Love doesn’t care about the ways we feel divided from our neighbors. Love goes to the hardest places and holds out a hand, and gets involved.

Vicar Natalie Summerville
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 12 C
Text: Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Don’t let the pigs and the demons distract you. Yes the pigs and the demons are important parts of the story, but when we hyper-fixate on the spectacle of this story, we miss the very human parts. And we forget to ask:

Who is this man?
Where were the people that loved him?
How long had he been suffering? How long had he been alone?
Who put him in the tombs?

Because 
Someone chained him, someone saw him as more of a problem than a person. Someone washed their hands of him. And the whole community looked away from him.

If this was a story about Jesus and demons and pigs, then we’re off the hook. We can bask in the miracle and the awe-inspiring power of Jesus and sit back to consider who this Jesus guy actually is, like the disciples did when Jesus calmed the storm a few verses prior. And if it’s just a story of divine intervention, what does that require of us?

But if this story is about a man who has been abandoned by his community, if this story is about someone that’s been so forgotten that he, too, forgets himself, whose suffering was seen as “too much”, who’s been considered as good as dead, then we’re involved. If this is a story about a broken community, then we’re on the hook.

Because this world looks a lot like that Gerasene community, and the powers that be thrive on us not getting involved and looking away from each others’ suffering. Our world is built on systems and structures designed to oppress and punish and push away what we don’t want to see. It’s a world that leaves people on the margins and blames people for their wounds And the world is really good at keeping us separate–drawing lines between “us” and “them”, that hands us categories like “normal” and “abnormal”, “worthy” and “unworthy,” and it tells us to stay on our side in our silos and our echo chambers. It’s a world that wants us to forget our neighbor’s belovedness, that meets conflict with violence, and difference with fear.

But then Jesus shows up, in a foreign land and in a Gentile community–
He doesn’t add to this man’s oppression, he restores in
He doesn’t avoid, he meets him with love and curiosity

He asks the man his name, and he finds out that this man identifies as “Legion.” He’s had no one to remind him who he is. His identity is completely wrapped up in his pain

But Jesus sees him. Jesus reaches deep into this man’s soul, reminds him he still has one. When no one else would come close, Jesus, an outsider in this community, does. And when no one else would come close and he’s saying to this man, “I see you, your problems and your pain matter to me.” He gets involved. And he sees someone worth loving and worth saving, worth welcoming home. and the man experiences true healing and he’s freed from pain and fear—his chains are finally broken because love got involved. 

And in our own ways, we’ve all been this man–overwhelmed, believing the labels this world puts on us, feeling unworthy and broken, too hard to love. We’ve lived seasons in tombs, and forgotten who we are, but Jesus comes for us too.

Jesus sees through every label, every fear, and every lie we’ve believed about ourselves, calls us beloved, child, worthy, capable. And the send us out to be the same love that changes our lives everyday.

And this love doesn’t fit into the categories and silos, it doesn’t pay attention to labels. Love goes out of its way to go to the margins and to go into the places it’s told not to go into–just like what Paul is saying to us today: there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female–for all are one in Christ Jesus. 

We don’t erase differences, In Christ, the old divisions and hierarchies don’t separate us anymore. In Christ, all are valuable, all are beloved. 

 In Christ, we belong to each other and we show up for each other. In Christ, if someone is hurting, we’re already involved, no matter who is suffering. In Christ, we have a love for each other that says, “No matter where you are, if you’re hurting, I’m here for you.” Because in Christ, we can’t decide whose pain and suffering matters. And when we act in this love, healing happens.

But this kind of love is costly. It asks us to show up and cross boundaries. To go to the margins and risk being rejected, like Jesus was. And everyday, we see more and more that the world resists this kind of love, because it threatens the way things are. This kind of love exposes the town’s apathy toward this man, and maybe that’s why they ask Jesus to leave. The world thrives on fear, on separation, on silence, but the Gospel calls us to something different. It asks us to get our hands dirty in the work of healing. 

Because the story doesn’t end with this man’s healing. Even after the man begs to stay with Jesus, Jesus sends him back into his town. Why? Because the real work is just beginning.

Because the community needs to face what it’s done.
Accountability needs to happen.
Reconciliation needs to happen. 

And this now-healed man is sent to tell his story, to speak truth and to witness to the power of the love that got involved. No matter how long it takes.

And we, too, are sent out.

We’re called into the same day-in, day-out work of healing and witness. The kind of love that gets involved that changes both people and communities.
The love that breaks cycles of violence and apathy.
The love that rebuilds what fear tore down.
The love that whispers to us and people throughout the world and throughout time: You are not alone.
The love that brings abundant life for all people
The love that gets involved, and now, more than ever, requires us to get involved too.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

God has created us in the divine image, and that’s the truth about God we really want to focus on and know and live on this feast of the Holy Trinity.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year C
Texts: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

What if the Triune God is not at all interested in our concept of the Trinity?

That is to say, when we celebrate the Holy Trinity we’d do better to focus on what the Triune God actually cares about: who and what we are, not who and what God is.

Our Hebrew forebears tell us that in the midst of creation, God said, “let us make humanity in our image, in our likeness.” And Scripture from there forward is the story of God calling humanity into that divine image. There’s very little about how God is put together. God’s personality and God’s love, desire, and concern for humanity and the creation are clear, but not God’s make-up.

And the Triune God’s concern throughout Scripture is how we live and love with each other. In short, how we live as that image of God.

Which brings us to Lady Wisdom.

We like to try and figure out who she is. Today she’s called Wisdom and Understanding, which reminds us of Isaiah’s declaration that the Spirit of God is, in part, “the spirit of wisdom and understanding.” So maybe Lady Wisdom is the Holy Spirit. Many have noticed here her participation in the creation and think of John chapter 1, and conclude Lady Wisdom is actually Christ. Both are beautiful possibilities.

But what Wisdom actually cares about and calls out is that we seek her, ask for divine wisdom in our lives, that we abandon foolishness and all the things that lead us to harm each other and the creation. Her voice speaks as God to us. But what she offers is what we want to seek.

And so Wisdom’s gift molds us into God’s image.

Which was God’s intent from the beginning. Instead of trying to figure out the divine math of a Triune God far beyond our comprehension, this day is better spent seeking divine wisdom. Asking that she shape us into a new way of understanding in the world. More than increased knowledge, we seek a way of God that grows in understanding the world and each other.

Today Jesus promises that as we’re ready, the Spirit will tell us more. The joy of that is that if we don’t understand some things now, one day we might. Humanity can grow more and more ready to hear more and more from Lady Wisdom.

Because the more we see her as God, the more we learn God’s patience and foresight, God’s ability to hold more than one thought or idea in tension, God’s grace in seeing good even where we can’t imagine finding any.

And today we hear other aspects of the image of God that are offered as gift to us.

Paul says God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. All the talk of love we hear from Jesus, all the focus on love of God and love of neighbor, all the attributes of divine love – self-giving, vulnerable, sacrificial – all this is the center of the image of God. So when someone purporting to have a Christian agenda does these horrifying things among us, we know they are not of Christ. These evil killings are not God’s will, are not God’s love.

The love that holds the Trinity together, the love that went to a cross and broke the power of evil and death, the love that still is willing to lose everything to draw you and all people into God’s heart, that’s the image of God God desperately needs you and me to live in the world.

And, like wisdom, love is a gift of God, poured into your heart and mine. You don’t have to strain to produce it. If you’re lacking in divine love, ask for it. Pray for it. And expect to have the Spirit fill you up and re-shape you into the love of God.

Today Paul says we have access to God’s grace through Christ, too.

So we can be grace people in the world, living as God’s image in our forgiveness, our willingness to look for good in others, our mercy for those who may not deserve it but get it because they, too, are beloved of God.

Paul also says we have peace with God through Christ’s love for us. When we become peacemakers, we embody God’s image in the world. As people who don’t return hate for hate or violence for violence. Sometimes offering a strong resistant peace that stands calmly, lovingly in the face of hatred, refusing to participate. Sometimes being a quiet peace with others that perhaps leads them to consider whether that’s a way they might want to walk.

In the wake of the devastating violence of the assassinations and attempted assassinations in our city this weekend, on top of this week’s escalation of war in the Middle East, and the abuse of military power in Los Angeles and the disgusting spectacle of a Soviet-style military parade in Washington, our living into this image of God’s peace is more important than ever. And it’s the only thing that can turn this world away from the hatred and violence that are now threatening to consume us.

Our worship today re-focuses us from thinking about God to doing as God.

So on this Holy Trinity Sunday, let’s spend our energy and time seeking God’s Wisdom, that she make us wise; asking for the Holy Spirit to re-shape our hearts into God’s love; seeking from Christ the peace and grace that will make us God’s agents of healing and change in this world.

Maybe we’ll understand the full truth about the Trinity in the life to come. Maybe we won’t. But right now, right here, we know the image of that Triune God and we can be shaped by God to live in it, God’s most fervent wish.

Let that be our focus and hope and prayer today. That as God’s image spreads through this world, God’s grace and healing and love go with it and it brings hope for a new day of peace and wholeness.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen