How Much God Has Done

Luke 8:26-39

June 22, 2025

 

            When I was 7, I wrote a poem entitled A Wish. My mother saved this poem with the intention of embroidering it and giving it to me as a gift, which she did. It is in my office right now. Mom told me when she gave it to me that she wanted me to have proof that I was a well-adjusted child. We can dig into my mother’s reasons for thinking it necessary for me to know that I was a well-adjusted child in another sermon, but here is the content of my poem, A Wish.

            “I wish I were a teacher. Or even a nurse. Or a mother with children all around her. I wish I had a husband who was a millionaire. But I am just glad to be me. Because Amy Busse is me and that is that.”

            If I could make a wish today, it would be to talk with my seven-year-old self and discover what it was that made her happy to be her. What did she know about herself that made her so fundamentally content with the person she was? How did the seven-year-old Amy have such a solid understanding of what it means to be Amy? Because I can tell you that since that time I haven’t always had that understanding.

            I hope that it doesn’t shock or concern any of you that I admit that truth; admit that I have struggled with understanding myself, knowing myself, of having periods of identity crises, however that may be defined. I think it probably makes me normal. I think that one of the challenges we often face as we grow up and grow older is trying to figure out who we are amid all the good and the bad that we encounter and endure, all the life we experience. The self-assuredness I had at seven was lost to the deep self-consciousness of adolescence. It began to come back as I entered adulthood, but it was never the same because I was not the same. Who is the same?  Our living changes us, challenges us. All that we experience, the good and bad, the dramatic and the everyday shapes us. What we learn, what we see, who we meet, who we are in relationship with, friendship with, the loves and the losses, the joys and the heartbreaks – all those pieces and parts of our lives shape us, shape our identities. At different times in my life, at turning points along the way, in seminal moments, and in everyday reflections I have wrestled with the question of “Who am I?”  Sometimes my answer to that question has come with grief as well as hope, pain along with pride.

            I realize the pain I’ve felt during my times of identity wrestling is a far cry from the pain this man, this demoniac, endures. We often write off the stories of demon possession in scripture as being undiagnosed mental illness, as though mental illness is so easily treated and dealt with today. But the reality is that mental illness still carries a terrible stigma in our culture and context, so it isn’t as though we fully understand or accept it now. And while I am not sure what I believe about actual demons, I do agree with theologian Debie Thomas, who wrote that if we understand demon possession in a broader, more general way, as that which tries to separate and keep us from God, to keep us dead, when God wants us fully alive, then we are under bombardment every day by demonic forces. And they are coming after us and at us from all possible directions.

            But whether this man was under literal demonic possession or experiencing a severe and ongoing psychotic breakdown or both, he was in pain. He was in physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain. Think about how awful this man’s life must have been. He is described as a man of the city. Does this mean that once upon a time he was an upright citizen? Fully functioning and capable? A person with family and friends, a profession, a life? But something changed for him. For a long time, he was without adequate clothing and shelter. He roamed among the tombs, which was probably its own sort of wasteland and wilderness. He was kept under guard but was that more for his protection or for the other people in the city.

He was bound with shackles and chains, but they could not hold him. He would break out of them and be driven by his demons “into the wilds.” The demons drove him to break loose of his bindings, but he could never break free. There was no liberation. Whatever had once made this man a whole person, a unique child of God, seemed to have been destroyed forever. It was a nightmarish existence indeed.

            But then … Jesus arrives. Jesus and his disciples have been traveling in a boat across the sea. While they were sailing they were assailed by a terrible storm, but Jesus calmed it with a word. Now that the storm has subsided and he and his disciples have crossed over to dry land, Jesus is confronted with a different kind of storm – the storm of possession that rages inside this man. 

            This story is found in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Luke tells us that when the man sees Jesus, the demons in him cry out,

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 

The demons recognize Jesus as the Son of God before the people do, and this is not the first instance of that happening. I find it interesting that, if I’m reading it correctly, Jesus has made at least one attempt at commanding the demons to leave the man. It’s almost as if their words are in response to his command. What changes everything is when Jesus asks the man, “What is your name?”  His answer? “Legion.”

            To us, hearing the word legion probably translates to “a great number” or “many” or “a whole bunch.” But the people witnessing this encounter would have heard it differently. They would have had a crystal clear picture of what a legion was. These were people living under Roman occupation. A legion of Roman soldiers was a troop of 5,000 to 6,000 men. That goes well beyond my initial assumption of what a legion might look like.   

            If the demons possessing this man are legion, then how could there be anything left of him? Whoever he was before surely was gone. But Jesus asking that question, “what is your name?” opens the door for the demons to leave and calls the man back to himself. The demons did not want to leave the man. They did not want to go back to the abyss of chaos and evil. As Debie Thomas also pointed out, even evil and chaos resist evil and chaos. The legion of demons  begs Jesus to let them enter a herd of swine feeding on a hillside. Jesus gives them permission. The demons rush out of the man, enter the pigs and the entire herd runs down the steep bank into the lake and drown. 

            This is the point in the story where I think many of us stop listening because we’re horrified at either the animal cruelty that’s involved here or the lost livelihood to the people who own those pigs, or both. It horrifies me too, I promise. But right or wrong, I think we need to get past that and pay attention to what happens next. We need to pay attention to the people’s response to the man. The swineherds have witnessed this, so they run off to tell everyone what they have seen and heard. The people come out to see for themselves and what do they find? This man, who had been so completely possessed by demons that his existence – for that’s all it was – was now truly alive. He who had been naked was clothed. He who had raged and fought and broken every chain that bound him was in his right mind. He who could not be still, be quiet, be calm was now seated at the feet of Jesus, the place where disciples sit. This man, who had been lost to the demons that warred inside him, was now returned and restored.

What do we think the people’s reaction should have been? Do we think they should have rejoiced, celebrated, praised God? Whatever we might think their response should have been, we are all probably disappointed at what it was. They did not run to the man with tears in their eyes, welcoming him back into the fold. They did not rejoice at his restoration. They did not praise God. They did not thank Jesus for giving them back one of their own. Their response was fear. They were afraid. Luke says that they were “seized with great fear.” To be seized with great fear sounds almost like another kind of demon possession doesn’t it?

            The people were seized with great fear, so they did not invite Jesus and the disciples back to their homes for dinner. There were no parties thrown or feasts given. They ask Jesus to leave. Look, Jesus, could you and your friends just go? Could you just leave us in peace and stop changing everything we know and understand? So Jesus gets back in the boat to return to the other side, to Galilee. The man – now healed and whole – begs Jesus to let him go along. But Jesus tells him to go home and tell the people at home how much God has done for him. Jesus commissions the man, the restored man, the whole man, to stay where he was and witness to the people. Make them hear you. Make them see you. Let them know how much God has done for you.

            We may believe this story doesn’t have a place in our contemporary lives. We may believe that we can explain away what the man suffered by calling it mental illness. We may think that that was then and this is now, so what does this story have to teach us? Where in this story, this strange, baffling, out-there there story do we find good news?

            Maybe this story is good news because it challenges us to confront our own fear. How have we been seized with great fear in the face of what God has done and is doing for us? How many times have we chosen the demons of death that we know rather than step into the life we don’t? How many times have we, again as Debie Thomas wrote, settled for tolerance instead of challenging ourselves to love, to really, really, really love?

            And maybe the good news is that this story calls us to remember how much God has done for us. Done, already, past tense. What has God already done for us? What life has God already given us? What healing has God already offered? What transformation has God already accomplished in our midst, in our community, in our lives?

            If I were to look over my whole life to this point, from that seven-year-old I was to the person I am now, I could name so many things that God has done for me. I could point to so many times when God has been there, with me, with, me, pulling me, pushing me, calling me, comforting me, challenging me, confronting me. And that’s just my one life. What about you? What about us? What about others who need to hear from us? Because Jesus didn’t tell the man to go home and praise God and stop there. Jesus told the man to go home and tell others. Tell others the good news. Tell others how he was unshackled and unbound and loved and made whole. Tell others his name and ask them theirs.

            We are called to witness to others what God has done for us, through our words, through our actions, through our lives. And we are called to help unbind and unshackle, to loose and to love. There is no such thing as privatized salvation. Salvation is for us, and salvation is for the world. It can all begin with one simple question. What is your name?

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

 

 

 

Wisdom -- Trinity Sunday and Father's Day

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

June 15, 2025

“O God grant me …

The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

The Courage to change the things I can,

And the Wisdom to know the difference.”

 

            Some of you probably recognize this by its most common name, “The Serenity Prayer.” I tend to associate it with Twelve Step Groups. Perhaps you do too. And it is also widely attributed to theologian Dr. Reinhold Neibuhr. But there is a longer version of this prayer, which is less well known.

It is, “God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”

I struggle with both versions, not in what they say. They are both beautiful and hopeful and speak to my mind and my heart. But I struggle with them, because reading them and hearing them and finding a moment’s peace in them is one thing but putting them into practice is a whole other ballgame.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Beautiful. Lovely. Poetic. Courage to change the things I can. Inspiring. Hopeful. Encouraging. And the Wisdom to know the difference. Well, there’s where you lost me. It’s the Wisdom part. That last part of the shortened prayer sounds spot on, doesn’t it? I just need the wisdom to know the difference between what I can change and what I can’t. But how much time have I wasted in my life trying to change the things I cannot change, and lacking the courage to change the things I can, but believing that I was doing the opposite? How much time have I spent trying to change what cannot be changed? How much good could I have done – in my life and in the life of others – had I found the courage to change the things I can?  It’s the wisdom to know the difference that throws me off. Where do we find the wisdom? And what is wisdom anyway? It seems to be more  than knowledge or fact or intelligence. But if it is more, what is it? What is wisdom?

With this question in mind, and in preparation for this sermon, I put out a question on a clergy group that I follow on Facebook, asking others, “What does Wisdom mean to you?” Here are some of the responses that I received. “Common sense.” “Wisdom is knowing the only person I can control is myself and that is through the power of the Holy Spirit.” “Wisdom is found in the balance between logic and feeling or head and heart.” “Foolish people blame others for their mistakes. Smart people learn from their mistakes. Wise people learn from the mistakes other people make.” “Wisdom is a deep knowing and discernment that – from and with the Spirit – allows a person to translate skills/information/events into fruitful and shalom-filled living.” “Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit not a vegetable. Wisdom is knowing that tomatoes don’t belong in a fruit salad.”

And one of the best pieces of wisdom that my mother ever imparted to me – and she imparted quite a bit – was this. When Phoebe was a baby, I called my mom upset because I had read something in one of my baby books that contradicted what I was doing from instinct to care for my little one. My mom listened to my fears and then she said, “Amy, baby books are great, but the problem is the babies never read the same books that you do.” Wisdom.

So, wisdom is knowledge plus experience. Wisdom is discernment. Wisdom is balancing logic and heart. Wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. Wisdom is knowing that a tomato doesn’t belong in a fruit salad. Wisdom is trusting your instincts when those instincts are connected to a deep love. Wisdom is trusting the Holy Spirit for a guidance that goes deeper than facts. And, to take our verses from Proverbs seriously, Wisdom is not only connected to God and creation, but Wisdom is also a gift of and part of the Spirit, part of the trinity, and has its deep origins in the creation itself.

Proverbs is a lovely but odd book in our canon. Some of this book is made up of what we tend to think of as proverbs, short, pithy statements that you might find in a fortune cookie. But other parts of this book are what we have before us today, a lengthier narrative that doesn’t just proscribe wise advice but offers a deeper understanding and description of Wisdom with a capital W.

In these verses from Chapter 8, Wisdom, described in both the Hebrew and Greek translations, as feminine, stands on a high place besides the crossroads, besides the busy intersection where people travel and encounter one another. She stands beside the gates of the town, another busy place where people would be coming and going on a regular basis, and she calls out to the people. She cries out to all the people who live. Wisdom does not stand at a distance from the people. She stands by the busiest places, the intersections of everyday life, and she calls out to the people to hear her, to be instructed by her.

In the later verses of our passage, Wisdom speaks of her origins in the beginning of creation itself. “The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of acts long ago.” Wisdom was there before the earth was even formed. Wisdom was there before the depths were created, before there were springs overflowing with water, before mountains and hills had been shaped, before soil and fields, before the heavens, before the separation of earth from sky. When the Spirit of the Lord brooded over creation, Wisdom was in that brooding. Wisdom was beside the Lord, “like a master worker.” Wisdom was the delight of the Lord and rejoiced in the Lord and rejoiced in the human race.

So Wisdom is both cosmic and creation. Wisdom is the delight of God and Wisdom takes delight in humanity. Wisdom is the gift of the Spirit and the Spirit. Wisdom is big and out there and Wisdom is deeply connected to our daily living. Wisdom “touches grass” as one commentator put it. She is not just some cosmic entity above and beyond us. Wisdom is here – in us, and around us, and working through us. Perhaps Wisdom is what John was referring to in the beginning of his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

In the language of philosophy, Wisdom is both a concept and a property. I realize that is a very heady, challenging way of trying to understand it. But then again, so is the Trinity, and this is Trinity Sunday. The day when we observe and celebrate something that is ultimately incomprehensible. And I say that after years and years of trying to understand it and impart what little understanding I have to others. But what I do sort of understand is this, Wisdom is part of the Trinity in that it is the Holy Spirit, and wisdom is also that force of love and delight that connects and binds the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relationship to each other and to us. If Wisdom touches grass, that means that it is practical and pragmatic and is ours as well as God’s. We have access to Wisdom, capital W and wisdom, lowercase w. Wisdom is not just out there. It is here.

Remember those first verses of Proverbs. Wisdom stands by the busiest places of human life and calls out to us. She calls out to us to hear her, to heed her, to learn from her, to delight in her as she delights in us.

I know that I have probably only confused us even more when it comes to Wisdom. But it seems to me that while wisdom is something we most often gain through experience, through making mistakes and learning from them (hopefully after the first time, although often it takes several rounds of messing up for me to finally gain wisdom), the Wisdom that is the Spirit is already ours. The people who responded to my query on Facebook often mentioned that wisdom is trusting in the Spirit for discernment and help. Wisdom is allowing the Spirit to teach and lead. Wisdom comes through the Spirit connecting our experience in the world to our heart and minds. Wisdom is trusting the Spirit to be and do what it was created to be and do: a guide, a teacher, an advocate, an abiding presence, a creative, brooding wind that pushes and pulls us, a deep understanding, a gift, a delight.

And maybe as we trust the Spirit more, we will find that delight, we will celebrate that gift, we will see the Trinity as God in relationship and work harder to build relationships with each other. Maybe as we trust the Spirit with all our hearts and minds, we will be able to live out, every day, every moment, the words of the Serenity prayer.

O God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom – the trust, the relationship, the gift, the delight in the Holy Spirit – to know the difference. Thanks be to God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.

 

Holy Fire -- Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-21

June 8, 2025

 

            When Brent and I first got married, we went to a special event at the Country Music Hall of Fame that honored Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and, if I recall correctly, kicked off a special exhibit of their work. Until I met my sweet husband, I had never heard of these folks. I know that I would have remembered hearing about them before Brent came into my life, simply because you don’t hear the names Felice and Boudleaux very often. I soon learned that even though I didn’t know the names Felice and Boudleaux, I knew many of the songs they wrote really, really well. Songs like, Wake Up Little Suzie, Bye, Bye Love, Love Hurts, and perhaps the one that means the most to us as Tennesseans, Rocky Top.

            Felice and Boudleaux Bryant changed the landscape of songwriting in the Nashville music scene. Felice was Italian, and through her renowned cooking, musicians and music business emissaries alike were introduced to amazing Italian food – which was not traditional to Nashville at that time. And, of course, they wrote Rocky Top, which is you know, Rocky Top! I bet if I started singing it right now, a whole lot of us would join in.

            So, we were at the Hall of Fame for this special event surrounding the new exhibit of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant’s archives and memorabilia, which also included the recipe for Felice’s famous sauce. Felice and Boudleaux are gone, but their sons spoke to the gathered crowd. Their sons were donating their parents’ archives to the Hall of Fame from their original home in East Tennessee. The motivating reason behind this was not just to preserve their parents’ legacy and to make their work more widely known to music fans, it was also because a wildfire swept through East Tennessee in November 2016 and threatened their family home. Putting their parents’ historic work into the Hall of Fame was not just a matter of pride and eagerness to share it with the world, but to keep it as safe as possible for many years to come. The Bryant sons did not want to risk losing their mom and dad’s precious, historic work to flames ever again.

            I don’t blame them. While I am not a fan of big storms, and I know how deadly they can be, I am even more afraid of fire. A raging fire can destroy everything in its path in a matter of minutes, whether it is a single house fire or an urban conflagration like the most recent one in Southern California that destroyed entire neighborhoods and communities. Fire is terrifying, and I completely understand why the children of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wanted to do everything they could to protect their parents’ legacy. And because fire can be so frightening, I can well imagine that the sight of flames burning in the midst of the disciples must have been a terrifying thing to witness.

            Whenever I preach on this Pentecost story from Acts I focus almost exclusively on the Spirit roaring into their midst like a violent wind, like a tornado and hurricane and tempest all rolled into one. The imagery of that violent wind is a powerful one and, when it comes to Pentecost, is the image that most often consumes my imagination. But the tongues of flame that appeared in the midst of the disciples, the tongues of flame that rested on each one of them, are equally as powerful, strange, and scary.

            The holy land was and is an arid climate, but that does not mean that wildfire was not a real possibility. If we, with our advanced technology and firefighting expertise, struggle to keep wildfires contained and controlled, think about how awful it would have been to deal with a raging fire in that time and place. I suspect that whole villages, cities even, would have been consumed in a matter of hours. So the sight of flames suddenly resting on these disciples must have been terrifying to say the least. And what does the author of Acts mean when they write that the divided tongues of flame rested on the disciples? I’ve always pictured happy little tongues of flame dancing above their heads, almost like something out of a cartoon. But if a tongue of flame rested on each disciple, maybe that was more like the burning bush than a happy cartoon flame? Maybe the crowd of people witnessing this saw these tongues of flame and wondered if the disciples were about to be destroyed by the flame resting on them? Did someone shout “Fire!”? Did someone else make a move to find water to douse the disciples?

            If that was the instinct of anyone there, we don’t read about it. And I suspect that even if that was the inclination under normal circumstances, these were anything but normal circumstances. The minute those flames appeared, the second they rested on the disciples, the real strangeness of Pentecost began. The disciples began to speak – not in their own language, but in the languages of every person gathered there; in the languages of every Jew gathered from the diaspora of that known world. They spoke in the language of the Parthians and Medes, the Elamites and the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia. The folks from Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, and Rome were all represented. Every person heard the good news of Jesus in their own language, in their own idiom and syntax and sentence structure. Those tongues of fire were not flames of destruction but of illumination, translation, and enlightenment.

            The text tells us that everyone who was there was “amazed and astonished.” I bet they were! But it wasn’t enough that they were amazed and astonished to hear the story of God in their own languages after flames of fire appeared in the midst of these disciples, it was that the ones speaking their languages were Galileans! A commentary I read about this said that this was a subtle joke and jab; a reference that anyone outside of the region might not get. Apparently Galileans were considered to be the hicks of the region. They were the backwater, backward, uneducated, unerudite, hicks and yahoos of that culture and context. So, while it would have been amazing and astonishing for anyone to begin speaking in all these different languages, it was especially amazing and astonishing that these acts of wonder were being done through Galileans.

            Maybe this was why some people just could not believe what they were seeing and hearing. Though so many of the people gathered there, hearing in their own language, did believe and did accept that something bigger than themselves was taking place, others just wrote it off as drunkenness. They’re drunk, they said. They’re hammered. This isn’t God, this is wine. But Peter stood up and said,

“No. This has nothing to do with drinking. This has everything to do with God. This is the day that God promised. This is the fulfilment of the words of the prophet Joel. These are the last days of the old way of experiencing God. This is God’s new thing right here in our midst.”

            And the flames of the Spirit that descended on the disciples giving them the ability to speak in languages none of them could speak in before, did not stop there. This holy fire was now unleashed on the world. The good news of the gospel spread like wildfire. That’s what we read about in the rest of the book of Acts. When the Spirit came, it not only gave these once timid and terrified disciples new power, but it also took the message of God, the good news of God, out into the world in a way no one expected or even fully understood.

            When the Holy Spirit descended, it came like a violent, rushing, deafening, roaring wind, and it came like fire, holy fire. And when that holy fire entered someone’s heart and mind, it could not be extinguished. And when that holy fire spread from one disciple to another, from one person to another, it did indeed spread like a wildfire would. It would not be contained. It would not be subdued. It would not be barred or blocked or barricaded. The Holy Spirit was unleashed on the world, and there was no stopping it.

            The Holy Spirit, this holy fire, is still on the loose in the world. Its power has not been subdued or diluted. But that does not mean that we know what to do with it or how to deal with it. Maybe we are more like those folks in the crowd who assumed the disciples were drunk. Maybe when we witness the Spirit in others or even feel it trying to reach our own hearts and minds, we push back against it. We try to tame it and domesticate it and make it manageable and palatable. We do this, I think, because when the Holy Spirit comes our lives and their comfortable routines are disrupted. The Spirit did not come to make everything nice. The Spirit came as a wild maelstrom. The Spirit came to destroy the old ways of thinking and doing and being. Is this because the Holy Spirit is about chaos or does it take destruction of some things to build other things anew?

            This sounds scary … and it is. The people who witnessed this first Pentecost must have been terrified. What they knew and understood about God and about one another was upended. But think about what they experienced when those flames rested on the disciples? They heard the good news in their languages. They heard the gospel in their idiom and syntax and sentence structure. God through the Holy Spirit met them where they were. It spoke to them in familiar words. It reached their ears in their native tongue. In the midst of so much chaos, cacophony, and confusion, the words of the gospel in their own language must have also been like a balm for their hearts and minds. The Spirit met them where they were.

When that holy fire descended on the disciples not just for the disciples’ sake, but for the sake of those around them. When it reached their ears, it also reached their hearts and minds, and nothing was ever the same again.

That’s the thing about the coming of the Holy Spirit, when it comes nothing is ever the same again. When the holy fire blazes in our midst, we cannot go back to the status quo. When the Holy Spirit comes, we cannot return to how things were. Everything is changed and so are we. But that is the good news, isn’t it? That is the gospel. Nothing is the same. Everything is different and yet God meets us where we are. God through the Holy Spirit comes to us, speaks to us in our own language, touches our ears, minds, and hearts in our own idiom, with the balm of language that is familiar, and yet nothing is the same.

I know that this is confusing and unnerving and maybe more than a little terrifying, yet that is the essence of the Holy Spirit. That is what happens when we open ourselves to its movement and power. It changes us. It changes everything. But in the change we are transformed. In the change we are made new. In the change we are called to bring this good news to others, to make way for the holy fire, the heavenly blaze to do its work of love and power.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.