Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.

Often Bible School songs can be just for fun, rather frothy, with not much substance.

But then once in awhile there are words such as we have in today's songs:

Ancient words, ever true,

Changing me and changing you,

We have come with open hearts.

O let the ancient words impart.

And we'll take them at face value. 

These ancient words of scripture are meaning to change us.

The theme and scriptures that are the basis of this year's VBS are intending that exactly this change will happen and is happening.

Ancient words, words to be heeded, not spurned.

Words that open up and give life; rather than imprisoning and impeding life.

And so Jesus speaks words of command and blessing;

command to the demons that had plagued the man living among the tombs,

then blessing and commissioning to the same man when he was freed from the demons.

They are words that bring life to the man, and potentially will bring life to his community as well.

...changing me and changing you... as the song says.

We explored this idea two weeks ago in the life of Paul,

and last week we expanded it a  bit to include grace “in action.”

Today we add one more bit to the idea:

that the action of which we speak is not just any old action.

Jesus sends the man onward, to return home and to declare “how much God has done for you.”

He has only been around Jesus briefly.

He cannot possibly know everything that he would like to know.

But notice that Jesus doesn't say, ”just wait now until you have all of the answers worked out; just wait until you are a perfectly formed and tested.

Jesus sends out a newly made disciple, while things are still fresh in his mind.

“Go, and declare how much God has done for you.” .....  already, even now....!

Last week we observed that the person who is healed will face lots of problems.

The same observation is appropriate in this story also. 

Jesus has sent him into a very difficult situation: Jesus himself has been asked to leave the area because the people are afraid of him;

 but he sends this man whom he has healed back into the same group of people! 

So Jesus still intends to reach those folks who had rejected him once, but indirectly the next time, through the witness of this strange man.

They had only known him as possessed, a naked crazy man hiding out in the graveyard.

But now he is in his right mind, clothed, full of excitement, and ready to talk with anyone about what he has heard and seen.

He was considered to be a nobody, but now he knows who he is, in relationship with Jesus.

I stood on that hillside on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee and thought of that man.

And then walked down the slope to the site of the ancient church of Kursi, which was built in the early years to remember this man and his witness.

According to other sources, this church which was discovered by accident 40 years ago when the Israelis were bulldozing for a new road was one of the major pilgrimage sites in the 3^rd to 7^th centuries until it was destroyed in the Muslim invasion.

People wanted to honor the memory of an outsider, a Gentile,

who was called and healed by Jesus, blessed by Jesus,

            given new life by Jesus, and commissioned by the Lord

            for his work of proclamation.

Our forbears in the faith recognized this to be our common experience of the faith.

Jesus changes the circumstances of our lives.

As it happened then, it is continuing to happen with us today.

Thanks be to God!

Don't forget it!

The church these days seems to have amnesia, to have forgotten the ground for our faith.

It is all about Jesus, not us.

Our fretting and worrying about so many things make us seem like Martha more than Mary.

Remember whose we are.

Remember to whom we belong.

Remember who is at the center of things,

            Christ Jesus, and not ourselves.

They made a deadly little change in some of the worship materials such as those used at Synod Assembly yesterday.

Let us give our thanks and praise

instead of the earlier

Let us give him thanks and praise.

One little word, and yet a profound shift in meaning for the line.

The new way is all about us, our thanks and praise.

The earlier version points to God, to give him thanks and praise.

Where is the focus of this assembly for worship?

What is most important?

To declare how much God has done for [us] !!

Let's not obscure that, or downplay that.

He raises us from the dead.

It is not an insignificant detail that the man possessed was hanging out in the graveyard, the place of death.

He was as good as dead, as far as anyone else knew or cared.

But he does not remain there; Jesus sends him from that place, to life, to rejoin the community from which he had been driven.

He is to talk about being redeemed, being bought from the clutches of death by Jesus' word of command that extends over the would-be power of evil.

What power thinks that it has you under its control?

Their name is Legion.

Perhaps it is an addiction, maybe even just a quiet little addiction that you think that no-one else knows you have.

Maybe it is an illness, one which consumes all of your thought and energy.

Maybe it is a broken relationship or strained family ties.

Hear the news:

            Jesus is stronger than any of them.

Believe this news:

            Jesus raises people from the dead,

both the dead of body as well as the dead of spirit who are still walking around.

Maybe it won't happen on our time-schedule, but it will happen.

He does not say to us

to just get used to the evil that would control us, to be tolerant.

He says that he will at the right time change the situation and heal us in all of the important ways.

And of course it doesn't end there.

We are put on the path of healing for a purpose, for his purpose.

To tell those who fearfully rejected Jesus once that their fear is unfounded,

that Jesus is about life, not about death,

that Jesus sends the power of the Spirit to be with us, to accompany us, to undergird and direct us.

He gives us power, in Greek= dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite.

Yes, you and I have been given dynamite, the Gospel Good News of Jesus, to be used carefully, but used surely.

One doesn't simply light dynamite indiscriminately, but instead prepares the setting,

And part of our preparation involves the discipline of prayer.

Come, Holy Spirit is not a casual throw-away line to use once a year at Pentecost; it is on our hearts and minds and lips continually as we think and plan and pray.

In this congregation, our problem is not money and physical resources, although we are forever thinking that it is!

Our problem is not listening for the whisper of the Holy Spirit, not following the Lord's lead, not really trusting that he has already provided that which we need to accomplish his will in this time and place.

Go, and declare to them the wonders that God has done.

Ancient words, ever true,

Changing me and changing you.   Amen.

St. Mark's Lutheran Church

142 Market Street

Williamsport, Pennsylvania

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