Proper 7, Yr C (2025) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Proper 7, Yr C (2025) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
I Kings 19:1-15a St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Psalms 42, 43
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39
In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:
in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Amen.
Salvation.
That’s a word you probably don’t hear very often from the pulpit in The Episcopal Church!
Or anywhere else in The Episcopal Church, for that matter.
Using this word,
I think I scared my spiritual director the first time I met with him.
I walked into his office,
sat down,
and told him that I had discovered what it was that I was looking for…
salvation!
He looked at me and said,
“What do you mean by that?”
(Which is what one says when one is shocked but doesn’t want to say so.)
“Salvation” comes from the Greek root sozo,
meaning “healing” or “wholeness.”
That is what I was seeking.
In today’s texts we hear again and again the cry for salvation…
the cry for healing and wholeness.
In our reading from 1st Kings, Jezebel has just sent the following message to Elijah:
“By this time tomorrow, you’re as good as dead.”
Needless to say,
Elijah’s response is to run for his life!
He comes to Beer-sheba,
leaves his servant there,
and continues on alone into the wilderness.
He then sits under a solitary tree and begs God to let him die.
Elijah is spent.
He has done what God has asked of him,
and now his life is being threatened.
He is done.
He is finished.
He’d rather die than continue onward.
So, after he asks God to take his life,
he lies down under the broom tree and goes to sleep, utterly exhausted.
At this point, it seems that Elijah thinks that healing,
or at least relief from suffering,
will only come through death.
It is in this state of helplessness that an angel of the Lord tends to Elijah,
offering him bread and water for restoration…
and not only once, but twice!
Elijah then continues his journey for 40 days and 40 nights,
sustained by God.
It is only after these 40 days of rest and restoration
that Elijah is able to meet and listen to God once more,
being sent back to his work of proclaiming God’s deeds
in the hope of reconciling the people once again to God.
I find it interesting that it is only when Elijah is driven to his edge
that he completely surrenders his life to God.
Today’s psalms speak of such longing for God…
“As the deer longs for the water-brooks,
so longs my soul for you, O God….
My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long they say to me,
‘Where now is your God?’….
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.” (Ps 42:1, 3, 6-7)
Again, we hear of a life in turmoil,
mocked by others,
longing for God’s presence and restoration of life.
And then in Luke’s Gospel we arrive at the story of the Gerasene demoniac…
the most utterly desperate of all.
A man-become-animal living among the dead…
if you can call that “living.”
For a long time he had worn no clothes –
he was utterly exposed and utterly depraved.
He “lived” among the tombs,
and here I use quotation marks around the word “lived,”
because he found his home among the tombs…the dead…
rendering him continuously unclean in the Jewish world.
And, he was possessed by demons…
so many demons that he was called “Legion,” or “many.”
His community had tried to contain him for a while,
binding him in chains and keeping guard over him,
but the demons were so powerful
as to break him loose and drive him into the wilderness.
So, this man was trapped in a condition of self-destructive behavior,
which isolated him not only from himself
but also from his family and his society.
He was the ultimate outcast.
I cannot imagine being any more lost and alone.
When Jesus and his disciples arrive at the country of the Gerasenes where this man lives,
it is no wonder that he meets Jesus as soon as he steps out of the boat!
Later in Luke’s gospel we are told that Jesus came to seek out and save the lost,
and certainly this man would qualify!
Jesus sent the demons from this man into the herd of swine,
thus restoring him to wholeness.
When the people came and saw the man,
sitting at the feet of Jesus,
clothed and in his right mind,
they were “seized with great fear.”
What an odd reaction!
Why would they not rejoice at his restoration?
Sometimes, I think, that we get so accustomed to the way things are –
even if they are broken and painful –
that we don’t want to rock the boat,
even if rocking the boat means that we could become whole again.
I think that can be true not only for ourselves but also for those we love.
Seeking salvation – wholeness and healing –
and seeking salvation for the totality of our lives…
physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional….
on the one hand seems simple
and yet seeking healing requires an enormous amount of trust in God.
What is required in seeking healing is an initial jump into the unknown,
and that can be most frightening,
especially if one has known pain for a very long time.
Pain,
even in its discomfort,
can become familiar,
and the familiar can become more comfortable than the unknown.
But the Good News is that God comes to offer us healing in our brokenness
if we will but trust God
and surrender all of ourselves to God’s grace and healing.
We falsely think that we are in control of our lives.
Sometimes we have to get to the point of hitting rock bottom,
hitting the edge where we know we can go no further,
the point where death would be a relief.
But we need not wait that long.
God is waiting for us to show up and ask for healing.
That is all we need to do…and then to allow God to touch us.
We are called to recognize God’s presence in our lives
and to not only recognize that presence
but to commit ourselves to it.
And when God breaks in and offers us that healing touch,
we are then to bear witness to that healing.
God sent Elijah back to continue his life of witness to God’s power.
The Gerasene demoniac,
as much as he begged Jesus to be allowed to spend his days with him,
was sent back to his community to witness to God’s healing power in his life.
Now, if there is a word that we Episcopalians are less likely to use than “salvation”
it would be the word, “evangelism!”
And yet, we are called to both.
We are called to not only seek out our own salvation
but to declare God’s healing power to others.
When we realize that salvation involves surrendering ourselves to God’s healing love
and then simply sharing our own stories of healing with others –
probably most often simply by living a whole life
and sometimes by sharing our stories,
then the whole prospect becomes much less frightening,
especially if we engage such healing within a community.
My life, my story,
is linked with your life, your story.
Your healing, then,
is linked with my healing.
God calls us all to the healing waters
and provides us with food for the journey.
God calls us to find rest and renewal in God,
restoring us to ourselves, to one another, and to God.
May our souls long for God,
and may God’s light and truth lead us to that holy dwelling-place
where we may be healed and renewed for the journey. Amen.
