Transformations

This sermon was delivered on the Twelvth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sunday June 24, 2007 at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas.

1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a
Psalm 42
Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Summer is the time of year when the big action films make it into the theaters with the hopes of trading big bangs in for big bucks. This tendency is older than drive in movies, but it really took off on Independence Day weekend 1996 when Will Smith starred in “Independence Day.” The next summer it became a trend when Will Smith starred in “Men in Black” with Tommy Lee Jones. Two years later, Warner Brothers Pictures hoped they had a summer juggernaut on their hands when Will Smith starred in “Wild Wild West.” Well, you can’t win ’em all. Considering the critical and box office response this film got, it goes to show you can go to the well one too many times.

This was also a time when Hollywood thought that everything old can be new again. “Men in Black” was originally a comic book and “Wild Wild West” was based on a TV show from 1965. It seems that if writers and producers could not come up with new ideas, they could transform the old.

In the spirit of adapting and transforming old things and making them new again, this Independence Day weekend, movie theaters will be filled with children of all ages going to see “Transformers.” Transformers is a story of the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons, two races of robots from the metal world of Cybertron, and how their battle continues on planet Earth. What’s amazing is how many transformations the Transformers have made. They have made so many transformations that it is tough to know which came first anymore. In the spirit of transformation, this is not the first Transformers movie, there was an animated feature produced in 1986, before that the animated children’s cartoons began in 1984. Before that were comic books, and before that the life of the Transformers began with a line of action figures, toys.[1] This line has been recycled and transformed so many times that it began as toys and to bring the line full circle, one of the most significant revenue streams for this summer’s production will again be the toys. I keep saying this, but every thing that’s old is new again.

We begin as Jesus crosses the Sea from his home in Galilee to the country of the Gerasenes. Big deal, right; why did Jesus cross the Sea? To get to the other side. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crossing the big lake is nothing to us. Shoot, the Duck Boat attraction at Branson travels about the same distance Jesus did. So what’s so transformational about a boat ride? In Luke’s gospel, this is Jesus’ first trip from his people, the Jews, to the Gentiles. This was a very big transition. This is the ultimate trip to the other side of the tracks. Jesus has left all that is clean and holy, and went to the land of impurity and pork.

But of course, the major transformation in this story belongs to a man. This story is commonly called “The Gerasene Demoniac.” I thought being called the “fat kid” was crushing; being called the local demoniac would have been so much worse. Imagine his parents, and I don’t believe for a minute that people didn’t know who his family was, “Sal, where’s your boy?” “Oh, he’s still shackled in the tombs, oh wait, there he goes, naked as a jaybird.” Frankly, this man would have been the town terror and a shame to his family. And he is the one who finds Jesus.

As soon as Jesus reaches the shore, the man met him. Even though the verses do not go in this order, the grammar shows that as soon as Jesus saw the man, he commanded the unclean spirit to come out. After Jesus commands the spirits, the man cries, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” The man recognizes that Jesus has power, the power to torment, the power to torture him. The man recognizes that Jesus has the power to prosecute him, judge him, find him guilty, and execute a horrendous sentence as a Son of the Most High God. But he doesn’t realize one very important point.

He knows Jesus is Son of the Most High God, but that phrase didn’t mean the same thing to the man it means to us. The gentile man knew his pagan religions; he knew there were many, many gods to be worshipped. Yes, he knew Jesus is the Son of the most powerful God in the cosmos, but he did not know the Lord. We read the phrase Most High God to mean the Lord because the early Christians adopted and adapted this term to refer to the Lord, but the Gerasene Demoniac did not use the term the same way.[2] So yes, the man knew Jesus was a powerful man, but he had no idea how powerful. He thought Jesus was powerful as say the son of Zeus or maybe Baal, or any other ancient most high god, but he did not know the Lord.

You know, this isn’t so different from today. People know Jesus is powerful. People also know Jesus is a wise Rabbi. People also know Jesus is a wonderful, generous soul. But not everybody knows Jesus is God. For many that’s all right, the difference can be made and it’s no sweat off their backs. But one 20th Century theologian disagrees with the sensibility of separating Jesus’ humanity from his divinity.[3] C. S. Lewis counters that we have two choices, either Jesus is God, or he is as crazy as a loon. There is no way that it is possible to say that Jesus is wonderful and wise without saying he is also the Son of the Lord God because he says he is the Son of the Lord God. When people choose to separate Jesus’ humanity from his divinity, the effect is that we try to transform Jesus. Instead, we have to let Jesus transform us.

The community of the Gerasenes didn’t try to transform Jesus; in fact, they hoped to transport Jesus, back onto his boat and across the sea from where he came. They were frightened, as well they should have been. Imagine the swineherds seeing what was happening with their livestock. They would not have been able to hear the conversation between Jesus and the man. They would have had no idea Jesus was exercising the legion of demons. All they know is that suddenly their pigs would have perked up like someone had smacked them on the ham hock and they rushed headlong off a steep bank and into the lake to drown.

They had every reason to be afraid. The swine that were just chased down the bank were important livestock to them. They were important to commerce. They were important as food. And perhaps most of all, in ancient societies, since the butchers were also the priests, they were important religiously. We talk about “preparing the burnt offering” often without thinking about the skill needed to render an animal ready for the offering. Leviticus and Deuteronomy show that many of the Levite’s responsibilities revolved around livestock and butchering. It was the same for the Gerasenes, but they lost the source of their religious offerings when the swine did a full gainer with two and a half twists down the bluff and into the lake. No wonder the people were afraid. Almost no one wanted to be transformed, but one did.

Jesus hastens the man to change. In one fell swoop, the man is transformed from demon possessed to calm. Luke tells us he was in his right mind. He went from a wild man to a man who had control of his faculties. He was possessed by a legion of demons, now he is filled with the grace and peace of Jesus Christ. This man is a new creation, a new creation in Jesus. This scares the people too. By the end of our reading, the people were still afraid of Jesus. They were so afraid of Jesus that they asked him to leave. And he obliged them.

The Gerasenes were filled with great fear now at what Jesus had done. And they were probably still afraid of the formerly demon possessed man, but now for a completely different reason. He had gone from an object of fear, shame and pity to the source of the loss of a big piece of their way of life. They could easily send Jesus away; he was a stranger who had no status in the community. The demoniac on the other hand was one of their own, and now that he had switched sides and started playing for the team, he was also an object of real fear. For this reason, he was probably afraid of the people who he had not called his neighbors too.

Jesus hastens us to change too. In Galatians, Paul writes, “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” The man in our Gospel reading knew Jesus was the Son of a powerful god, though he did not know he was the Son of the Lord God. He knew Jesus had power and authority over him and his life. But as Paul teaches, in Christ we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian. Instead we are subjects of the Lord God as sons and daughters are subjects to generous, loving, grace filled parents. Parents the way we can never know our earthly parents. Parents the way we will never be parents.

Paul continues, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

As the children of God, we are transformed by the waters of our baptism into the community of the Lord our God. We are transformed, we are changed. And as we are changed we are no longer separated by what makes us different on earth, we are connected by the one who makes us holy sets us aside to do holy work. We are connected by the promise as old as the ages.

Jesus transforms us. And as we are changed by the word of God we are called to take that word that changes life into the world and share it. Often we fear this means becoming a missionary to some dark corner of the world. But rest assured, Jesus commissions the first Christian missionary in this passage. And as badly as the man wants to follow Jesus, Jesus commissions him to a new mission and a new mission field. Jesus tells him to “return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he does. And he does this proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus has done for him. He has made the transformation. He now knows Jesus is God, and tells all of the Gerasenes.

“Transformers” opens in theaters nation-wide on July 3rd. I wonder if they will be using the old 80’s theme song, “Transformers, more than meets the eyes.” What we see in Jesus Christ and his transforming work is more than meets the eyes. We are baptized in water and sealed in the Spirit. Jesus has made us heirs of the salvation and for this we must be grateful. Like the man in the gospel, Jesus calls us to take the word into the world, whether the world be across the globe or on the other side of the tracks.

[1] Wikipedia links to all Transformer sites can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers, accessed June 21, 2007.
[2] God Most High entry, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 21st Printing. Buttrick, George Arthur, Dictionary Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1962
[3] This is found in Mere Christianity by C S. Lewis, but I do not have the precise quote.