Let us pray. Open our ears O God, to hear your word. Open our eyes to see your life-giving activities in the world. Open our hearts to your love and open our hands and feet to serving you. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.
To tell the truth, I’m exhausted from all the activities reported in our readings today. Elijah kicks it off by having an adrenaline crash after defeating the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, and after Queen Jezebel threatens his life. Not surprisingly, he tries to hide. When God finds him, Elijah stammers that he’s afraid, because he’s the only one left. He knows he is being hunted down. Thus, when God tells him to come out of his cave, he refuses. Then, in a staggering, extravagant spectacle, a windstorm smashed rocks apart, an earthquake hits, and then a fire blasts through. Elijah stays put. But he is drawn out of the cave by the “sound of sheer silence.” Unlike so many pious readings of this text, this story is not about meeting God in the sheer silence. Instead, God used the sheer silence to draw Elijah out of the cave, and with a reminder that he is not alone, Elijah is sent back to watch as God inaugurates a new chapter for Israel.
We barely catch our breath from Elijah’s experience when we are transported to near the Sea of Galilee. Luke tells us about Jesus’ only excursion outside of Jewish territory. Crossing the lake, and a border, Jesus is promptly confronted by a demoniac. The possessed man immediately recognizes Jesus as the Son of God and tries to control Jesus by calling his name. Turning the tables, Jesus gets his name—Legion—a name given him because of the thousands of demons that possessed him. In a simple, but powerful show of force, Jesus allows the demons to leave the man and infect the herd of pigs, which promptly run into the sea and drown. When the devastation in the lake finally calms, the people who saw it and spread the news, are, not surprisingly, “seized with great fear.” Who wouldn’t be? This is someone they can’t control. It’s out of their hands. That makes them terrified, and they flee.
We can get seduced by the focus on the shows of power and the supernatural events in these stories and start painting our own pictures of how this all-powerful God ought to rule the world. But when we look around, at a world that is still struggling to experience peace and justice, it is tempting to look around for scapegoats who prevent God’s reign from breaking into our world. And our temptation is to want to gather all these scapegoats together and drown them, as it happened to the pigs. That would get rid of the demons in the world, with a nice show of force. But would it really do anything, other than to terrify people? Shows of force don’t really work. How do you live under the threat of such power? The only thing that happens under such threats is that innocent people get killed.
But thankfully, there is another message in our stories today, reminding us of how God plans to address what’s wrong with the world, in a much more common, but even more powerful way. God calls us, like Elijah, to come out of our caves that serve as tombs, and to enter unfamiliar territory. We are called to quit looking for powerful winds and earthquakes and firestorms and mass exorcisms. That is not where God is. They are events that point to God. And when we look around us, once we’ve stepped out of the cave, we discover God already in our midst, working to bring about a new creation.
We also discover that God’s real power is found in bringing people into community. Elijah was convinced that he was the only true believer left. He was as good as dead, hidden in the tomb of a cave. Twice he tells God, “I alone am left, and they are chasing me down.” But he had forgotten that he had companions in his battle against the prophets of Baal, people who rounded up the false prophets after the battle. They had confessed that the God whom Elijah worshipped was indeed the one true God. He wasn’t alone. Then God reminded him that there were at least 7000 who were still faithful. The message God sent Elijah was simple, but powerful: Elijah, you are not alone. You are a part of a community, the community of God. In that community there is strength. In that community were the hands and minds and feet that would restore God’s faithful community in a desolate land. He was back in the land of the living. Back in the community.
The same is the case with the demoniac in the story Luke tells us. Formerly, Luke tells us that this man had been a “man of the city.” He had been a part of a community. But that community had been figuratively and literally stripped from him. He used to live in a house, but now, he lived among tombs. He was now naked. He was as good as dead. He had nothing, absolutely nothing left to his name. He was alone and abandoned. No doubt encouraged by the townspeople, the demons had driven him outside the city, into the wilderness, the place where temptations and trials take place. It was also where crucifixions took place—outside of the city. Away from the community.
But God heals this man and restores him to community. That was the miracle, because the people weren’t sure they wanted either Jesus or him around. Yet Luke reports that he was “clothed and in his right mind,” while the townspeople we, on the other hand, full of fear. Jesus gave him the task returning home—that is, to his city—to tell everyone how much God had done for him.” He was clothed, once again, in community.
Our world is broken in many places. Communities are broken. But there are also signs of hope. God is in the business, if we care to look beyond the desires for God to show how powerful God is, of building and healing the community. God is drawing people together, reconciling people with one another, by forgiving all the sins which have damaged and destroyed our relationships with God, with one another, and with all of God’s creation. God is in the business of drawing people out of their caves and tombs and all those places where terror threatens to reign, bringing us to places where people break bread together.
The letter that Paul writes to the people of Galatia and to us describes these activities of God in theological language. He simply says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” When you are baptized into Christ, you are clothed with Christ. You are “clothed and in your right minds,” as Luke describes it. When the water splashes on you, God joins you to Christ and to the Church, the body of Christ. In this community, you are “in Christ.” God takes you out of your caves and tombs and joins himself to you. In him you encounter the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life.” In the waters of baptism, you are placed into Christ, and thus, brought into the midst of life. You are placed in the whole Church, not just this congregation or with other Lutherans. You are placed in the midst of the whole people of God, of every time and place.
In the community that is Christ, and which is led by Christ, you are drawn out of the caves and tombs of life. In Christ, you find the courage to face the fears that surrounds you at times. In Christ, you find the courage to face the legions of threats, even in unfamiliar places, since you are now clothed in Christ. It is not you, but Christ, who does this. Christ is the One who fights—and destroys—all the threatening forces around you. Because you are in Christ, however, expect yourselves to be engaged. In Christ, joined to him in baptism, you are called to “proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world that God has made, and work for justice and peace.” You can do this, simply because, in baptism, you are joined to Christ. You are irrevocably joined to him and the community. Christ in his community enters the world to heal, restore, reconcile and recreate a new creation. He does this by forgiving sin and giving life and salvation—the gifts you’ve been given in baptism.
Today, you are again dragged to the water with your newest little brother, Nils. There, Christ is present to give you life. God is drawing you out of the caves and tombs and bringing you into the dangerous, but life-giving waters of life. Baptized, you are called to live. Baptized, you are nourished with water, bread, wine, and Christ himself. There, in Christ, you are united with Elijah and the Geresene, Paul and Mary and Martha and Phoebe and all the people of God. This one big, united body doesn’t sit still, however. Baptized, you are brought into God’s new creation. God moves in the world—God’s world, where peace and justice, love and forgiveness, and life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit brings life. Here, in Christ, we experience God and God’s grace. There is nothing better! Thanks be to God. Amen.
