Sermon for June 22, 2025 - The Second Sunday after Pentecost

On the occasion of our Annual Church Picnic

Healing Our Brokenness in God’s Creation

As we gather today under cloudy skies, with food to be shared, our children playing, and the Spirit of God rustling in the leaves and stirring among us, we do so with gratitude—for another year of worship, ministry, and growing together in the Body of Christ. This end-of-year picnic is not just a celebration of summer’s beginning, but a sacred pause, a moment to breathe deeply and reflect on what has been, and what God is preparing us for.

Today’s Gospel reading from Luke 8 tells the unsettling and powerful story of Jesus healing the Gerasene demoniac. It’s a story of brokenness—deep, visible, undeniable brokenness—and of radical, transformative healing. As we prepare to enter this time of rest and re-creation, this story offers us a mirror. In it, we see our world, our Church, and ourselves.

Let’s revisit the scene: a man, isolated and tormented, lives among the tombs. He is naked, chained at times for his own safety and the safety of others, yet still breaks free and is driven by the demons into the wilds. He is cut off—cut off from community, cut off from himself, and seemingly even from God. And yet, Jesus crosses to the other side, into Gentile territory—into the margins, into the land of the unclean—not just physically, but spiritually and culturally.

Why? Because that’s where healing is needed. That’s where Christ goes—into the places we avoid, into the stories we would rather not hear, into the wilderness of the human soul.

This man, whose name is Legion—because so many demons have possessed him—is restored. The community sees him clothed and in his right mind, sitting at Jesus’ feet like a disciple. And instead of rejoicing, they are afraid. They would rather send Jesus away than confront the reality that someone they had written off, feared, or misunderstood has been restored. Sometimes healing is more disruptive than brokenness. Restoration upsets the status quo.

And yet, it is in this very disruption that we see the Gospel’s power. Jesus does not just free one man from his demons. He shows us what the Kingdom of God looks like—a place where the lost are found, the broken restored, and those pushed to the margins brought to the center.

Friends, this story is not just about one man. It is about us.

It is about the parts of our lives that feel haunted—by grief, shame, anxiety, addiction, or isolation. It is about the divisions we feel in our communities, in the church, in our society. It is about how easily we build walls around pain, or people, and label them “unclean,” rather than sitting with their stories. And it is about the healing that comes when Jesus steps into those tombs with us.

The Church—our church—is not perfect. We carry our own brokenness. We have seasons of deep faith and joy, and seasons of fatigue, conflict, or confusion. And yet, year after year, we gather at the table, we listen for God’s Word, we serve, we love, we seek healing—together. That’s what makes us the Body of Christ. Not perfection, but persistence in love.

And isn’t that true of the world, too?

We live in a society that, like the people of the Gerasenes, often fears real healing because it challenges power and comfort. We see people cast out—by poverty, racism, mental illness, sexual orientation or gender identity, by politics, by past mistakes. We see people living among the tombs of a broken world, and we too are tempted to look away.

But Jesus does not look away.

Jesus gets into the boat and goes to the other side.

Jesus speaks to the demons, listens to the man’s pain, and stays present until healing comes.

This is our call too.

So, as we step into this summer—a time of rest and re-creation—may we do so with intention. Let this be more than just a break. Let it be Sabbath. A time to reconnect with God’s Creation, not only in the natural beauty that surrounds us today, but in the divine image reflected in each person we meet. Let it be a season to tend to our own healing—whether spiritual, emotional, or relational. And let it be a time to pray for, and work toward, the healing of our church and our world.

The man in the Gospel begged to go with Jesus, but Jesus sent him home, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And so he did. He became a witness—not from the pulpit, but from the place where he had once been broken.

May we do the same.

May our stories of healing—however partial, however ongoing—be signs of God’s mercy in the world.

May our church, imperfect and beloved, be a place where chains are broken and tombs are emptied.

And may this time of rest be a holy season, preparing us to return in the fall with renewed hearts, ready to declare again how much God has done for us.

Amen.