the fact that Israel missed God, His salvation would still come to them. The words of Isaiah in today's Old Testament lesson speak of judgment, but they also speak of salvation. Despite their sin, God still saw the value in His people. They would suffer the consequences of their sin against Him, but He would not hold it against them forever. “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, ‘Don’t destroy it, for a blessing is in it:’ so I will do for my servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all. I will bring offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains. My chosen will inherit it, and my servants will dwell there.”
Out of Israel, God sent Jesus and Jesus brought mercy. He saved people, removed their demons and revealed the love of God to the world. He casts out our demons by His word and gives us faith to believe, then sends us out into the world to tell everyone what He has done. Through faith in Christ Jesus, we are made one with Him and we become heirs to the Kingdom of God. Our response to this love is thanksgiving and praise together and through our witness the nations will believe. We can’t do it alone. We need, most of all, God’s help. And we need one another.
The people on that lakeshore were not ready to be saved. They still wanted to control their own world. They wanted to chase after their own gods. Yet, God reached out to them, offered them the same promise. He sent a messenger to prepare their hearts. He wouldn’t be silent for them, too. The seed of Jacob was sent to the whole world. Faith is not a gift that is limited by borders: everyone is invited to trust in God.
It is a popular notion among many modern Christians to reject religion and the institution we call the Church for a more private, personal relationship with God. This often leads to the idea that faith can be lived out separate from a fellowship of believers. They believe that they can worship God anywhere, in a field or by a stream, and that they do not need to go to church. After all, the church is made of people, not bricks, and the institution as we know it today is nothing like what Christ intended. This is the excuse I’ve heard many times from people who do not attend services with other Christians. Besides, they say, Christians in those churches aren’t really very Christian, are they?
Sadly, one of the reasons why some people reject the church is because we spend so much of our time arguing about the silliest things. We argue about Bible translations and worship music. We look at our neighbor’s church and question the way they practice their faith. Don’t get me wrong: some things truly matter. Maybe some churches are more concerned about the show they are putting on Sunday morning, and a Christian leader should never be an atheist. Instead of asking “How was worship?” the question we should be asking is whether we believe in Jesus and trust in God. There will be differences in the way we practice our faith, even incompatible differences, but we should encourage those who believe and trust to do what God is calling them to do, even when we disagree about them.
We are called to be disciples of Christ through faith, to go out and share our witness with the world. Our stories might be met with fear and doubt, but that’s not our concern. We will be rejected and hated. We will be called names, and we will be persecuted because we believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus was hated and rejected because He saved one man at the expense of a herd of pigs. This story is strange to our ears because Jesus’ response to the demons is strange and cruel. Why didn’t Jesus deal with the situation in another way? It seems out of character for Jesus to have brought such hardship on the people in that region.
Whatever the reason, Jesus gave the demons permission to enter into the herd of pigs that were on the hillside and the herd responded to this intrusion by rushing down the steep bank into the lake. When the people saw the power that Jesus had over the demons and their herd, they begged Him to leave. They were distracted from the grace that Jesus had to offer by their sudden loss of the livelihood. The event was frightening to the people because one man’s salvation meant destruction to them. Jesus had changed their lives, but only one seemed to benefit. They saw Jesus as an enemy. They were so focused on the loss of their herd that they missed the Word of hope and forgiveness that Jesus came to bring.
If He was hated, how can we ever think we won’t be? It isn't up to us to whitewash God's story to make it palatable to our neighbors, conforming to the world so that they won't hate us.
They chased Jesus away, but that one man went and told many about the grace of God. Luke tells us that he “went his way, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.” He didn’t just tell one or two folks about Jesus. He went about proclaiming the great things Jesus had done for him. Jesus told him to share the good news with the people in his hometown. Jesus cared for the Gentiles of the Decapolis as much as He cared for the sheep of His own flock. He wanted them to know, so He sent a messenger ahead to announce the grace of God. This word spread, and when it came time for Jesus and the disciples after Him to visit the Gentiles, the seeds of faith had already been planted. The pig herders had no warning; they had no preparation for the revelation of God they witnessed, but God works in many and various ways, which are never easy to understand. Even those with faith have times when we cried out to God in wonder, fearing abandonment.
The world hates Jesus and the world hates us because of Him. They’ll tell you that they hate us because we are hateful, intolerant, delusional hypocrites and that they can believe in a God that fits into their box and follows their path. But we are called by God to continue to go out there and tell our story, to tell His story, to share His grace, so that they might see Him and believe. God does not act according to our expectations. He acts according to His purpose.
Have you ever been a babysitter, or hired one to care for your children? The job always begins with a list of instructions: where the parents will be, how to get a hold of them in case of an emergency. There is usually a list of things the children can do and things they should not do. Food requirements are discussed, bedtime established. It is the babysitter’s responsibility to listen carefully and do what the parent has asked them to do.
The babysitter needs to abide by the rules, which is often difficult when there is a persistent and demanding child. Children know just what to say to manipulate people into doing what they want. It might be tempting to give in to these demands, especially when giving in might make the child more cooperative. It is sometimes easier to negotiate a peace, “I’ll let you stay up twenty extra minutes if you will take your bath without any trouble.” However, the rules are established for a purpose, and we don’t always know how those rules will keep a child safe or even protect the babysitter.
A parent has more flexibility. There are times when the rules can be ignored or a special treat given. The parent can do this because they know so much more about the situation. If there is a question of allergy, they know how to handle it. They know how much sleep a child needs to be healthy and happy the next day. They know the reactions and the consequences of indulgences. Mercy and grace is never given as a reward but as a sign of the parent’s love for the child.
Paul uses the example of a disciplinarian when talking about the Law. In those days, there was often a slave or servant strictly assigned to the care and education of the children. Even today there are some families who can hire a nanny or governess that takes care of the needs of the children. A slave or servant is required to follow the rules, and their position relies on their trustworthiness. The father, however, can break the rules because they are his to break. He can be lenient and merciful, generous and liberal with His grace.
Through Jesus Christ we are children of God our Father. Jesus did not come to remove or negate the Law, but through Him something new happened. We are no longer subject to the disciplinarian – the babysitter = but are restored to the care and the mercy of God. Abraham did not have a righteousness based on obedience to the Law, because the Law had not yet been given. Abraham’s righteousness was founded on his faith in God. Unfortunately, in the days of Jesus, adherence to the law had become the norm for righteousness.
It was confusing for the early Christians who wanted to remain true to the God of their forefathers, to do all that He required. So, despite the freedom we have in the Gospel, they tried to reestablish the righteousness that came from obedience to the Law. They insisted that the Gentiles become Jews, by words and deeds (circumcision) before they could become Christian. Paul was taken aback by this reversal to the old ways. He wrote in response, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.” In Christ there is no need for a babysitter.
Does this make the rules any less important? Of course not. However, the love of God is not dependent on obedience and His mercy endures forever. As children of God, we do not need to obey the Law to be rewarded with His love. God made His promise to Israel through Isaiah because He loved His people and was always faithful to His covenants. They went into exile because He loved them, because He was teaching them to trust in Him again. He sent them home hoping they would live as He called them to live. Unfortunately, they continued to sin, but that’s why the Father sent the Son.
There was a before and an after. The Old Covenant was given to point us toward the New. The Law was given to guide God’s people until the day when Christ would establish the New Covenant. In Christ we no longer live under the Law. We live under grace. Before Christ we were prisoners to the Law, but Jesus sets us free to live in faith. This freedom is given to all who believe, even those who were not born under the Law.
It didn’t matter who they were or where they came from. Jesus came to share God’s Kingdom with the whole world, even those who might reject it. Those that believe are adopted as sons, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. We are not slaves to sin or death or the Law no matter who we are because we have been redeemed by God’s Son, Jesus Christ. By faith we are sons of Abraham and heirs to God’s promises.
The Church may be an imperfect institution filled with imperfect people, but we are called into one body with a common purpose: to praise God and tell His story so that the whole world will repent and believe. We are imperfect; we will make mistakes. We will need to hear the warnings and the judgment from God. We will suffer the consequences of our sin against Him, but He will not hold it against us forever. Jesus saves us from our own demons, then He sends us out into the world to tell everyone about all He has done for us in His mercy. We are called to sing His praises so that the whole world will see. They will hate us and may reject God at first, but He will reveal Himself to them over and over again. We will tend toward the attitude of those Israelites who repeatedly turned from their God, but He is always there with us and is faithful to His promises. May He give us the courage, strength and faith to always trust in Him, for He is the One through whom salvation comes and it is through Him we are blessed.
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