The Terrifying Sound of Broken Chains
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For June 22, 2025:
The Terrifying Sound of Broken Chains
by Chris Keating
Luke 8:26-39
One day, the summer of 2025 may be known as America’s ICE age. Perhaps not meteorologically — but certainly politically.
The Trump administration’s policies regarding immigration have frozen our nation’s capacity to think imaginatively. Fears of a changing society, worries over border policies, and a president bent toward authoritarianism have all contributed to something akin to what the late Walter Brueggemann once termed “ideological totalism.” Such totalism, said Brueggemann “intends to contain all thinkable, imaginable, doable social possibilities.”
Brueggemann wrote that in his mind, the biblical experience of totalism remained intolerant of any alternative thinking.
For many families, this fear-based totalism has replaced carefree summer evenings with worries about federal agents swarming homes, businesses, and even parks in search of undocumented immigrants. The buzzing of cicadas has been replaced by sounds of helicopters hovering, and the stomping of heavily armed agents out of unmarked vans. Residents of Madison, SD watched as agents swooped up neighbors and coworkers just days after the community had protested the commencement address by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at Dakota State.
In Southern California, home to perhaps a million undocumented people, the sounds of friends gathered in parks dancing to impromptu mariachi concerts were replaced with police flash-bangs attempting to silence chanting protestors. Everyday trips to the store, work, or even graduation celebrations quickly became moments filled with worries that family and friends could be apprehended without notice.
It’s no surprise that last week’s protests in California and other states have grown in intensity following President Trump’s ordering of troops. The armed military response in Los Angeles only heightened tensions, creating a spectacle instead of solving a problem. Those prone to creating chaos reportedly stepped into the spaces where others were exercising distinction and called the result a change from peaceful protesting to chaotic anarchy.
But like the rattling chains of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke 8:26-39, the sounds we are hearing are the cries of those yearning for liberation. The story narrates the tension between the alternative kingdom Jesus proclaims and the fear and violence promulgated by the Roman Emperor. Even news that their local wild man was tamed proved to be no comfort for the traumatized Gerasene population. When they saw him “healed and in his right mind,” they became even more afraid.
Such escalating fear dominates our culture. The gospel text this week reminds us that the powers of the world stand no chance against Jesus. Yet the sounds of the man’s broken chains will not bring comfort until the promise of liberation echoes in their ears as well.
But it is hard to hear the sound of healing as the emperor’s thunderous rage blasts across the land.
In the News
Not long after he heard the news about a large immigration raid in Los Angeles on Friday, June 6, Catholic priest Father Brendan Busse rushed from the school where he had been leading an eighth grade graduation. He drove to the city’s fashion district, the bustling hub of the West Coast’s garment industry.
A veteran priest who has worked among marginalized people across the globe, Fr. Busse could not believe what he found. “It was almost like every science fiction movie, where there’s an alien occupation from another planet that comes in with guns and flash grenades and pepper spray, in order to seek out and to hunt certain people who were there just trying to do their daily job,” he said, according to the Religion News Service.
He likened what he saw to being “on the receiving end of an occupation.”
The raid was the tipping point of a weekend filled with protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detaining and deporting of immigrants. It would lead to President Trump federalizing National Guard Troops and deploying Marines.
According to commentator Charlie Sykes, this may be the moment the administration had been waiting for. “The president is enjoying this,” wrote Sykes. “Donald Trump wants nothing more than to change the narrative from the horrors of the raids to what he wants the American people to see as a city under siege.”
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump sees these moments as Trump releasing “his 2020 demons.” Bump suggests that many of Trump’s policies and actions have been aimed at rebutting the protests he faced during his first administration, particularly after George Floyd’s death in 2020. “It was a message that Trump’s mostly White base could get behind,” writes Bump. “Black and Hispanic and gay people were trying to steal attention and power that was rightfully theirs.” Since returning to office, Trump has focused “fervently and ferociously” against the forces he believed turned him out of office.
Trump’s saber-rattling is particularly centered on reversing what he sees as overly lenient border policies. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat notes that the immigration raids, as well as Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” have become the centerpiece of Trump 2.0 and redefinition of conservatism in America. Douthet sought to explore Trumpism’s relationship to conservative politics in an interview this week with conservative scholar Matthew Continetti.
Continetti contends that Trump’s reinterpretation of conservative politics begins with his belief that America’s post-World War II policies were flawed. Continetti said that the pre-World War II American right was constructed on interlocking axis of immigration, trade, and foreign policy — all key elements of Trump’s agenda. While Trump wishes to be seen as a peacemaker, it is more important for him to be viewed as strong, said Continetti. And the one area where he has been strongest in making change, said Continetti, is immigration.
Strong, like an emperor, or a king like Solomon, who silenced prophets, worshiped opulence, and bowed to what Brueggemann called “an anemic God, whose only function was to bless the regime.”
In the Scripture
In Luke’s depiction of the healing of the Gerasene Demoniac, Jesus is anything but anemic. He steps onto the shoreline of a predominantly Gentile territory. Scholars are unsure of the precise location. Matthew’s telling of the story places the location in the country of the “Gadarenes,” a location about six miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee, a city offered to Herod by Caesar Augustus. Luke and Mark record what is happening in the region of “Gergesenes,” which could be near Gerasa, some thirty-three miles southeast of Galilee.
Gerasa was also a stronghold of Rome, founded by Alexander the Great, and outfitted with prominent features of the empire including an arch, hippodrome, theaters, and temples. Either way, this story highlights Jesus’ incursion into Gentile lands. In Luke’s gospel, this is the only account of Jesus ministering in Gentile territory.
Readers sometimes see the story as a sort of biblical horror story. Picture a sadistic Hannibal Lector figure, unable to be contained despite locks and chains. Or a Michael Myers-ish stalker, a heinous figure hellbent on inciting fear. The man throws off any constraint placed upon him. He seems unstoppable, naked yet unafraid.
The man seems to understand that all of these demonic powers stand no chance against Jesus. The encounter evokes images of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13) where Jesus withstands any of Satan’s enticements. Curiously, when Jesus asks the man his name, he responds by saying “Legion,” a name clearly identified with Rome.
The story includes important connections to the totalism represented by Rome. The man is controlled by the legion of demons, just as these lands were subject to the emperor’s imperious ways. The demon possessed man, like others who are oppressed, is subject to the whims and desires of this totalism. Like contemporary authoritarian rulers, the demons live in a world controlled by binary options: good/evil, terror/peace, life/execution. Yet Jesus’ presence evokes a response to those limited choices. To quote from Bruggemann again, Jesus acts out an alternative to the Roman Empire. To be Christian in this moment, Bruggemann wrote in 2018, is to accept our mandate to expose “the contradictions and perform the alternatives.”
Faced with these alternatives, the demons cry out. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough notes that even though they have not withheld mercy from the man, they plead for mercy from Jesus. They do not wish to return to the abyss, which presumably represents the chaos controlled by Satan. But then the story takes an even stranger turn as Jesus hurls the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs. These demon-seized pigs can fly — right off the cliff that is. Those little piggies are not coming home.
But this is still not the end of the story. The man’s healing creates more fear from the townsfolk. They hear his empty chains rattling, and no doubt wonder: who could still the powers of evil, who could bring such powerful liberation? The man, for his part, does not get to follow Jesus. Instead, he is sent back to be a witness, testifying to the power of Jesus over the devastating effects of evil and its minions.
In the Sermon
For many, the uncertainty of this current ICE age creates fear. It is a fear that arises from many places — fear of change, fear of immigrants, fear of totalitarianism, fear of everyday life characterized by shackles of evil and torment. Like the man possessed by demons, we feel out of control. Like the residents of the village, we are suspicious of attempts to eradicate evil.
I think the circumstances of our present day offer us a chance to reconsider how we have often draped the demon-possessed man with a mantle of mental illness. The image can be harmful to those struggling with addiction, depression, or serious mental health challenges. It creates a culture of shame that may keep folks from seeking help. Instead, the sermon can help imagine the possibilities of God’s liberating gifts. On Pentecost, we saw the strange, disrupting power that brought new understanding to the apostles.
Secondly, the story compels us to consider those whom we may characterize as being possessed by demons, and our reluctance to their presence among us? We know that most immigrants, legal or otherwise, do not commit massive amounts of violent crime. Like our great-grandparents and hosts of others who have come before us, they are clamoring to shed the chains of their previous existence.
Can we begin to imagine what sort of testimony they might offer us to God’s acts of liberation? Might it be closely aligned with the testimony the apostles brought after the spectacle of Pentecost? Could it sound much like the witness of the man freed from years of torment? Help our congregations begin to imagine the strength of that man’s testimony as he holds up his broken chains and proclaims God’s triumph.
The power of the emperor seduces us with invitations to worship a weak God. The emperor limits our imagination by inciting flames of fear and worries of chaos. Yet Jesus brings an alternative. He rebukes the powers of the emperor just as he withstood Satan’s enticements. He offers restoration to the community not by isolating those who do not conform, but by creating new possibilities.
This is the witness we can offer while others are seduced into thinking only the power of empire can save. Christ offers a new identity to those who believe allegiance to the status quo is the only possibility. It is a message of salvation offered even to Gentile swine herders whose feet are clad with the muck, mud, and manure of evil.
This is our good news: the demons are gone, the chains have been broken, and the only sound we should hear are the shouts of the healed man’s jubilant witness. Broken chains no longer symbolize that fear is on the loose. Instead, we are called to be witnesses to the one who sets all free.
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SECOND THOUGHTS
Caring People Are Desperately Needed
by Tom Willadsen
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a, Psalm 42 and 43
In the Scriptures
Psalm 42 and 43 should be regarded as a single psalm. It is not clear why editors separated them. Scholars are confident that these psalms were composed after the Exile, still they could have been on the lips of Elijah as he fled from Jezebel’s wrath. The psalmist recalls happier times when he was part of the “throng” of people processing to the temple, filled with joy. Translations for גֵגח in 42:4 vary. It may mean “celebrating” or “noble.” So, it could indicate a throng of noble people celebrating, or an esteemed, joy-filled group of people. Whatever the connotation, the psalmist recalls happier times, in stark contrast to the arid, barren times of thirsty deer, panting for water. Again, a nice connection to Elijah’s story, who’s been on the lam since 1 Kings 17:1, because of the drought the Lord told him to inform Ahab of.
The Psalms have a timeless feel. The psalmist expresses profound despair but also clings to hope in the living God. Recalling happy memories of better times also brings some solace. Even in the midst of despair, the psalmist knows to call on, and find hope in, God.
The only thing people remember from this morning’s passage from 1 Kings is “the still, small voice.” That’s a phrase that resonates in many people’s memories. It’s pithy, important, and memorable, but there’s so much more going on in Elijah’s life. I’ll do a deep dive into Elijah this week, confident that my fellow Immediate Word writers will have something to say about the Christian scriptures.
Elijah called out King Ahab for worshiping Baal, the god of the Samarians. Elijah announced a cessation of rain, then headed east of the Jordan, at the Lord’s instruction.
Elijah kept it on the downlow for a while, staying at Wadi Cherith and ravens brought him bread and meat twice a day. The wadi provided the water he needed... until it didn’t. That’s what happens when the Lord’s prophet calls for a cessation of rain.
The Lord told Elijah to head to Zarephath in Sidon, where Elijah met a widow who was gathering sticks, preparing to cook her and her son’s last meal. She was nearly out of food; nothing was growing because of the drought. Elijah asked her to whip up a small cake with her remaining meal and to give him a drink. Elijah told the widow that her oil and meal would not run out as long as he stayed with her. It worked! Elijah got his cake and the meal, oil and water didn’t run out.
When the widow’s only son died, Elijah got the blame for that. Elijah took the issue to the Lord, cried out to the Lord, who listened and helped Elijah bring the boy back to life! Good thing, because then the widow said, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” (1 Kings 17:24, NRSV) Apparently, the everlasting meal, oil, and water had not been persuasive.
Elijah was called by God to leave the widow and go back to Ahab, because the Lord planned to end the drought in Samaria. Obadiah was in charge of Ahab’s palace and was not a worshiper of Baal. While Elijah was headed to Samaria to address Ahab, Obadiah had been tasked by Ahab to look for grass for the livestock along the kingdom’s wadis. Ahab went in the opposite direction looking for forage also.
(I keep using the term, so I’ll define it: a wadi is a river channel or creek bed. Wadis differ from rivers because they do not always have water running through them. They’re most common in desert regions like all of the Middle East and in the American Southwest.)
While Obadiah was looking for grass he met Elijah, who was en route to give Ahab the message from the Lord. Obadiah was loathe to tell Ahab that Elijah was back. Ahab had been looking for Elijah for years and he hadn’t been able to find him. (Think Luke Skywalker at the end of The Force Awakens.) Obadiah was afraid that the spirit of the Lord would carry Elijah away and Ahab would kill Obadiah. Elijah reassures Obadiah, who announces Elijah’s presence to Ahab.
Ahab calls Elijah a troublemaker, because of the drought and all. Elijah says, “Nuh-uh, it’s cuz you worshiped Baals.” (Tom’s paraphrase) Elijah calls for a contest at Mount Carmel between the prophets of Baal (there are 450 of them), the prophets of Asherah (400 of them), and Elijah. Ahab was married to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who brought the worship of Baal and Asherah to Ahab’s kingdom. (“Baal” is used both for a specific god of that name, and gods in general that are not the Lord.) Jezebel’s been steamed at Elijah and Obadiah since Obadiah hid and fed 100 of the Lord’s prophets when Jezebel wanted to kill them.
It's a competitive barbecue, and Elijah is totally outnumbered, an underdog in the likes of David v. Goliath, 450 of Baal’s prophets against little ol’ Elijah! (The prophets of Asherah are not mentioned.) The contest is to see which god will light a sacrificial fire on the bull that each side has prepared for sacrifice. Elijah sat down and watched Baal’s prophets prepare their bull, march around their altar, and summon their god. Elijah got cocky and said to Baal’s prophets, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” (1 Kings 18:27, NRSV) The prophets of Baal started to cut themselves with swords, but still there was no answer. It’s like in Sting’s song, “All This Time,” “They prayed to their gods, but the stone gods did not make a sound.”
Around noon, Elijah got around to rebuilding his altar, butchering his bull, cutting wood, and building a trench around the altar. He had the Israelites pour water on the whole thing three times, so much water that the trench around the altar was full. Elijah called on the Lord, and “Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust and even licked up the water that was in the trench.” (1 Kings 18:38, NRSV) The Israelites were totally convinced by this display, and they killed all of Baal’s prophets.
Then Elijah told Ahab to eat something, the drought was ending. He sent someone to the top of Mount Carmel to get a weather report. Sure enough, rain came, Ahab was informed, and Elijah ran in front of Ahab’s chariot (the Lord’s hand was helping Elijah) and they raced back to Jezreel.
It was sort of a good news/bad news situation for Ahab. The good news, the drought was over, the bad news, all of the prophets of his wife’s religion were dead in Wadi Kishon. Ahab had some ‘splainin’ to do. This is the backstory for today’s lectionary text from 1 Kings.
Elijah becomes a refugee. The United Nations definition of a refugee “is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” Refugees leave their countries and seek to be admitted to a third country. In this case, Elijah found himself under a brook tree in the wilderness, and as he imagined, the best case was that he could die there, before Jezebel’s goons could find him. The Lord had other plans. Elijah laid himself down to sleep, which may have been an act of defiance.
In her book, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia Hersey makes the case that rest is resistance “The concept aims to fight against systems of oppression through physical rest and aims to show Black people the power that rest holds.” Now I lay me down to fight the power!
After resting, the Lord provides a snack and a beverage to Elijah. Elijah rests again, and the angel wakes him again, with another snack and drink. The Lord booked a 40-day walking passage to a cave on Mount Horeb for Elijah, thus explaining the second snack.
After Elijah arrives at the cave the Lord asks, “What are you doing?” How one imagines God’s tone of voice colors the story. Is God weary and empathic or hostile and impatient. I tend to think the former. At this point the Lord promises to pass by Elijah with a mighty wind, earthquake, or fire. Elijah stands at the mouth of the cave and the Lord is not in any of the powerful natural spectacles. No, the Lord was in
דקה דממה קל
The Hebrew has been rendered into English a variety of ways, here’s a sample, hats off to Biblegateway.com:
Still, small voice
Soft whisper
Quiet, subdued voice
Soft, murmuring sound
Gentle breeze
Sound of a low whisper
Still small voice
(I included this last one because the comma makes a substantial difference, in my opinion.)
“Still, small voice” is a phrase mainline, midwestern Protestants use when we want to invoke a sense of being led by the Holy Spirit, being completely in the presence of God, or to describe an intuition of God’s leadership. It’s vague; it’s not bombastic and no one ever questions it. “Oh, Marge said she heard a still, small voice, it must be authentic!”
The Lord asks Elijah a second time “What are you doing here, Elijah?” One might think after the wind, earthquake, wildfire, and voice of sheer silence, Elijah might come up with a different answer, but no. The Lord sends him to the wilderness near Damascus, on another errand for the prophet.
In the Sermon
I cannot shake the image of Elijah as a refugee. He had a well-founded fear of persecution; he had to flee his home and seek safety in a foreign land. He was then sent to a third country, where presumably he could find work — the Lord’s always hiring prophets, right?
Like Jeremiah, Elijah suffered enormously for being faithful to God. He was weary, nearly starved, and probably suffered from depression.
The trauma of having to flee one’s home is one that I have only recently become aware of. One of the families my congregation is resettling here in Springfield, Missouri, fled violence in Africa. When the shooting started, the mother and three children ran one way, while the father ran another. No one knows what became of the father.
The vetting process refugees must go through before being admitted to the United States is extremely cumbersome, bureaucratic, and capricious. Imagine trying to find someone from your home village who could confirm that you and your family have a well-founded fear of persecution when your village has been obliterated, and all your neighbors fled, as you did.
Now imagine coming to a new country, flying on an airplane for 28 hours. You haven’t been outside your refugee camp for five years, you’ve never been on an airplane. You are not literate in the only language you speak. Your children have never been to school. It is 50 degrees colder than any weather you have ever known and there is snow on the ground. You have three months to find a job and start supporting yourself. Two weeks after you arrive, the agency tasked with getting you settled loses its funding — money the federal government owes for services already provided — and loses 80% of its staff.
An angel found Elijah hiding under a broom tree. He rested. An angel provided him with food. He rested again, ate again, and the Lord appeared to him. Until we find a lot more brook trees and angels get back into the catering business, a lot of people who care “a whole awful lot,” (The Lorax, Dr. Seuss, Random House, 1971) are needed, desperately.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Meeting God in Silence
In this story, the exhausted Elijah meets the deep tenderness of God, who gives him food, water, and a safe place to sleep. Finally, at Mt. Horeb, the place of God’s revelation, God is present in the deep silence.
Spiritual director Emily P. Freeman says there are many kinds of silence. If we want to find God, there are all kinds of silent places to open up our lives:
Silence has many faces and wears many hats. Silence is an afternoon alone to run your errands. It’s the bliss of pushing your cart through Target, small children at home, your blessed Hawaiian vacation spot where they have a whole Starbucks and a Dollar Section and no one following you into the bathroom to ask for a snack. Silence is a gravestone on a hill. Waxy cloth flowers arranged in the concrete vase, fooling no one. It’s talking to your loved one who’s no longer here, even when the love was complicated or brief or distant or a long time ago. And it’s knowing they can never talk back. Silence is the moment after he says, “I have something to tell you.” It’s the middle of the night peace as you watch your sleeping newborn. It’s the middle of the night panic when you realize your teenager hasn’t arrived home yet. Silence is a friend and a stranger, a welcome and a cold shoulder. It’s the 30 minutes in the carpool line before school lets out.
It’s your apartment on a Saturday morning when your roommates are out of town. It’s a sunset and a snowfall and a garden. Silence is the treatment you get when they don’t know how to have a rational conversation, and it’s the treatment you give when you don’t either. It’s the comfort between two people who have traveled long roads and don’t need to fill the space between them so much anymore.
We don’t know how Elijah experienced God’s silence. Emily P. Freeman adds, “Silence is neutral and cruel and patient and punishing and long. Silence is understanding and misunderstanding. It’s warm and cold. It’s 100 years and a first glance. It’s a friend on the porch and a stranger on the bus. It’s a walk in the woods, a chair by the sea, and the golf course across the street from your childhood home. It’s a pew in the cathedral, a candle in the nighttime, a green leather sofa in the waiting room.” Silence is as varied as the ways we encounter God.
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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Sleep
Nap Bishop Tricia Hersey understands the divine aspect of rest, which we see when God tends to Elijah, nurturing his rest.
Hersey writes:
We are sleep-deprived because the systems view us as machines, but bodies are not machines. Our bodies are a site of liberation. We are divine and our rest is divine. There is synergy, interconnectedness, and deep communal healing within our rest movement. I believe rest, sleep, naps, daydreaming, and slowing down can help us all wake up to see the truth of ourselves. Rest is a healing portal to our deepest selves. Rest is care. Rest is radical. We must stand and lay firmly in the space of creating a life filled with rest and radical care, even amid oppression.
She adds that rest is a form of resistance against systems of evil, as Elijah embodies. “Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. Both these toxic systems refuse to see the inherent divinity in human beings and have used bodies as a tool for production, evil, and destruction for centuries. Grind culture has made us all human machines...Our bodies belong to these toxic systems. We know better. Our Spirits know better.” (from Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto)
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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Rest
In this story from First Kings, God helps Isaiah take a rest when he’s exhausted and afraid. Writer Chloe Hope tells about a similar enforced rest, when the power went out. She says:
Just before New Year’s, our small corner of the village was plunged into darkness after, somewhere deep within the ground, a transistor failed. It took almost three (rather cold) days for power to be restored. During that time, I would spend the day relentlessly bemoaning the lack of heating and other modern conveniences, but, when night rolled in, I softened. Instead of refusing the night with artificial lights and screens, we welcomed it in with fires and candles, and in return the night saw to it that we surrendered the activities of the day. This enforced stilling felt distinctly like being parented, as though something far larger and far wiser than I was gently peeling the toys from my hands and lifting me into bed.
Forced rest can become a gift, when we soften into it.
* * *
Luke 8:26-39
Isolation
The man with the demons must have been so incredibly isolated, living out there in the tombs. Many Americans now share his loneliness.
In Charles Montgomery's book about cities, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, he writes:
People are increasingly solitary. In 1985, the typical American reported having three people he could confide in about important matters. By 2004, his network had shrunk to two, and it hasn’t bounced back since. Almost half the population say they have no one, or just one person, in whom they can confide. Considering that this included close family members, it reflects a stunning decline in social connection. Other surveys show that people are losing ties with their neighborhoods and their communities. They are less likely to say they trust other people and institutions. They don’t invite friends over for dinner or participate in social or volunteer groups as they did decades ago. Like Randy Strausser, most Americans simply don’t know their neighbors anymore.
Montgomery adds:
Even family bonds are being strained. By 2004, less than 30% of American families ate together every night. Social isolation just may be the greatest environmental hazard of city living — worse than noise, pollution, or even crowding. The more connected we are with family and community, the less likely we are to experience colds, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and depression. Simple friendships with other people in one’s neighborhood are some of the best salves for stress during hard economic times — in fact, sociologists have found that when adults keep these friendships, their kids are better insulated from the effects of their parents’ stress. Connected people sleep better at night. They are more able to tackle adversity. They live longer. They consistently report being happier.
Jesus’ gift of healing also restores this man to his neighborhood, and to his friends, where even greater healing happens.
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From team member Katy Stenta:
Galatians 3:23-29
The fact that, in God, there is no male or female, and that humans are made in God’s image, should not be surprising. Gender is a spectrum as illustrated by this chart. The fact that God has created multitudes and that to understand beyond all that is to understand the many facets of God’s creation is well illustrated in this scientific breakdown of how many genders there are in nature and humanity. Thus, understanding that Jesus Christ is about reworking the human structures of gender, ownership, even race, helps us to start to truly understand that belonging to God goes so much deeper than the categories that we humans have. Names and categories are how our human minds start, but grace and understanding are the goals of God’s creative work.
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Psalm 42 and 43
When I am very frustrated, I want to know where God is so I can hand humanity back to the divine. My mom’s best friend used to say, “I’d quit, but I can’t figure out who to hand my resignation in to.” The logic here is, surely, if we need God enough, God will come. However, the abdication of responsibility is not healthy. Though God’s grace is not based upon work, we should participate in our own liberation. If God has been whispering in your ear, then it is time to do something about it. This is especially true in the United States, where Black people have decided to let the rest of the world figure out how to organize, protest, and do the work to show up.
After years of doing the labor, Black people will no longer do the lion’s share of the work on behalf of democracy. As this article says, “Black folks aren’t showing up to be your moral compass anymore. We’re tired of doing the heavy lifting for movements that won’t show up for us.” Perhaps if you are thirsty for God and do not want hate-filled speech to lay claim to all of the God language—then perhaps it is time to go out there and drink the waters of justice and liberation.
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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Elijah may be my favorite prophet. Not only is he honored in the tradition of the Bible, but he struggles. He has real human issues, he gets depressed, hungry, thirsty, and travel weary. He is homeless for a while. A homeless prophet, immigrating, with an immigrant God. He is rejected and lonely. He feels and experiences it all. He is given angels, food, and rest, because that is what he needs.
Elijah is a reminder that it is hard to hear God when you don’t have your basic needs met. If you are unhoused, hungry, and thirsty, you need an angel to help you before you can even be aware of God’s presence. God knows that. I find this comforting. God understands how we are made, that we need food, clothing, water, shelter, and companionship before we can understand that God is with us. God built us this way. Thus, if we want to share the experience of God with one another, we have to take care of each other first. Again, God knows this. Thus, our call to care and empathize with one another is clear.
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Luke 8:26-39
It is amazing here how the man is one being, but the legion could represent any systematic oppression standing behind him. It could be racism, it could be immigration, it could be homophobia. It could be the need to use AI because of the capitalistic pressure to work quickly and to look like everyone else. Legion can be any power and principality that is embodied in a single human being who is suffering and yet still is a tool of that power structure. One cannot help but think of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Kristi Noem to name a few. They are suffering and yet drunk on the power they have from the legion behind them. Every time someone names what is truly empowering them and how wrong it is, a tantrum is had, and they want to destroy the truth-teller. What would the confrontation be, one has to wonder, if Jesus came along and showed them the truth about themselves and their power?
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From team member Nazish Naseem:
Luke 8:26-39
The Journeys from darkness into light
In a vibrant urban area along the United States-Mexico border, a neighborhood exists that is rich in diverse narratives from various international backgrounds. Among the newcomers is a young woman named Sofia (a pseudonym), who sought refuge from her home country in pursuit of safety and opportunity. Her arrival in the city was filled with hope for a new beginning, yet she also carried the burdens of her past traumas, yearning for a life free from fear. Little did she know, the path to her new life would be fraught with challenges, a journey that many migrants can relate to.
Sofia encountered numerous challenges, including language barriers that made it difficult for her to communicate her needs, cultural differences that often left her feeling isolated, and the emotional scars resulting from her journey that haunted her every step. As days transitioned into weeks, she frequently found herself traversing the streets, feeling lost and invisible amidst the bustling population. The anxiety stemming from her past lingered, reminiscent of the demons afflicting the man described in Luke 8:26-39.
Sofia recalled that her early life was fraught with challenges, as she had internalized the belief that she did not belong in her home country due to her Christian faith, and challenge such as the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917) and the Cristero Revolt (1926–1929), which marked her as an outsider.
One day, while seated in a modest park, a compassionate group of local volunteers approached her. Enveloped in bright shirts proclaimed with the word "Hope," they offered food and warm clothing and shared their narratives of struggle and hope. Motivated by their faith, these volunteers spoke of a figure named Jesus, who is renowned for bringing healing and hope to those in despair.
Similar to how Jesus engaged the afflicted man from Gerasene with compassion, these volunteers interacted with Sofia in a spirit of kindness and understanding. They actively listened to her story, validating her fears and struggles, acknowledging her pain, and providing not only material support but also friendship and encouragement, thereby reassuring her that she was not alone.
This interaction marked a significant turning point in Sofia's life. It was not just the material support she received but the sense of belonging and understanding that these volunteers provided that catalyzed her transformation. Their compassion and understanding were the catalysts that helped her muster the courage to embark on a new chapter, acquire proficiency in English, secure employment, and ultimately become an advocate for other migrants, guiding them through their own journeys with compassion and understanding.
As the man in the biblical account transitioned from a state of torment to one of spreading hope and healing, Sofia emerged as a beacon of light in her community. She not only overcame her own struggles but also began sharing her experiences, thereby inspiring others who had faced similar challenges to discover their inherent strength and resilience. Her advocacy work created a ripple effect of hope and healing in her community.
This narrative illustrates the parallels between Sofia’s experiences and the healing account found in Luke 8:26-39. It serves as a poignant reminder that, regardless of how lost or afflicted an individual may feel, compassion and community engagement can facilitate transformation and instill hope. The message encourages the embrace of marginalized individuals, offering them the support and love they require to reclaim their lives and aspirations.
* * *
Galatians 3:23-29
Bridges of Grace: Emily's Journey to Unity and Acceptance
In a small town, there was a quaint church known for its vibrant community, led by a caring pastor Emily's father. Emily, the pastor's daughter, was a bright and compassionate young woman who loved the Lord deeply. However, she often witnessed troubling dynamics at home regarding her grandmother's treatment of low-status workers who came to collect their toilet waste, as they lacked a drainage system at the time.
Emily noticed that the woman who came to clean their toilet would carry the waste of human excrement in a bucket on her head. Her grandmother had a separate cup or glass for this woman and considered her unclean. Emily felt heartbroken by the subtle yet palpable discrimination she observed. Although she loved her grandmother dearly, she couldn't understand why invisible barriers seemed to exist between people.
One day, with courage beyond her years, Emily approached her father. "Dad, why do we treat some people differently?" she asked, her eyes welling with tears. "In the Bible, it says we are all one in Christ. Why can't we live that out?" Her father listened intently, appreciating his daughter's conviction and insight; however, he couldn't convince his mother to change her views.
Determined to create change, Emily decided to treat the cleaning lady with respect. She prepared a welcoming space, offering the woman water in a nice glass, ensuring her grandmother was not around. Emily's compassion was genuine, and her empathy shone through in school, college, and everywhere she went.
Meanwhile, a young man named David was interested in Emily and proposed to her. After Emily shared the proposal with her mother, her mother conveyed it to her father. David had recently graduated from university with a master's degree in chemistry. However, Emily's father denied the proposal due to the young man's social status, as his parents worked as sweepers in the town community. Emily also carried the weight of personal trauma stemming from the societal biases she witnessed and experienced, especially as a Christian, even though her family was not involved in the sweeping profession.
Read Christian Sweepers in Lahore and Dalit Christian.
Years later, during a moment of vulnerability, she poured her heart out to her father. "I wish you could see beyond our family names and backgrounds," she said. "Just like the lower-income families, I too feel overlooked and judged." Her father reassured her that God sees the heart, not status or appearances, echoing the essence of Galatians 3:23-29.
As Emily continued to learn about the church's messaging, she realized that Jesus came to break down all barriers. He loved and accepted everyone, regardless of their past or status. Inspired by her father's words, she began sharing her experiences during church gatherings, advocating for a culture of acceptance and love.
Gradually, Emily's home began to change. People started embracing one another, no longer serving their neighbors with separate cups and glasses. Emily's bravery in sharing her story inspired others to share their own experiences, creating a powerful ripple effect of healing and acceptance.
This story encapsulates Galatians 3:23-29, emphasizing the freedom found in Christ, the call to unity, and the importance of recognizing each person as a beloved child of God—not defined by their backgrounds or social status. Emily's journey highlights the importance of acknowledging biases and striving to promote inclusion within the body of Christ, reminding us that in him, we are all made one.
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Psalms 42 and 43
From Darkness to Dawn: A Journey of Longing and Hope
I have always seen deer in the zoo, and I never could imagine free deer wandering around, seeking food and water for survival, until I came to New York and witnessed them.
Imagine a vast wilderness under the scorching sun. In the foreground, a deer stands at the edge of a dry stream bed, its tongue lolling, searching for water. Its wide eyes reflect longing and desperation. Beyond the deer, distant hills shimmer with heat, symbolizing the distant presence of God, a presence that seems both near and far, evoking a sense of distance and yearning.
The deer, a potent symbol of the soul's profound yearning for God and spiritual nourishment, echoes the opening lines that liken the soul's thirst to a deer's thirst for water. Just as the deer's survival hinges on finding water, our spiritual survival is deeply rooted in our longing for God, a contrast that underscores the profound yearning for spiritual nourishment.
Transition to a vibrant scene of a bustling temple filled with people rejoicing, singing, and celebrating. In the foreground, the central figure stands with a joyful expression but has tears streaming down their face, starkly illustrating the contrast between past joy and present sorrow.
This contrast underscores the painful reality of the figure's current state, where memories of vibrant worship and community only serve to highlight their feelings of abandonment and longing. It's a stark reminder of the fleeting nature of joy and the enduring nature of sorrow.
Surrounded by darkness and with a storm brewing overhead, the figure sits by the lake with a heavy heart. The shadows that engulf the area and the impending storm serve as powerful symbols of the turmoil and despair that the figure is experiencing. It's a moment of profound darkness and hopelessness in the journey.
This captures the internal battle—the cry of the soul questioning, 'Why are you downcast?' suggesting a relentless struggle to find hope amidst the overwhelming weight of depression. This struggle is not just a part of the journey, but it is the journey itself, a testament to the depth of the emotional and spiritual struggle. It's a journey that weighs heavily on the soul, a struggle that is not easily overcome.
The figure now looks up towards the horizon, where light peeks through the clouds. They are speaking to their hearts with renewed determination, depicted by a flicker of hope in their eyes, a testament to the strength of their faith. This resilience and faith inspire us to believe in the possibility of hope, even in the darkest of times. This moment represents a critical turning point in the journey, reminding us to place our hope in God despite the circumstances.
* * *
Psalm 43...
is a place of worship, surrounded by a community of believers. They raise their hands in praise of a bright sky overhead, filled with vibrant colors of dawn — a sign of hope and new beginnings. This return to joy and the vibrant colors of dawn evoke a sense of celebration and new beginnings in the audience. It's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, there is always the promise of a new day, a new beginning. It's a moment that fills the heart with hope and anticipation for what A majestic river flows through the landscape, cutting through darkness. The figure stands confidently at the river's edge, now with a staff representing strength and faith. They lift their voice to the heavens, calling for God's light and truth to guide them while a soft glow begins to illuminate the path ahead.
This is a fervent plea for divine help and guidance, a plea that illustrates a profound trust in God's justice and a deep desire for clarity in the midst of overwhelming confusion. It's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we can trust in God's plan and seek His guidance. The figure's plea for God's light and truth to guide them is a testament to the role of divine guidance in their journey and a reminder of God's ability to bring clarity and light in times of confusion.
In the final scene, the figure is now back in lies ahead.
This encapsulates the ultimate resolution: a return to joy and an affirmation of faith, celebrating the journey from despair to worship. I reflect on my faith journey amid physical limitations, particularly when I faced rejection due to my inability to bear children after surviving thyroid cancer and five strokes. One day, feeling isolated from my family, I found myself asking God, 'I only care to be with you when I die.' This moment encapsulates the journey from despair to a renewed spirit of worship, affirming faith and hope in the beauty of shared belief.
These images capture the profound journey found in Psalms 42 and 43, illustrating a deep longing for God, the struggle against despair, and the unwavering hope experienced through faith and community. They inspire us to seek divine connection and remind us of the light that can break through even the darkest moments. This unwavering hope, found in the support of our faith and community, is a beacon of inspiration in our own journeys.
* * *
1 Kings 19:1-15
Finding Strength and Solace in Despair
We encounter a pivotal moment in the life of the prophet Elijah. After his remarkable victory over Baal's prophets on Mount Carmel, where God's power shone through divine fire, Elijah faces the wrath of Queen Jezebel, who threatens his life. This episode illustrates Elijah's intense fear, plunging him into despair and leading to a significant encounter with God. It's a story that resonates with many of us as we, too, face moments of fear and despair in our faith journeys.
Upon receiving Jezebel's death threat, Elijah, consumed by a profound fear, retreats into the wilderness, feeling utterly defeated and isolated. In this vulnerable state, his fear casts a shadow over his mission, threatening to engulf him.
Overwhelmed by sadness, Elijah even prays for death, revealing his feelings of inadequacy. This emotional turmoil is a struggle many of us can relate to, reminding us that even the strongest can feel weak. Seeking relief from his burdens, he falls asleep beneath a broom tree.
In a beautiful act of care, an angel awakens Elijah, providing him with food and drink. This nourishment not only sustains him physically but also brings a sense of relief, preparing him for the journey ahead. It highlights God's unwavering support during our darkest moments, reassuring us that we are never truly alone.
At Mount Horeb, Elijah finds refuge in a cave, where God asks, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" His reply unveils his profound sense of isolation and despair. Yet, God's presence isn't revealed through mighty winds, earthquakes, or fire but rather through a gentle whisper. This illustrates that God often communicates in subtle ways, encouraging us to listen closely, for His guidance may emerge in the stillness. It's a reminder that we should always be attentive to God's voice, even when it seems quiet or distant.
After Elijah voices his feelings, God renews his mission, instructing him to anoint new kings and appoint a successor, Elisha. This act underscores the importance of passing on spiritual leadership, inspiring us to continue our missions and prepare the way for the next generation. It reminds us that our roles are not just personal but also communal, contributing to the continuity and growth of our faith communities.
This passage serves as a powerful reminder of human experiences of fear and despair, the significance of divine sustenance, and the call to persevere in the face of challenges. It illustrates that God stands by our side, providing comfort and direction when we feel utterly alone. Let us carry these lessons with us as we navigate our faith journeys, drawing strength from Elijah's story and the unwavering presence of God in our lives. May we be empowered by these lessons to face our own challenges with courage and faith.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so our souls long for God.
All: Our souls thirst for God, for the living God.
One: By day the LORD commands steadfast love.
All: At night God's song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
One: O send out your light and your truth; let them lead us.
All: Let them bring us to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
OR
One: In the midst of the legions of demons, the Christ comes.
All: We are tormented by the forces surrounding us.
One: Open your hearts and minds to the new power among us.
All: We seek the power of God to cast out our demons.
One: Christ offers us freedom and a new life in God’s love.
All: We open our minds and hearts to that healing touch.
Hymns and Songs
O Worship the King
UMH: 73
H82: 388
PH: 476
GTG: 41
NNBH: 6
NCH: 26
CH: 17
LBW: 548
ELW: 842
W&P: 2
AMEC: 12
Praise, My Soul, the King (God) of Heaven
UMH: 66
H82: 410
PH: 620
CH: 23
LBW: 549
ELW: 864/865
W&P: 82
AMEC: 70
Renew: 53
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
UMH: 79
H82: 366
PH: 460
GTG: 4
NNBH: 13
NCH: 276
LBW: 535
ELW: 414
W&P: 138
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
UMH: 154/155
H82: 450/451
PH: 142/1473
GTG: 263
AAHH: 292/293/294
NNBH: 3/5
NCH: 304
CH: 91/92
LBW: 328/329
ELW: 634
W&P: 100/106
AMEC: 4/5/6
Renew: 45
At the Name of Jesus
UMH: 168
H82: 435
PH: 148
GTG: 264
LBW: 179
ELW: 416
W&P: 321
Renew: 133/279
Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit (Even if not in your hymnal it’s worth a look)
UMH: 264
GTG: 180/181
CH: 186
This Is My Song
UMH: 437
GTG: 340
NCH: 591
CH: 722
ELW: 887
STLT: 159
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
GTG: 720
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELW: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
He Touched Me
UMH: 367
AAHH: 273
NNBH: 147
CH: 564
AMEC: 402
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
GTG: 734
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
The Steadfast Love of the Lord
CCB: 28
Renew: 23
Praise the Name of Jesus
CCB: 39
Renew: 7
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who seeks to cast out all that would destroy:
Grant us the courage to give up things that harm
and always seek new life in Jesus the Christ;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who rid us of all that destroys. You seek to bring us back to our right minds. Give us the courage to open ourselves to you and to the new life you bring. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our clinging to ways that destroy us and our neighbor.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have offered us freedom and new life but we cling to the old ways. The new is scary and we seek to stay with what we know rather than journey out to new ways. Our faith in our Savior is weak and we tremble at what new thing he may bring into our lives. Forgive us and embolden our faith that we may seek new life for ourselves and for all. Amen.
One: Jesus comes to bring us new life. Receive the gift and be filled anew with the Spirit.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, because you not only have created us and this world but you seek to ever create us anew. We are in awe of your love that seeks us and redeems us.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have offered us freedom and new life but we cling to the old ways. The new is scary and we seek to stay with what we know rather than journey out to new ways. Our faith in our Savior is weak and we tremble at what new thing he may bring into our lives. Forgive us and embolden our faith that we may seek new life for ourselves and for all.
We give you thanks for the new life you offer us. Your gracious Spirit blesses each day. We thank you for those who have allowed you to free their minds of the demons around us so that they can offer testimony to you great love. We thank you for those who offer us strength and rest so that we can continue on our journey following the Christ.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift up to you those who are oppressed by the demons of this world: greed, prejudice, enmity, hatred, and division. They do, indeed, seem to be Legion. We pray for those who suffer when others allow themselves to be taken over by these forces. We pray also for those who are caught in their snares. So fill us with your Spirit that we may be a refuge of healing for those hurting around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN’S SERMON
A Snack and a Nap
by Dean Feldmeyer
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
You Will Need: A pillow and your favorite snack.
Tell Your Version Of This Story:
Do you ever get really tired? I mean, so tired that you just can’t keep your eyes open. So tired that no matter what you do you just can’t stay awake?
Yeah, me too.
I’ll work hard all day and then I will sit down in the evening to watch television and the next thing I know I’m waking up because I fell asleep.
Well, today we have a story from the book of 1 Kings about a man named Elijah who was that tired. And he was afraid, too. See, he had done some things that made the evil queen angry, and she had sent her soldiers out to find him and kill him so he was running and hiding them.
After he had run for so long and so far, he was so worn out he couldn’t go any further. So he sat down to rest in the shade of a tree, and he was so tired that he fell asleep.
God saw him there sleeping in the shade and sent an angel to watch over him. After a while, the angel woke Elijah up and fixed him a snack of delicious bread and cool, refreshing water. Elijah ate the snack and drank the water, but he was still tired, so he went back to sleep.
Again, after a while, the angel woke him up and gave him another snack and the angel told him that this place was not safe, and he had to keep going and find a safe place. This time, because he had a nap and two snacks, he was rested and strong enough that he climbed a mountain and found a place to stay until it was safe to come out of hiding.
We always think of God doing big things for the people God loves, but sometimes God does little things that are just as important. Things like our parents or grandparents or teachers do for us every day — like giving us a snack and letting us take a nap so we will be strong again later.
End with a prayer, thanking God for the little things that keep us healthy and safe and the people that provide those things for us.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 22, 2025 issue.
Copyright 2025 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- The Terrifying Sound of Broken Chains by Chris Keating based on Luke 8:26-39. Though Jesus’ healing of the Gerasene Demoniac produces more fear than calm among the people he had terrorized, it is a reminder of God’s triumph over the powers of fear and all that threatens to dominate us.
- Second Thoughts: Caring People Are Desperately Needed by Tom Willadsen based on 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a and Psalm 42 and 43.
- Sermon illustrations by Nazish Naseem, Mary Austin, Katy Stenta.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children’s sermon: A Snack and A Nap by Dean Feldmeyer based on 1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a.
The Terrifying Sound of Broken Chainsby Chris Keating
Luke 8:26-39
One day, the summer of 2025 may be known as America’s ICE age. Perhaps not meteorologically — but certainly politically.
The Trump administration’s policies regarding immigration have frozen our nation’s capacity to think imaginatively. Fears of a changing society, worries over border policies, and a president bent toward authoritarianism have all contributed to something akin to what the late Walter Brueggemann once termed “ideological totalism.” Such totalism, said Brueggemann “intends to contain all thinkable, imaginable, doable social possibilities.”
Brueggemann wrote that in his mind, the biblical experience of totalism remained intolerant of any alternative thinking.
For many families, this fear-based totalism has replaced carefree summer evenings with worries about federal agents swarming homes, businesses, and even parks in search of undocumented immigrants. The buzzing of cicadas has been replaced by sounds of helicopters hovering, and the stomping of heavily armed agents out of unmarked vans. Residents of Madison, SD watched as agents swooped up neighbors and coworkers just days after the community had protested the commencement address by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at Dakota State.
In Southern California, home to perhaps a million undocumented people, the sounds of friends gathered in parks dancing to impromptu mariachi concerts were replaced with police flash-bangs attempting to silence chanting protestors. Everyday trips to the store, work, or even graduation celebrations quickly became moments filled with worries that family and friends could be apprehended without notice.
It’s no surprise that last week’s protests in California and other states have grown in intensity following President Trump’s ordering of troops. The armed military response in Los Angeles only heightened tensions, creating a spectacle instead of solving a problem. Those prone to creating chaos reportedly stepped into the spaces where others were exercising distinction and called the result a change from peaceful protesting to chaotic anarchy.
But like the rattling chains of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke 8:26-39, the sounds we are hearing are the cries of those yearning for liberation. The story narrates the tension between the alternative kingdom Jesus proclaims and the fear and violence promulgated by the Roman Emperor. Even news that their local wild man was tamed proved to be no comfort for the traumatized Gerasene population. When they saw him “healed and in his right mind,” they became even more afraid.
Such escalating fear dominates our culture. The gospel text this week reminds us that the powers of the world stand no chance against Jesus. Yet the sounds of the man’s broken chains will not bring comfort until the promise of liberation echoes in their ears as well.
But it is hard to hear the sound of healing as the emperor’s thunderous rage blasts across the land.
In the News
Not long after he heard the news about a large immigration raid in Los Angeles on Friday, June 6, Catholic priest Father Brendan Busse rushed from the school where he had been leading an eighth grade graduation. He drove to the city’s fashion district, the bustling hub of the West Coast’s garment industry.
A veteran priest who has worked among marginalized people across the globe, Fr. Busse could not believe what he found. “It was almost like every science fiction movie, where there’s an alien occupation from another planet that comes in with guns and flash grenades and pepper spray, in order to seek out and to hunt certain people who were there just trying to do their daily job,” he said, according to the Religion News Service.
He likened what he saw to being “on the receiving end of an occupation.”
The raid was the tipping point of a weekend filled with protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detaining and deporting of immigrants. It would lead to President Trump federalizing National Guard Troops and deploying Marines.
According to commentator Charlie Sykes, this may be the moment the administration had been waiting for. “The president is enjoying this,” wrote Sykes. “Donald Trump wants nothing more than to change the narrative from the horrors of the raids to what he wants the American people to see as a city under siege.”
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump sees these moments as Trump releasing “his 2020 demons.” Bump suggests that many of Trump’s policies and actions have been aimed at rebutting the protests he faced during his first administration, particularly after George Floyd’s death in 2020. “It was a message that Trump’s mostly White base could get behind,” writes Bump. “Black and Hispanic and gay people were trying to steal attention and power that was rightfully theirs.” Since returning to office, Trump has focused “fervently and ferociously” against the forces he believed turned him out of office.
Trump’s saber-rattling is particularly centered on reversing what he sees as overly lenient border policies. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat notes that the immigration raids, as well as Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” have become the centerpiece of Trump 2.0 and redefinition of conservatism in America. Douthet sought to explore Trumpism’s relationship to conservative politics in an interview this week with conservative scholar Matthew Continetti.
Continetti contends that Trump’s reinterpretation of conservative politics begins with his belief that America’s post-World War II policies were flawed. Continetti said that the pre-World War II American right was constructed on interlocking axis of immigration, trade, and foreign policy — all key elements of Trump’s agenda. While Trump wishes to be seen as a peacemaker, it is more important for him to be viewed as strong, said Continetti. And the one area where he has been strongest in making change, said Continetti, is immigration.
Strong, like an emperor, or a king like Solomon, who silenced prophets, worshiped opulence, and bowed to what Brueggemann called “an anemic God, whose only function was to bless the regime.”
In the Scripture
In Luke’s depiction of the healing of the Gerasene Demoniac, Jesus is anything but anemic. He steps onto the shoreline of a predominantly Gentile territory. Scholars are unsure of the precise location. Matthew’s telling of the story places the location in the country of the “Gadarenes,” a location about six miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee, a city offered to Herod by Caesar Augustus. Luke and Mark record what is happening in the region of “Gergesenes,” which could be near Gerasa, some thirty-three miles southeast of Galilee.
Gerasa was also a stronghold of Rome, founded by Alexander the Great, and outfitted with prominent features of the empire including an arch, hippodrome, theaters, and temples. Either way, this story highlights Jesus’ incursion into Gentile lands. In Luke’s gospel, this is the only account of Jesus ministering in Gentile territory.
Readers sometimes see the story as a sort of biblical horror story. Picture a sadistic Hannibal Lector figure, unable to be contained despite locks and chains. Or a Michael Myers-ish stalker, a heinous figure hellbent on inciting fear. The man throws off any constraint placed upon him. He seems unstoppable, naked yet unafraid.
The man seems to understand that all of these demonic powers stand no chance against Jesus. The encounter evokes images of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-13) where Jesus withstands any of Satan’s enticements. Curiously, when Jesus asks the man his name, he responds by saying “Legion,” a name clearly identified with Rome.
The story includes important connections to the totalism represented by Rome. The man is controlled by the legion of demons, just as these lands were subject to the emperor’s imperious ways. The demon possessed man, like others who are oppressed, is subject to the whims and desires of this totalism. Like contemporary authoritarian rulers, the demons live in a world controlled by binary options: good/evil, terror/peace, life/execution. Yet Jesus’ presence evokes a response to those limited choices. To quote from Bruggemann again, Jesus acts out an alternative to the Roman Empire. To be Christian in this moment, Bruggemann wrote in 2018, is to accept our mandate to expose “the contradictions and perform the alternatives.”
Faced with these alternatives, the demons cry out. Chelsea Brooke Yarborough notes that even though they have not withheld mercy from the man, they plead for mercy from Jesus. They do not wish to return to the abyss, which presumably represents the chaos controlled by Satan. But then the story takes an even stranger turn as Jesus hurls the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs. These demon-seized pigs can fly — right off the cliff that is. Those little piggies are not coming home.
But this is still not the end of the story. The man’s healing creates more fear from the townsfolk. They hear his empty chains rattling, and no doubt wonder: who could still the powers of evil, who could bring such powerful liberation? The man, for his part, does not get to follow Jesus. Instead, he is sent back to be a witness, testifying to the power of Jesus over the devastating effects of evil and its minions.
In the Sermon
For many, the uncertainty of this current ICE age creates fear. It is a fear that arises from many places — fear of change, fear of immigrants, fear of totalitarianism, fear of everyday life characterized by shackles of evil and torment. Like the man possessed by demons, we feel out of control. Like the residents of the village, we are suspicious of attempts to eradicate evil.
I think the circumstances of our present day offer us a chance to reconsider how we have often draped the demon-possessed man with a mantle of mental illness. The image can be harmful to those struggling with addiction, depression, or serious mental health challenges. It creates a culture of shame that may keep folks from seeking help. Instead, the sermon can help imagine the possibilities of God’s liberating gifts. On Pentecost, we saw the strange, disrupting power that brought new understanding to the apostles.
Secondly, the story compels us to consider those whom we may characterize as being possessed by demons, and our reluctance to their presence among us? We know that most immigrants, legal or otherwise, do not commit massive amounts of violent crime. Like our great-grandparents and hosts of others who have come before us, they are clamoring to shed the chains of their previous existence.
Can we begin to imagine what sort of testimony they might offer us to God’s acts of liberation? Might it be closely aligned with the testimony the apostles brought after the spectacle of Pentecost? Could it sound much like the witness of the man freed from years of torment? Help our congregations begin to imagine the strength of that man’s testimony as he holds up his broken chains and proclaims God’s triumph.
The power of the emperor seduces us with invitations to worship a weak God. The emperor limits our imagination by inciting flames of fear and worries of chaos. Yet Jesus brings an alternative. He rebukes the powers of the emperor just as he withstood Satan’s enticements. He offers restoration to the community not by isolating those who do not conform, but by creating new possibilities.
This is the witness we can offer while others are seduced into thinking only the power of empire can save. Christ offers a new identity to those who believe allegiance to the status quo is the only possibility. It is a message of salvation offered even to Gentile swine herders whose feet are clad with the muck, mud, and manure of evil.
This is our good news: the demons are gone, the chains have been broken, and the only sound we should hear are the shouts of the healed man’s jubilant witness. Broken chains no longer symbolize that fear is on the loose. Instead, we are called to be witnesses to the one who sets all free.
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SECOND THOUGHTSCaring People Are Desperately Needed
by Tom Willadsen
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a, Psalm 42 and 43
In the Scriptures
Psalm 42 and 43 should be regarded as a single psalm. It is not clear why editors separated them. Scholars are confident that these psalms were composed after the Exile, still they could have been on the lips of Elijah as he fled from Jezebel’s wrath. The psalmist recalls happier times when he was part of the “throng” of people processing to the temple, filled with joy. Translations for גֵגח in 42:4 vary. It may mean “celebrating” or “noble.” So, it could indicate a throng of noble people celebrating, or an esteemed, joy-filled group of people. Whatever the connotation, the psalmist recalls happier times, in stark contrast to the arid, barren times of thirsty deer, panting for water. Again, a nice connection to Elijah’s story, who’s been on the lam since 1 Kings 17:1, because of the drought the Lord told him to inform Ahab of.
The Psalms have a timeless feel. The psalmist expresses profound despair but also clings to hope in the living God. Recalling happy memories of better times also brings some solace. Even in the midst of despair, the psalmist knows to call on, and find hope in, God.
The only thing people remember from this morning’s passage from 1 Kings is “the still, small voice.” That’s a phrase that resonates in many people’s memories. It’s pithy, important, and memorable, but there’s so much more going on in Elijah’s life. I’ll do a deep dive into Elijah this week, confident that my fellow Immediate Word writers will have something to say about the Christian scriptures.
Elijah called out King Ahab for worshiping Baal, the god of the Samarians. Elijah announced a cessation of rain, then headed east of the Jordan, at the Lord’s instruction.
Elijah kept it on the downlow for a while, staying at Wadi Cherith and ravens brought him bread and meat twice a day. The wadi provided the water he needed... until it didn’t. That’s what happens when the Lord’s prophet calls for a cessation of rain.
The Lord told Elijah to head to Zarephath in Sidon, where Elijah met a widow who was gathering sticks, preparing to cook her and her son’s last meal. She was nearly out of food; nothing was growing because of the drought. Elijah asked her to whip up a small cake with her remaining meal and to give him a drink. Elijah told the widow that her oil and meal would not run out as long as he stayed with her. It worked! Elijah got his cake and the meal, oil and water didn’t run out.
When the widow’s only son died, Elijah got the blame for that. Elijah took the issue to the Lord, cried out to the Lord, who listened and helped Elijah bring the boy back to life! Good thing, because then the widow said, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” (1 Kings 17:24, NRSV) Apparently, the everlasting meal, oil, and water had not been persuasive.
Elijah was called by God to leave the widow and go back to Ahab, because the Lord planned to end the drought in Samaria. Obadiah was in charge of Ahab’s palace and was not a worshiper of Baal. While Elijah was headed to Samaria to address Ahab, Obadiah had been tasked by Ahab to look for grass for the livestock along the kingdom’s wadis. Ahab went in the opposite direction looking for forage also.
(I keep using the term, so I’ll define it: a wadi is a river channel or creek bed. Wadis differ from rivers because they do not always have water running through them. They’re most common in desert regions like all of the Middle East and in the American Southwest.)
While Obadiah was looking for grass he met Elijah, who was en route to give Ahab the message from the Lord. Obadiah was loathe to tell Ahab that Elijah was back. Ahab had been looking for Elijah for years and he hadn’t been able to find him. (Think Luke Skywalker at the end of The Force Awakens.) Obadiah was afraid that the spirit of the Lord would carry Elijah away and Ahab would kill Obadiah. Elijah reassures Obadiah, who announces Elijah’s presence to Ahab.
Ahab calls Elijah a troublemaker, because of the drought and all. Elijah says, “Nuh-uh, it’s cuz you worshiped Baals.” (Tom’s paraphrase) Elijah calls for a contest at Mount Carmel between the prophets of Baal (there are 450 of them), the prophets of Asherah (400 of them), and Elijah. Ahab was married to Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who brought the worship of Baal and Asherah to Ahab’s kingdom. (“Baal” is used both for a specific god of that name, and gods in general that are not the Lord.) Jezebel’s been steamed at Elijah and Obadiah since Obadiah hid and fed 100 of the Lord’s prophets when Jezebel wanted to kill them.
It's a competitive barbecue, and Elijah is totally outnumbered, an underdog in the likes of David v. Goliath, 450 of Baal’s prophets against little ol’ Elijah! (The prophets of Asherah are not mentioned.) The contest is to see which god will light a sacrificial fire on the bull that each side has prepared for sacrifice. Elijah sat down and watched Baal’s prophets prepare their bull, march around their altar, and summon their god. Elijah got cocky and said to Baal’s prophets, “Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” (1 Kings 18:27, NRSV) The prophets of Baal started to cut themselves with swords, but still there was no answer. It’s like in Sting’s song, “All This Time,” “They prayed to their gods, but the stone gods did not make a sound.”
Around noon, Elijah got around to rebuilding his altar, butchering his bull, cutting wood, and building a trench around the altar. He had the Israelites pour water on the whole thing three times, so much water that the trench around the altar was full. Elijah called on the Lord, and “Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust and even licked up the water that was in the trench.” (1 Kings 18:38, NRSV) The Israelites were totally convinced by this display, and they killed all of Baal’s prophets.
Then Elijah told Ahab to eat something, the drought was ending. He sent someone to the top of Mount Carmel to get a weather report. Sure enough, rain came, Ahab was informed, and Elijah ran in front of Ahab’s chariot (the Lord’s hand was helping Elijah) and they raced back to Jezreel.
It was sort of a good news/bad news situation for Ahab. The good news, the drought was over, the bad news, all of the prophets of his wife’s religion were dead in Wadi Kishon. Ahab had some ‘splainin’ to do. This is the backstory for today’s lectionary text from 1 Kings.
Elijah becomes a refugee. The United Nations definition of a refugee “is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.” Refugees leave their countries and seek to be admitted to a third country. In this case, Elijah found himself under a brook tree in the wilderness, and as he imagined, the best case was that he could die there, before Jezebel’s goons could find him. The Lord had other plans. Elijah laid himself down to sleep, which may have been an act of defiance.
In her book, Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, Tricia Hersey makes the case that rest is resistance “The concept aims to fight against systems of oppression through physical rest and aims to show Black people the power that rest holds.” Now I lay me down to fight the power!
After resting, the Lord provides a snack and a beverage to Elijah. Elijah rests again, and the angel wakes him again, with another snack and drink. The Lord booked a 40-day walking passage to a cave on Mount Horeb for Elijah, thus explaining the second snack.
After Elijah arrives at the cave the Lord asks, “What are you doing?” How one imagines God’s tone of voice colors the story. Is God weary and empathic or hostile and impatient. I tend to think the former. At this point the Lord promises to pass by Elijah with a mighty wind, earthquake, or fire. Elijah stands at the mouth of the cave and the Lord is not in any of the powerful natural spectacles. No, the Lord was in
דקה דממה קל
The Hebrew has been rendered into English a variety of ways, here’s a sample, hats off to Biblegateway.com:
Still, small voice
Soft whisper
Quiet, subdued voice
Soft, murmuring sound
Gentle breeze
Sound of a low whisper
Still small voice
(I included this last one because the comma makes a substantial difference, in my opinion.)
“Still, small voice” is a phrase mainline, midwestern Protestants use when we want to invoke a sense of being led by the Holy Spirit, being completely in the presence of God, or to describe an intuition of God’s leadership. It’s vague; it’s not bombastic and no one ever questions it. “Oh, Marge said she heard a still, small voice, it must be authentic!”
The Lord asks Elijah a second time “What are you doing here, Elijah?” One might think after the wind, earthquake, wildfire, and voice of sheer silence, Elijah might come up with a different answer, but no. The Lord sends him to the wilderness near Damascus, on another errand for the prophet.
In the Sermon
I cannot shake the image of Elijah as a refugee. He had a well-founded fear of persecution; he had to flee his home and seek safety in a foreign land. He was then sent to a third country, where presumably he could find work — the Lord’s always hiring prophets, right?
Like Jeremiah, Elijah suffered enormously for being faithful to God. He was weary, nearly starved, and probably suffered from depression.
The trauma of having to flee one’s home is one that I have only recently become aware of. One of the families my congregation is resettling here in Springfield, Missouri, fled violence in Africa. When the shooting started, the mother and three children ran one way, while the father ran another. No one knows what became of the father.
The vetting process refugees must go through before being admitted to the United States is extremely cumbersome, bureaucratic, and capricious. Imagine trying to find someone from your home village who could confirm that you and your family have a well-founded fear of persecution when your village has been obliterated, and all your neighbors fled, as you did.
Now imagine coming to a new country, flying on an airplane for 28 hours. You haven’t been outside your refugee camp for five years, you’ve never been on an airplane. You are not literate in the only language you speak. Your children have never been to school. It is 50 degrees colder than any weather you have ever known and there is snow on the ground. You have three months to find a job and start supporting yourself. Two weeks after you arrive, the agency tasked with getting you settled loses its funding — money the federal government owes for services already provided — and loses 80% of its staff.
An angel found Elijah hiding under a broom tree. He rested. An angel provided him with food. He rested again, ate again, and the Lord appeared to him. Until we find a lot more brook trees and angels get back into the catering business, a lot of people who care “a whole awful lot,” (The Lorax, Dr. Seuss, Random House, 1971) are needed, desperately.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Meeting God in Silence
In this story, the exhausted Elijah meets the deep tenderness of God, who gives him food, water, and a safe place to sleep. Finally, at Mt. Horeb, the place of God’s revelation, God is present in the deep silence.
Spiritual director Emily P. Freeman says there are many kinds of silence. If we want to find God, there are all kinds of silent places to open up our lives:
Silence has many faces and wears many hats. Silence is an afternoon alone to run your errands. It’s the bliss of pushing your cart through Target, small children at home, your blessed Hawaiian vacation spot where they have a whole Starbucks and a Dollar Section and no one following you into the bathroom to ask for a snack. Silence is a gravestone on a hill. Waxy cloth flowers arranged in the concrete vase, fooling no one. It’s talking to your loved one who’s no longer here, even when the love was complicated or brief or distant or a long time ago. And it’s knowing they can never talk back. Silence is the moment after he says, “I have something to tell you.” It’s the middle of the night peace as you watch your sleeping newborn. It’s the middle of the night panic when you realize your teenager hasn’t arrived home yet. Silence is a friend and a stranger, a welcome and a cold shoulder. It’s the 30 minutes in the carpool line before school lets out.
It’s your apartment on a Saturday morning when your roommates are out of town. It’s a sunset and a snowfall and a garden. Silence is the treatment you get when they don’t know how to have a rational conversation, and it’s the treatment you give when you don’t either. It’s the comfort between two people who have traveled long roads and don’t need to fill the space between them so much anymore.
We don’t know how Elijah experienced God’s silence. Emily P. Freeman adds, “Silence is neutral and cruel and patient and punishing and long. Silence is understanding and misunderstanding. It’s warm and cold. It’s 100 years and a first glance. It’s a friend on the porch and a stranger on the bus. It’s a walk in the woods, a chair by the sea, and the golf course across the street from your childhood home. It’s a pew in the cathedral, a candle in the nighttime, a green leather sofa in the waiting room.” Silence is as varied as the ways we encounter God.
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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Sleep
Nap Bishop Tricia Hersey understands the divine aspect of rest, which we see when God tends to Elijah, nurturing his rest.
Hersey writes:
We are sleep-deprived because the systems view us as machines, but bodies are not machines. Our bodies are a site of liberation. We are divine and our rest is divine. There is synergy, interconnectedness, and deep communal healing within our rest movement. I believe rest, sleep, naps, daydreaming, and slowing down can help us all wake up to see the truth of ourselves. Rest is a healing portal to our deepest selves. Rest is care. Rest is radical. We must stand and lay firmly in the space of creating a life filled with rest and radical care, even amid oppression.
She adds that rest is a form of resistance against systems of evil, as Elijah embodies. “Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. Both these toxic systems refuse to see the inherent divinity in human beings and have used bodies as a tool for production, evil, and destruction for centuries. Grind culture has made us all human machines...Our bodies belong to these toxic systems. We know better. Our Spirits know better.” (from Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto)
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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Rest
In this story from First Kings, God helps Isaiah take a rest when he’s exhausted and afraid. Writer Chloe Hope tells about a similar enforced rest, when the power went out. She says:
Just before New Year’s, our small corner of the village was plunged into darkness after, somewhere deep within the ground, a transistor failed. It took almost three (rather cold) days for power to be restored. During that time, I would spend the day relentlessly bemoaning the lack of heating and other modern conveniences, but, when night rolled in, I softened. Instead of refusing the night with artificial lights and screens, we welcomed it in with fires and candles, and in return the night saw to it that we surrendered the activities of the day. This enforced stilling felt distinctly like being parented, as though something far larger and far wiser than I was gently peeling the toys from my hands and lifting me into bed.
Forced rest can become a gift, when we soften into it.
* * *
Luke 8:26-39
Isolation
The man with the demons must have been so incredibly isolated, living out there in the tombs. Many Americans now share his loneliness.
In Charles Montgomery's book about cities, Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, he writes:
People are increasingly solitary. In 1985, the typical American reported having three people he could confide in about important matters. By 2004, his network had shrunk to two, and it hasn’t bounced back since. Almost half the population say they have no one, or just one person, in whom they can confide. Considering that this included close family members, it reflects a stunning decline in social connection. Other surveys show that people are losing ties with their neighborhoods and their communities. They are less likely to say they trust other people and institutions. They don’t invite friends over for dinner or participate in social or volunteer groups as they did decades ago. Like Randy Strausser, most Americans simply don’t know their neighbors anymore.
Montgomery adds:
Even family bonds are being strained. By 2004, less than 30% of American families ate together every night. Social isolation just may be the greatest environmental hazard of city living — worse than noise, pollution, or even crowding. The more connected we are with family and community, the less likely we are to experience colds, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and depression. Simple friendships with other people in one’s neighborhood are some of the best salves for stress during hard economic times — in fact, sociologists have found that when adults keep these friendships, their kids are better insulated from the effects of their parents’ stress. Connected people sleep better at night. They are more able to tackle adversity. They live longer. They consistently report being happier.
Jesus’ gift of healing also restores this man to his neighborhood, and to his friends, where even greater healing happens.
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From team member Katy Stenta:Galatians 3:23-29
The fact that, in God, there is no male or female, and that humans are made in God’s image, should not be surprising. Gender is a spectrum as illustrated by this chart. The fact that God has created multitudes and that to understand beyond all that is to understand the many facets of God’s creation is well illustrated in this scientific breakdown of how many genders there are in nature and humanity. Thus, understanding that Jesus Christ is about reworking the human structures of gender, ownership, even race, helps us to start to truly understand that belonging to God goes so much deeper than the categories that we humans have. Names and categories are how our human minds start, but grace and understanding are the goals of God’s creative work.
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Psalm 42 and 43
When I am very frustrated, I want to know where God is so I can hand humanity back to the divine. My mom’s best friend used to say, “I’d quit, but I can’t figure out who to hand my resignation in to.” The logic here is, surely, if we need God enough, God will come. However, the abdication of responsibility is not healthy. Though God’s grace is not based upon work, we should participate in our own liberation. If God has been whispering in your ear, then it is time to do something about it. This is especially true in the United States, where Black people have decided to let the rest of the world figure out how to organize, protest, and do the work to show up.
After years of doing the labor, Black people will no longer do the lion’s share of the work on behalf of democracy. As this article says, “Black folks aren’t showing up to be your moral compass anymore. We’re tired of doing the heavy lifting for movements that won’t show up for us.” Perhaps if you are thirsty for God and do not want hate-filled speech to lay claim to all of the God language—then perhaps it is time to go out there and drink the waters of justice and liberation.
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1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Elijah may be my favorite prophet. Not only is he honored in the tradition of the Bible, but he struggles. He has real human issues, he gets depressed, hungry, thirsty, and travel weary. He is homeless for a while. A homeless prophet, immigrating, with an immigrant God. He is rejected and lonely. He feels and experiences it all. He is given angels, food, and rest, because that is what he needs.
Elijah is a reminder that it is hard to hear God when you don’t have your basic needs met. If you are unhoused, hungry, and thirsty, you need an angel to help you before you can even be aware of God’s presence. God knows that. I find this comforting. God understands how we are made, that we need food, clothing, water, shelter, and companionship before we can understand that God is with us. God built us this way. Thus, if we want to share the experience of God with one another, we have to take care of each other first. Again, God knows this. Thus, our call to care and empathize with one another is clear.
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Luke 8:26-39
It is amazing here how the man is one being, but the legion could represent any systematic oppression standing behind him. It could be racism, it could be immigration, it could be homophobia. It could be the need to use AI because of the capitalistic pressure to work quickly and to look like everyone else. Legion can be any power and principality that is embodied in a single human being who is suffering and yet still is a tool of that power structure. One cannot help but think of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Kristi Noem to name a few. They are suffering and yet drunk on the power they have from the legion behind them. Every time someone names what is truly empowering them and how wrong it is, a tantrum is had, and they want to destroy the truth-teller. What would the confrontation be, one has to wonder, if Jesus came along and showed them the truth about themselves and their power?
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From team member Nazish Naseem:Luke 8:26-39
The Journeys from darkness into light
In a vibrant urban area along the United States-Mexico border, a neighborhood exists that is rich in diverse narratives from various international backgrounds. Among the newcomers is a young woman named Sofia (a pseudonym), who sought refuge from her home country in pursuit of safety and opportunity. Her arrival in the city was filled with hope for a new beginning, yet she also carried the burdens of her past traumas, yearning for a life free from fear. Little did she know, the path to her new life would be fraught with challenges, a journey that many migrants can relate to.
Sofia encountered numerous challenges, including language barriers that made it difficult for her to communicate her needs, cultural differences that often left her feeling isolated, and the emotional scars resulting from her journey that haunted her every step. As days transitioned into weeks, she frequently found herself traversing the streets, feeling lost and invisible amidst the bustling population. The anxiety stemming from her past lingered, reminiscent of the demons afflicting the man described in Luke 8:26-39.
Sofia recalled that her early life was fraught with challenges, as she had internalized the belief that she did not belong in her home country due to her Christian faith, and challenge such as the Mexican Revolution (1910–1917) and the Cristero Revolt (1926–1929), which marked her as an outsider.
One day, while seated in a modest park, a compassionate group of local volunteers approached her. Enveloped in bright shirts proclaimed with the word "Hope," they offered food and warm clothing and shared their narratives of struggle and hope. Motivated by their faith, these volunteers spoke of a figure named Jesus, who is renowned for bringing healing and hope to those in despair.
Similar to how Jesus engaged the afflicted man from Gerasene with compassion, these volunteers interacted with Sofia in a spirit of kindness and understanding. They actively listened to her story, validating her fears and struggles, acknowledging her pain, and providing not only material support but also friendship and encouragement, thereby reassuring her that she was not alone.
This interaction marked a significant turning point in Sofia's life. It was not just the material support she received but the sense of belonging and understanding that these volunteers provided that catalyzed her transformation. Their compassion and understanding were the catalysts that helped her muster the courage to embark on a new chapter, acquire proficiency in English, secure employment, and ultimately become an advocate for other migrants, guiding them through their own journeys with compassion and understanding.
As the man in the biblical account transitioned from a state of torment to one of spreading hope and healing, Sofia emerged as a beacon of light in her community. She not only overcame her own struggles but also began sharing her experiences, thereby inspiring others who had faced similar challenges to discover their inherent strength and resilience. Her advocacy work created a ripple effect of hope and healing in her community.
This narrative illustrates the parallels between Sofia’s experiences and the healing account found in Luke 8:26-39. It serves as a poignant reminder that, regardless of how lost or afflicted an individual may feel, compassion and community engagement can facilitate transformation and instill hope. The message encourages the embrace of marginalized individuals, offering them the support and love they require to reclaim their lives and aspirations.
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Galatians 3:23-29
Bridges of Grace: Emily's Journey to Unity and Acceptance
In a small town, there was a quaint church known for its vibrant community, led by a caring pastor Emily's father. Emily, the pastor's daughter, was a bright and compassionate young woman who loved the Lord deeply. However, she often witnessed troubling dynamics at home regarding her grandmother's treatment of low-status workers who came to collect their toilet waste, as they lacked a drainage system at the time.
Emily noticed that the woman who came to clean their toilet would carry the waste of human excrement in a bucket on her head. Her grandmother had a separate cup or glass for this woman and considered her unclean. Emily felt heartbroken by the subtle yet palpable discrimination she observed. Although she loved her grandmother dearly, she couldn't understand why invisible barriers seemed to exist between people.
One day, with courage beyond her years, Emily approached her father. "Dad, why do we treat some people differently?" she asked, her eyes welling with tears. "In the Bible, it says we are all one in Christ. Why can't we live that out?" Her father listened intently, appreciating his daughter's conviction and insight; however, he couldn't convince his mother to change her views.
Determined to create change, Emily decided to treat the cleaning lady with respect. She prepared a welcoming space, offering the woman water in a nice glass, ensuring her grandmother was not around. Emily's compassion was genuine, and her empathy shone through in school, college, and everywhere she went.
Meanwhile, a young man named David was interested in Emily and proposed to her. After Emily shared the proposal with her mother, her mother conveyed it to her father. David had recently graduated from university with a master's degree in chemistry. However, Emily's father denied the proposal due to the young man's social status, as his parents worked as sweepers in the town community. Emily also carried the weight of personal trauma stemming from the societal biases she witnessed and experienced, especially as a Christian, even though her family was not involved in the sweeping profession.
Read Christian Sweepers in Lahore and Dalit Christian.
Years later, during a moment of vulnerability, she poured her heart out to her father. "I wish you could see beyond our family names and backgrounds," she said. "Just like the lower-income families, I too feel overlooked and judged." Her father reassured her that God sees the heart, not status or appearances, echoing the essence of Galatians 3:23-29.
As Emily continued to learn about the church's messaging, she realized that Jesus came to break down all barriers. He loved and accepted everyone, regardless of their past or status. Inspired by her father's words, she began sharing her experiences during church gatherings, advocating for a culture of acceptance and love.
Gradually, Emily's home began to change. People started embracing one another, no longer serving their neighbors with separate cups and glasses. Emily's bravery in sharing her story inspired others to share their own experiences, creating a powerful ripple effect of healing and acceptance.
This story encapsulates Galatians 3:23-29, emphasizing the freedom found in Christ, the call to unity, and the importance of recognizing each person as a beloved child of God—not defined by their backgrounds or social status. Emily's journey highlights the importance of acknowledging biases and striving to promote inclusion within the body of Christ, reminding us that in him, we are all made one.
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Psalms 42 and 43
From Darkness to Dawn: A Journey of Longing and Hope
I have always seen deer in the zoo, and I never could imagine free deer wandering around, seeking food and water for survival, until I came to New York and witnessed them.
Imagine a vast wilderness under the scorching sun. In the foreground, a deer stands at the edge of a dry stream bed, its tongue lolling, searching for water. Its wide eyes reflect longing and desperation. Beyond the deer, distant hills shimmer with heat, symbolizing the distant presence of God, a presence that seems both near and far, evoking a sense of distance and yearning.
The deer, a potent symbol of the soul's profound yearning for God and spiritual nourishment, echoes the opening lines that liken the soul's thirst to a deer's thirst for water. Just as the deer's survival hinges on finding water, our spiritual survival is deeply rooted in our longing for God, a contrast that underscores the profound yearning for spiritual nourishment.
Transition to a vibrant scene of a bustling temple filled with people rejoicing, singing, and celebrating. In the foreground, the central figure stands with a joyful expression but has tears streaming down their face, starkly illustrating the contrast between past joy and present sorrow.
This contrast underscores the painful reality of the figure's current state, where memories of vibrant worship and community only serve to highlight their feelings of abandonment and longing. It's a stark reminder of the fleeting nature of joy and the enduring nature of sorrow.
Surrounded by darkness and with a storm brewing overhead, the figure sits by the lake with a heavy heart. The shadows that engulf the area and the impending storm serve as powerful symbols of the turmoil and despair that the figure is experiencing. It's a moment of profound darkness and hopelessness in the journey.
This captures the internal battle—the cry of the soul questioning, 'Why are you downcast?' suggesting a relentless struggle to find hope amidst the overwhelming weight of depression. This struggle is not just a part of the journey, but it is the journey itself, a testament to the depth of the emotional and spiritual struggle. It's a journey that weighs heavily on the soul, a struggle that is not easily overcome.
The figure now looks up towards the horizon, where light peeks through the clouds. They are speaking to their hearts with renewed determination, depicted by a flicker of hope in their eyes, a testament to the strength of their faith. This resilience and faith inspire us to believe in the possibility of hope, even in the darkest of times. This moment represents a critical turning point in the journey, reminding us to place our hope in God despite the circumstances.
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Psalm 43...
is a place of worship, surrounded by a community of believers. They raise their hands in praise of a bright sky overhead, filled with vibrant colors of dawn — a sign of hope and new beginnings. This return to joy and the vibrant colors of dawn evoke a sense of celebration and new beginnings in the audience. It's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, there is always the promise of a new day, a new beginning. It's a moment that fills the heart with hope and anticipation for what A majestic river flows through the landscape, cutting through darkness. The figure stands confidently at the river's edge, now with a staff representing strength and faith. They lift their voice to the heavens, calling for God's light and truth to guide them while a soft glow begins to illuminate the path ahead.
This is a fervent plea for divine help and guidance, a plea that illustrates a profound trust in God's justice and a deep desire for clarity in the midst of overwhelming confusion. It's a reminder that even in our darkest moments, we can trust in God's plan and seek His guidance. The figure's plea for God's light and truth to guide them is a testament to the role of divine guidance in their journey and a reminder of God's ability to bring clarity and light in times of confusion.
In the final scene, the figure is now back in lies ahead.
This encapsulates the ultimate resolution: a return to joy and an affirmation of faith, celebrating the journey from despair to worship. I reflect on my faith journey amid physical limitations, particularly when I faced rejection due to my inability to bear children after surviving thyroid cancer and five strokes. One day, feeling isolated from my family, I found myself asking God, 'I only care to be with you when I die.' This moment encapsulates the journey from despair to a renewed spirit of worship, affirming faith and hope in the beauty of shared belief.
These images capture the profound journey found in Psalms 42 and 43, illustrating a deep longing for God, the struggle against despair, and the unwavering hope experienced through faith and community. They inspire us to seek divine connection and remind us of the light that can break through even the darkest moments. This unwavering hope, found in the support of our faith and community, is a beacon of inspiration in our own journeys.
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1 Kings 19:1-15
Finding Strength and Solace in Despair
We encounter a pivotal moment in the life of the prophet Elijah. After his remarkable victory over Baal's prophets on Mount Carmel, where God's power shone through divine fire, Elijah faces the wrath of Queen Jezebel, who threatens his life. This episode illustrates Elijah's intense fear, plunging him into despair and leading to a significant encounter with God. It's a story that resonates with many of us as we, too, face moments of fear and despair in our faith journeys.
Upon receiving Jezebel's death threat, Elijah, consumed by a profound fear, retreats into the wilderness, feeling utterly defeated and isolated. In this vulnerable state, his fear casts a shadow over his mission, threatening to engulf him.
Overwhelmed by sadness, Elijah even prays for death, revealing his feelings of inadequacy. This emotional turmoil is a struggle many of us can relate to, reminding us that even the strongest can feel weak. Seeking relief from his burdens, he falls asleep beneath a broom tree.
In a beautiful act of care, an angel awakens Elijah, providing him with food and drink. This nourishment not only sustains him physically but also brings a sense of relief, preparing him for the journey ahead. It highlights God's unwavering support during our darkest moments, reassuring us that we are never truly alone.
At Mount Horeb, Elijah finds refuge in a cave, where God asks, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" His reply unveils his profound sense of isolation and despair. Yet, God's presence isn't revealed through mighty winds, earthquakes, or fire but rather through a gentle whisper. This illustrates that God often communicates in subtle ways, encouraging us to listen closely, for His guidance may emerge in the stillness. It's a reminder that we should always be attentive to God's voice, even when it seems quiet or distant.
After Elijah voices his feelings, God renews his mission, instructing him to anoint new kings and appoint a successor, Elisha. This act underscores the importance of passing on spiritual leadership, inspiring us to continue our missions and prepare the way for the next generation. It reminds us that our roles are not just personal but also communal, contributing to the continuity and growth of our faith communities.
This passage serves as a powerful reminder of human experiences of fear and despair, the significance of divine sustenance, and the call to persevere in the face of challenges. It illustrates that God stands by our side, providing comfort and direction when we feel utterly alone. Let us carry these lessons with us as we navigate our faith journeys, drawing strength from Elijah's story and the unwavering presence of God in our lives. May we be empowered by these lessons to face our own challenges with courage and faith.
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WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so our souls long for God.
All: Our souls thirst for God, for the living God.
One: By day the LORD commands steadfast love.
All: At night God's song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
One: O send out your light and your truth; let them lead us.
All: Let them bring us to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
OR
One: In the midst of the legions of demons, the Christ comes.
All: We are tormented by the forces surrounding us.
One: Open your hearts and minds to the new power among us.
All: We seek the power of God to cast out our demons.
One: Christ offers us freedom and a new life in God’s love.
All: We open our minds and hearts to that healing touch.
Hymns and Songs
O Worship the King
UMH: 73
H82: 388
PH: 476
GTG: 41
NNBH: 6
NCH: 26
CH: 17
LBW: 548
ELW: 842
W&P: 2
AMEC: 12
Praise, My Soul, the King (God) of Heaven
UMH: 66
H82: 410
PH: 620
CH: 23
LBW: 549
ELW: 864/865
W&P: 82
AMEC: 70
Renew: 53
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
UMH: 79
H82: 366
PH: 460
GTG: 4
NNBH: 13
NCH: 276
LBW: 535
ELW: 414
W&P: 138
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
UMH: 154/155
H82: 450/451
PH: 142/1473
GTG: 263
AAHH: 292/293/294
NNBH: 3/5
NCH: 304
CH: 91/92
LBW: 328/329
ELW: 634
W&P: 100/106
AMEC: 4/5/6
Renew: 45
At the Name of Jesus
UMH: 168
H82: 435
PH: 148
GTG: 264
LBW: 179
ELW: 416
W&P: 321
Renew: 133/279
Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit (Even if not in your hymnal it’s worth a look)
UMH: 264
GTG: 180/181
CH: 186
This Is My Song
UMH: 437
GTG: 340
NCH: 591
CH: 722
ELW: 887
STLT: 159
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
GTG: 720
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELW: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
He Touched Me
UMH: 367
AAHH: 273
NNBH: 147
CH: 564
AMEC: 402
Hope of the World
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
GTG: 734
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
The Steadfast Love of the Lord
CCB: 28
Renew: 23
Praise the Name of Jesus
CCB: 39
Renew: 7
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who seeks to cast out all that would destroy:
Grant us the courage to give up things that harm
and always seek new life in Jesus the Christ;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who rid us of all that destroys. You seek to bring us back to our right minds. Give us the courage to open ourselves to you and to the new life you bring. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our clinging to ways that destroy us and our neighbor.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have offered us freedom and new life but we cling to the old ways. The new is scary and we seek to stay with what we know rather than journey out to new ways. Our faith in our Savior is weak and we tremble at what new thing he may bring into our lives. Forgive us and embolden our faith that we may seek new life for ourselves and for all. Amen.
One: Jesus comes to bring us new life. Receive the gift and be filled anew with the Spirit.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God, because you not only have created us and this world but you seek to ever create us anew. We are in awe of your love that seeks us and redeems us.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have offered us freedom and new life but we cling to the old ways. The new is scary and we seek to stay with what we know rather than journey out to new ways. Our faith in our Savior is weak and we tremble at what new thing he may bring into our lives. Forgive us and embolden our faith that we may seek new life for ourselves and for all.
We give you thanks for the new life you offer us. Your gracious Spirit blesses each day. We thank you for those who have allowed you to free their minds of the demons around us so that they can offer testimony to you great love. We thank you for those who offer us strength and rest so that we can continue on our journey following the Christ.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift up to you those who are oppressed by the demons of this world: greed, prejudice, enmity, hatred, and division. They do, indeed, seem to be Legion. We pray for those who suffer when others allow themselves to be taken over by these forces. We pray also for those who are caught in their snares. So fill us with your Spirit that we may be a refuge of healing for those hurting around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
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CHILDREN’S SERMONA Snack and a Nap
by Dean Feldmeyer
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
You Will Need: A pillow and your favorite snack.
Tell Your Version Of This Story:
Do you ever get really tired? I mean, so tired that you just can’t keep your eyes open. So tired that no matter what you do you just can’t stay awake?
Yeah, me too.
I’ll work hard all day and then I will sit down in the evening to watch television and the next thing I know I’m waking up because I fell asleep.
Well, today we have a story from the book of 1 Kings about a man named Elijah who was that tired. And he was afraid, too. See, he had done some things that made the evil queen angry, and she had sent her soldiers out to find him and kill him so he was running and hiding them.
After he had run for so long and so far, he was so worn out he couldn’t go any further. So he sat down to rest in the shade of a tree, and he was so tired that he fell asleep.
God saw him there sleeping in the shade and sent an angel to watch over him. After a while, the angel woke Elijah up and fixed him a snack of delicious bread and cool, refreshing water. Elijah ate the snack and drank the water, but he was still tired, so he went back to sleep.
Again, after a while, the angel woke him up and gave him another snack and the angel told him that this place was not safe, and he had to keep going and find a safe place. This time, because he had a nap and two snacks, he was rested and strong enough that he climbed a mountain and found a place to stay until it was safe to come out of hiding.
We always think of God doing big things for the people God loves, but sometimes God does little things that are just as important. Things like our parents or grandparents or teachers do for us every day — like giving us a snack and letting us take a nap so we will be strong again later.
End with a prayer, thanking God for the little things that keep us healthy and safe and the people that provide those things for us.
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The Immediate Word, June 22, 2025 issue.
Copyright 2025 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
