Today's sermon is a little short, but that is because the end is unwritten. In the Gospel text, Luke 8:26-39, Jesus tells the man who was healed to "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So at the end of my sermon the congregation will be asked "How much has God done for you?" After time to think and discuss, I will ask if people would like to share. Based on those responses is how I will finish my sermon. We'll see how that goes. But for now, enjoy my unfinished sermon and ask yourself, What has God done for you?
Thank God for that last verse: “Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.” So the man went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him. If it wasn’t for that verse, our gospel lesson today would end on a very sore note. With Jesus sending the man who was healed away and not letting him follow Jesus and his ministry.
There is good and bad things about returning to one’s hometown. The man who was processed by demons will never be able to just be one of the town’s people. If he ever got excited, or angry, or overjoyed or any emotion, you know the rest of the town’s people would be thinking to themselves that it is time to get the chains and shackles back out again since the demons must have returned. The owners of the swine probably would never forgive this man for causing his livelihood to die. While healed, that man would always bear the stigmatism of who he was.
It is hard to grow out of the shadow of who you were. For those whose graduations we celebrate today, how many have you have heard “I can’t believe that you are graduating! I remember when you used to….” and then the person starts talking about you in diapers or playing as a young child or maybe something really embarrassing, like how you used to lift your dress up in order to show people your Rainbow Bright underwear or would pretend that you were a superhero and wear a cape everywhere you went.
And for the dads whom we also celebrate today, many of you probably can’t imagine what your life would be not being a dad. But when your child was first born, how many people told you that they couldn’t believe that you were a dad already? A few people have said similar things to me about Bethlehem’s newest dad, John Santorella, and then told stories about teaching him in Sunday school or how he would goof around while being an acolyte in worship.
But this man was sent back by Jesus. He was not allowed to overcome the stigmatism of who he was. He would forever be stuck with that black mark against him. But maybe that is why Jesus sent him back to his hometown.
His hometown was not Jewish territory, but yet the Jewish Messiah healed him. And by sticking around, by showing people, the same people who had chained and shackled him, that he truly had been healed, he was able to proclaim even louder what God had done for him. He was the first Christian missionary to the Gentiles. He was the first ones to proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ to a non-Jewish people. And because these people had seen what he had overcome, his testimony would have been even more powerful. When he walk throughout the city, his mere presence was a testimony to God’s power. The fact that he was clothed, in his right mind, and acting as a normal member of society would have been testimony enough that he was healed. He didn’t have to declare to others what Jesus had done. But he did.
He proclaimed what Jesus had done for him, what God had done for him. He probably wanted to shout it from the roof tops and even later in life he would probably told his story to anyone who would listen to him. He probably told this story of his healing so many times that others could recite it for him.
So now I ask you. What had God done for you? Take a minute and think about it, then turn to someone near you and answer that question. If you are having trouble thinking of an answer, maybe the question is “What do you hope God will do for you?”
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