Pentecost 2 – 2025
Luke 8:26-39 (1 Kings 19:1-4, 18-15a)
Marian Free
In the name of God whose surprises and little miracles are a part of every day. Amen.
Sometimes I wonder if we are so interested in the dramatic and extraordinary that we miss the important details that are contained in the quiet and seemingly mundane. This can be as true of our everyday lives as it can of world events. The small and not so small miracles occur unremarked because we are so absorbed in the bigger, more exciting picture. This is equally true when it comes to reading and teaching the Bible. We all know about Moses and the burning bush because of the miracle of a bush burning without being consumed and because God spoke the bush, but it takes someone who is really paying attention to notice that ‘Moses turned aside’. A burning bush has no impact if it is not noticed. If Moses had not paid attention, there would have been no story – no plagues, no Exodus, no promised land. The small details are important.
Of necessity our lectionary has to be selective. In order to read through the gospels in three years, we omit passages that are repeated in the gospels, for example, this year we will not hear the parable of the sower during a Sunday service. The lectionary writers have also judiciously omitted some of the more controversial or offensive passages. A consequence of such decision-making is that small details (connecting sentences, off-hand comments) can be overlooked.
Whether it is our focus on the more dramatic aspects of Scripture, or omissions in the lectionary, our view of scripture can be skewed.
Such is the case with our journey through Luke’s gospel. At the end of Epiphany, we had read up until the end of chapter 6. Today we have leapt straight to the end of chapter 8. Of course, some of chapters 7 and 8 will be covered in other years, but the omission of these verses mean that we never hear the first few verses of chapter 8 which are unique to Luke and which give us quite a different picture of Jesus’ travelling companions. Luke tells us that: “The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.”
Jesus is accompanied, it seems, not only by the 12, but also by a substantial number of women – many others. Notably, these were women of some significance – the wife of Herod’s steward for one. They were also women of some means. Luke tells us that they provided for them out of their own resources. “Them” in this instance appears to refer to Jesus and the 12 – not an insubstantial number to feed and to accommodate. Luke drops this snippet of information into his story as a matter of fact so even were we to hear these lines in church we might be tempted to pass them by and not pay attention to the fact that Jesus’ followers (counted alongside the twelve) were women. We take Luk’es statement for granted, forgetting that in the first century Mediterranean world it was socially unacceptable for women who were not accompanied by male relatives to interact with men.
The story of the Gerasene demoniac is another example of our tendency to focus on the dramatic and to miss the small details. The account of Jesus’ casting the demons from the Gerasene into the pigs is vivid and detailed and includes so much that is amazing and unbelievable that it is these that catch our attention. We are fascinated by the state of the man who had demons – he is naked, lives among the tombs and at times becomes so wild that he is guarded and bound with chains and shackles. Indeed, he becomes so violent at times that he is able to break the chains and disappear into the “wilds”. We are struck by the fact that the poor man has been possessed not by one but by a legion of demons. It is little wonder that we focus on the man’s miraculous recovery and Jesus’ divine power.
Then there are the pigs. What did they do to deserve being possessed by demons that thrust them headlong into the lake? And what of the pig herders whose responsibility it was to tend the pigs? What punishment will be inflicted on the herders as a consequence of the loss? And so on.
Demon possession and the sorry pigs become front and centre. There is nothing wrong with that, but if we only look at the big picture, we risk missing an important but significant detail. When the people came out to see what had happened, “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” Jesus has not only set the man free, but he has also restored his dignity, his personhood and his freedom. The man is clothed, unbound and has adopted the position of a disciple. Yes, Jesus performed a miracle, but the miracle was only a means to an end – recognising and affirming the humanity of the afflicted man.
When it comes to evangelism, it is easy to try to get people’s attention by focussing on the miraculous, on Jesus’ godly powers. In fact, this is how some people sell the gospel. Believe in Jesus and this can happen to you. (Even believe in Jesus and you will be able to perform miracles.) The reality is often much more down to earth – being seen, being heard, being accepted for who you are. God sees us and, no matter our faults and failings, no matter the things that bind us, God loves us and sets us free to be who we are.
The dramatic and miraculous are only one part of the story. If we pay attention, if we look for the detail, if pay heed to the omissions, we will discover – as did Elijah – that God is not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the “sheer silence”.
Swallowsrest 