C228 Pentecost 2 (Proper 7)

[00:00:05] Speaker A: You're listening to by the well, a lectionary based podcast for preachers recorded on the land of the Wurundjeri people. Hello, everyone, I'm Fran Barber. [00:00:18] Speaker B: And I'm Sally Douglas. [00:00:20] Speaker A: And this week Sally and I are gathering to talk about the readings for Pentecost 2 for June 22, namely 1. Kings 19, verses 1 to 15, Psalm 42, Psalms 42 and 43, Galatians chapter 3, verses 23 to 29, and the Gospel of Luke, chapter 8, verses 26 to 39. [00:00:46] Speaker B: So we're aware that there are a different set of readings if you're celebrating the anniversary of the Uniting Church, but we're just staying with the lectionary readings this week. And we're back in Luke's world again after so many weeks with John. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Yes, we are. Do you want to start there or do you want to start with. [00:00:59] Speaker B: I think we start in the beginning. So we start with Kings and looking at Elijah and the whole journey there. [00:01:05] Speaker A: So, yeah, this is a very sort of not confronting. It's a passage that gets you in the guts. If you're someone who has been in leadership and been felt like what you were doing is not cutting through and that you've given your all or that. [00:01:19] Speaker B: What you're doing is just creating anger in other people. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So it's just not flowing. [00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:26] Speaker A: So Elijah prophet, who's everything seems to have been going his way. I guess in the preceding chapters in Kings, he's confronted Kings and he's challenged the followers of BAAL and he's performed miracles and also been a bit of violence. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Let's just acknowledge that. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Been violent. He's raised people from the grave and put people in the grave. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:48] Speaker A: And he's even called lightning down from heaven. But he is plagued by self doubt and despondency in today's passage. [00:01:57] Speaker B: And this threatens the violence towards him now. And he feels like he's got no allies. Like everyone's against me. Be better if I died. Yeah. [00:02:06] Speaker A: So there's an element of self pity if we wanted to be harsh about it. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Fear as well. [00:02:10] Speaker A: And fear. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So he runs away like he's in the pit of despair and he runs away. Better to die. And I love this angel of mercy who just comes along and says fade eight. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And touches him like I've got, I've sort of italicized that in my text here, underlined. It touched him and said, get up and eat. There's sort of a, an intimacy and a care there is in that Gesture that if the voice just appeared and said it would be a bit more ghosty and scary to a modern ear, I guess. [00:02:44] Speaker B: But the actually it just reminding me of that. I love the final resurrection, risen story of Jesus in John's gospel, where instead of Jesus being berating them on the beach because they've just gone back to their old ways of life, they haven't engaged in the mission, even though they've been blessed and sent by the spirit. Jesus first says, come and have breakfast. Or first says, you know, put the nuts on the side, so it attends to their kind of immediate concern, and then says, come and have breakfast. And only after that does Jesus challenge Peter about, you know, do you really love me? But this incredibly. It's embodied so the same here with Elijah. Like, eat first. You're gonna need, like, come on, get up. Someone said, get up, get dressed, wash your face. [00:03:23] Speaker A: And I noticed that with parenting, actually, that it infuriates the children. But you're like, I know your problem's huge. And I remember this as a young person, actually, Mum's going home. When did you last eat? Like, I know the problem is objective and big and real. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:38] Speaker A: But we'll be able to confront it better if we eat something anyway. So this is practical nourishment and care. [00:03:43] Speaker B: Absolutely. And you're going to get up again because you're going to. It's going to be a big journey. You've got to go on. So you need even more sustenance. [00:03:50] Speaker A: That's very explicit about the detail of what is. I eaten and drunk. Do you think there's significance? A hot cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. [00:03:58] Speaker B: I mean, the light. I guess that that's beautiful image. Like the stuff of life. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Bread and water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he ate and drank and he laid down again, thinking, right, well, let's. I've eaten, I feel better. I'm gonna go back to sleep. [00:04:10] Speaker B: Get up. [00:04:12] Speaker A: You need to go. Because the journey's gonna be too much. There's no promise that it's all fine. [00:04:17] Speaker B: No, but there's nourishment for the way. [00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And there' for the way. So that. That in this difficult space, that he's not alone, even though he maybe would like to be or thinks he is. [00:04:29] Speaker B: Or feels that he's alone. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:31] Speaker B: So he makes the journey and then there's this. I mean, it's kind of cinematic, I reckon, this reading. You know, there's. There's all these things happening in nature and. And God not being there. Like it, it's. It has a rhythm of poetry to it, but it also has a cinematic. [00:04:44] Speaker A: Sense and also a deeper echo of Moses. So he's going back to the place where God revealed God's self in the past. Yeah, dramatically. And he took 40 days. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:57] Speaker A: To get there. [00:04:58] Speaker B: Yep. [00:05:01] Speaker A: And he also eventually covers his face. [00:05:05] Speaker B: So like. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah, so, yeah. When, you know, they're stripping with the echoes of that and. And significance of. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. And clearly picked up by New Testament writers and gospel writers. Jesus in the desert. So what strikes you about the passage, Fran? [00:05:22] Speaker A: Well, those sort of patterns, but what strikes me is the repetition of his words. I've been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. So he's described himself somewhat, perhaps self righteously. I've lived up to what you would like of me and I've seen the sin of the people and I've named it. But now my life's in danger. I'm all alone. I wasn't sure whether there was more self harm here or no. His fear of his. [00:06:02] Speaker B: I think he's fearing others. [00:06:03] Speaker A: Fearing others, yeah. [00:06:05] Speaker B: So what strikes me. Oh, sorry, we're gonna say. [00:06:09] Speaker A: So I'm struck at the repetition of that and of the yearning, no doubt, in Elijah for some sort of very clear, unambiguous response from God that all will be well and that he has been heard. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:24] Speaker A: And then we get that. The passage following. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Where dramatic things occur. [00:06:29] Speaker B: So what I love about. I really do love this passage. So there's this huge. The wind and the splitting of the mountains. And then this sentence, but the Lord was not in the wind. It's like. And then. But the Lord was not there. And then we have the earthquake. And the Lord was not in the earthquake. And then the Lord was not in the fire. Like, it's. I think there's so much profound wisdom in this. You know, often we want God to be in the big and the dramatic, not just as individuals, but as churches as well. We assume that if God were to move, if the Spirit were to move or be in these massive ways, whether that's gifts of the spirit or huge numbers pouring in, whatever we, we think in those kind of big terms. And this, this claim that this is not where God is, this is not where God is. And then there was the silence, the sound of sheer silence. What does that sound like? It's so ironic, the sound, the sound of silence. [00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, I. When I read that this time I was thinking of that. [00:07:25] Speaker B: It's. [00:07:25] Speaker A: It sounds like us a bit. But the presence of absence. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Not the absence of presence, which is the cross and which is God's way. And while before I forget the thought, I was thinking, as you said, about, you know, we expect God in these dramatic things. And I was thinking of our conversation for last week about Trinity Sunday and the ethic of love, which is the embodiment in us of God and the Trinity, really, the actions of the Trinity and that. That is a witness to the world of the presence of God. [00:07:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:55] Speaker A: But do we believe that funny, odd, small action of love, whatever that might be, and inadequate though that is, and, you know, not consistent enough as it probably is. You know, that is where we see the action of the Spirit. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And participating in the life of God. And it's. [00:08:12] Speaker A: It's another way. It's not silent so much, but it's the same idea. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. And. And it's often in the unexpected. I think is. Is part of this, and it's in the early church, but it's also in this reading. [00:08:23] Speaker A: It's also in, like. It's like that road to Emmaus where they realize who Jesus is once he's gone. So there's this retrospective recognition that that's what it was, whereas in the moment there was ambiguity or. Yeah. Which I. I also think is. Is my experience of the spirit of God. [00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Yeah. [00:08:48] Speaker A: Often. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what that was, you know. [00:08:50] Speaker B: So it's in the sheer silence that it would appear that Elijah recognizes, you know, the presence of the sacred and the divine and then veils himself because, you know, he's struck by that. And. Oh, Fran, this just leads me to reflect in our own context about the place of silence. And it seems to me in the United Church, we are really nervous about silence, or it's not just church, it's mainstream. [00:09:14] Speaker A: It's a culture. [00:09:14] Speaker B: It's absolutely our culture. And we are so impacted by our culture. Silence is just unusual. There's music everywhere or noise everywhere you go in public settings, but in mainstream Protestant churches or probably in Roman Catholic. I don't know about Orthodox as well, but there's a real discomfort with collective silence. And that happens in our gathered worship, but also in our individual lives. And this is my. I'm pretty passionate about the need for us to develop. I call it a be still muscle, so that you know that psalm, be still and know that I am God. Like, it's not. It's not going to feel good at first. It's going to feel awkward and uncomfortable. But when I think I Think with this passage and places to this really important question. Do we believe God is in the room? And if we do, well then we need to learn how to be quiet and listen because just like when you gather with a friend and they only ever talk about themselves and you know, it's not actually a genuine reciprocal relationship of giving and receiving or often we do that with God. We just tell God what we want or what we're thankful for, what we're worried about. We actually don't have a two way relationship. We actually don't cultivate places of listening and. And I think sometimes we think, you know, God should speak in a really loud voice like the earthquake or the fire, you know, it should be really clear. Yeah, it's not like that. Usually it's that still small voice or it's an intuition or it's nothing like cultivating a practice is really hard. But I just think it's so important. [00:10:45] Speaker A: What, what. And this is my putting you on the spot. But I don't think it is. But I mean our, our lack of practice in this and our fearfulness of it and our, our self consciousness. Yeah. Means we. It is I think important to provide people with some sort of structure or activity or approach to it. So. [00:11:06] Speaker B: Oh beautiful. [00:11:07] Speaker A: What? What? So for someone who might be listening, thinking, look, Sally's right, you know. [00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:12] Speaker A: This is something that I, I don't engage in enough for at all and I don't know where to begin or. I mean there's devotional books everywhere and I mean I've. Before you answer, I think one of the things I would say is don't worry when your mind wanders because that's what it does. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Like exactly. It's not about emptying your mind. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Internal chastisement really just inhibits. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Does it just. You spend the whole time telling you. [00:11:34] Speaker A: So far what, what's. [00:11:35] Speaker B: Oh, so lots of thoughts. First recognising it probably will be hard. Like I think for most people. When I first began a practice I couldn't, I literally couldn't do any silence. So I made. It was cassette tape times. I made a cassette tape of an instrumental song and I could sit with the quiet music for the length of a song almost. So I would start really, really, really small, as in one minute or two minutes. Put a timer on so you don't spend the entire two minutes checking your watch to see if it's over and expect it to be hard. Not only is our culture averse to silence, I think because of social media and having smartphones, we've also been doped up with the, you know, endorphin hits and everything and dopamine hits that we get from getting notifications. So there can actually almost be a bit of brain withdrawal when we don't have something to stimulate us. Like, we're just not used to it. And so it'll be a bit. A bit twitchy potentially as well, in a new way over the last 10, 15 years. Engage with practices, I think, that, like, do some deep diving. I've got a new book coming up about it, but there'll be others as well. The other thing I'd say is if you're offering worship in community, I would normally say if I'm leading worship, there's going to be quiet in the next prayer and I haven't lost my place. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I've done that too. [00:12:54] Speaker B: And it might feel weird. That's okay. Be gentle with yourself. This takes time. Just letting people know because it's like to go from the loud culture to nothing is really hard. And for people to know, it's okay to feel uncomfortable and to cultivate practices. The Australian Christian Meditation Society might be a great place to look at, to explore. Thinking about having a prayer word, not as a magic word or anything, but as something to hold, help us to hold our attention while we open ourselves up to the divine. There are lots of things, but, gee, I think what a gift for us, but what a gift we can offer the world if we engage with these. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. The last congregation, I was administrator. I didn't administer it. I did introduce silence, but, yeah, mainly after the sermon as a weekly practice. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Fantastic. [00:13:40] Speaker A: And then we did use music initially. Yeah. In fact, maybe we stuck with music and I never really got to the actual. [00:13:47] Speaker B: It can help. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are other ways you can build it in too. With lighting, a taper for prayers. [00:13:55] Speaker B: Exactly. That's embodied. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's. There's no, It's. There's action happening, but no one's. There's no. There's no sound. [00:14:03] Speaker B: And people. Honestly, in my last placement we had. I introduced some silence. And then the feedback was that people really liked. It was quite new. And so we developed more. And people would come to the coronation and say, it actually feels like people are praying here. Like because people had developed that be still muscle. And so there was a kind of collective calm. But that didn't happen overnight. That was over years. But that can happen anywhere. If people. And why are we doing it? We're not trying to empty our mind. We're not trying to get some spiritual high. We're just opening ourselves up to the living God who we believe is present with us. You know, the actual God of our faith. Yeah, yeah. [00:14:38] Speaker A: So back to Elijah here. So we don't get the conclusion of what happens. [00:14:42] Speaker B: No. [00:14:43] Speaker A: I mean, he does eventually get fired or something like he doesn't. [00:14:48] Speaker B: But we can stay with the questions, I think, of where we see God. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:51] Speaker B: The other question I was thinking about this passage is, who are the angels of mercy for us when we're in the pinnacle sphere? [00:14:56] Speaker A: That's a good question. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, should we look? [00:14:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:15:00] Speaker B: Look at the psalm. [00:15:01] Speaker A: Yes. Psalm 42. [00:15:06] Speaker B: So weirdly, the literature gives us Psalm 42 and 43. Now, they're both pretty epic, but Psalm 40:42 is just so beautiful in that imagery of the deer longing for the living water. [00:15:17] Speaker A: And it's probably a psalm that people who don't. People think they don't know it until they hear. Start to hear it. Their words are with us. [00:15:25] Speaker B: They are with us. And that. That incredible line about deep calling to deep. Like, it's such a beautiful psalm speaking about longing for God, but also speaking about grief, like. So it's holding that space and hopelessness. [00:15:37] Speaker A: Like, this is one of the Psalms where, you know, you lament. It's not called lament. It's longing and deep distress. But the reality of human life and depiction of how faith is an escape is a nonsense. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah. My tears have been my food day and night. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Oh, that's so evocative. [00:15:56] Speaker B: While people say to me continually, where is your God? I mean, this is why I love the fact that I think we really are invited to use the Psalms as our prayer book. Not the only prayer book, but often in the church. We have been sold this lie. I believe this lie that being faithful means being happy or always rejoicing. And of course, there are times to rejoice. But the Psalms make it really clear that sometimes our expression of faithfulness is to say to God, where are you? I'm miserable. That's not a lack of faith. That is an expression of faith. [00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's a part of the dialog. Relationship. The relationship. [00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. The other thing. So I love the diverse imagery of God, not just in this psalm, but certainly in this psalm, but this is throughout the psalm. So God is image as living water. God is image as a rock. God is image as a refuge. God is image, like the deep. Like deep calls to deep. And as we were talking about last week with the Trinity, one of the things we didn't chat about was language for the Trinity. And I think this can be a real block for people. If the only language they've ever used for God or been told to use for God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that's really connects with some people but really excludes other people. And I honor both those positions. But I think the psalms, again, can help us to realize there's so much different language for God. It's not gendered at all. God is a rock, and living water is a refuge. Later in the Psalms, God is imaged as a mother. So as we think about our language for God and language for the triune God, I think the Psalms offer us beautiful wisdom. So some of the language I use, for example, for the triune God is ground of our being. So it's kind of picking up on that rock for the first person of the Trinity, water of life for Jesus, which is, you know, Johannine as well, and fire of truth, again, Johannine, and using that imagery that's in Pentecost as well. So, you know, ground of our being, water of life, fire of truth, beloved our God, you know, so to explore the richness of our language for God that this arms already offer us, that can still be trinitarian and actually can. [00:17:55] Speaker A: Create an invitation into prayer that feels more approachable for people they might be surprised to make. You know, that's the impact it has. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I really think so. And I just think language is an evangelical imperative in that. I mean that in the best sense of the word, evangelical. Like, if we actually believe we have good news to share, and I think we do. Like we. We proclaim this God who's in community and not a Zeus God or, you know, that some terrifying old man on a cloud. We believe God is in community, within God's self and comes to dwell with us in person. So why don't we try and share that? And if language is a barrier, the language we use for God, well, let's engage with faithful, diverse language for the triangle. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the many tweets that Ben has we referred to about the Trinity last week is around this language. That language is both not enough, but all we have. And therefore we're not gonna dismiss it. But, you know, one of the tweets was the doctrine of the Trinity doesn't have any adequate words for talking about God. Now, that is true. [00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:59] Speaker A: But we don't give up. And we don't then just say we're only going to use three because they're all inadequate. [00:19:03] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:19:04] Speaker A: But he says, but it's a Procedure. The Trinity is a procedure or a dynamism for speaking faithfully and truly with adequate words like sounds. It's very profound, that idea. [00:19:19] Speaker B: And so we don't have to cling to one set as, oh, it's the only way in, or reject the whole understanding of the Trinity because of that, you know. So this psalm gives beautiful expression to different ways of speaking about God. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Okay, Y. Do you want to have a look at 43 or just 42 today? [00:19:34] Speaker B: Well, because we haven't talked about. Shall we jump to the New Testament or do you want to say anything? Yeah. [00:19:37] Speaker A: Yes. I can't see what the time is. Everyone, we better move on. [00:19:48] Speaker B: Okay. We just wanted to talk briefly about Galatians and then because Luke is pretty epic today. So I just wanted to point out in Galatians so that the. The whole context of Galatians is Paul is pretty cranky, which happens a fair bit. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that does. It's not a new thing. [00:20:04] Speaker B: But it's so hard, I think, for us to get how wild the early church is so that people, mostly Jewish been brought up to know themselves as the chosen people set apart. And now Paul and others are saying, actually these non Jewish people can be part of the wildness of God's love and they don't have to become Jewish first. So these people who are deemed richly impure, you can eat with. Like, this is so countercultural. They don't have to become Jewish first. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Well, if they're meant be circumcised, like there's something very physical, sort of visible and tangible, symbolic, all happening there. Don't worry about it. I mean, that's. [00:20:38] Speaker B: I mean, this is just. I. I continue to try and think of an analogy in Canberra context and I haven't got one yet that's suitable. Like, this is so epic. Yeah. Maybe if you're vegetarian all your life and then you're just told that that's wrong and. Or, you know, everyone has to eat meat or what. I don't know. It's still not enough. It's just. There's nothing that I can think. [00:20:55] Speaker A: No, it is hard and off the, off the cuff, you're in one danger of thinking of something that's unintentionally. [00:21:01] Speaker B: Exactly. So what's really. So the passage ends with the verse that people are quite often, often familiar with about there in Christ, there is no male off it. So this incredible kind of climax of saying in Christ, all those boundary divisions between class, like it's, you know, slave and free with. That's radical. That you would actually have dinner sitting next to your slave, who should be serving you, and Jew and Gentile and male and female. That in Christ, those divisions are no longer the barriers that they were. And the violence that's imposed by those barriers too, like, that's dissolved. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. That I'm wondering whether, in a modern parlance, it's become. It's been. This verse has been flattened a bit. So the distinctiveness, or it's not about those. Those divisions not mattering, and I'm not talking about the violent ones, but that identity is still there. [00:21:59] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:59] Speaker A: And you are embraced in that particularity. [00:22:01] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:22:02] Speaker A: And are brought into Christ, but the hierarchies are dissolved. [00:22:06] Speaker B: I think it's that kind of structural, hierarchical thing that we do, that kind of the patriarchal shift of that. That is what. So people actually have value if they're a slave or if they're a woman or if they're a gentile. Like, I think that's the kind of emphasis that Paul is moving towards. But I just wanted to point out. So the translation NRSV says that the law was a disciplinarian. And I think that's really unhelpful in the Greek. It's pedagogy. And in the ancient world, people would, and we say children, but it would mostly be the sons would be escorted to school by a pedagogy who kept them safe, like got them there to school, and often was a slave person. And it seems much more likely to me and to others. Like, that's the kind of imagery that Paul is using here. So it's not that the law was telling people off like a disciplinarian. Rather, it was like the guardrails getting them to school, getting them to wisdom, getting them to God in a dangerous world, you know, and now in Christ, that's not needed. That's Paul's claim. So that because wisdom has dwelt with us, you know, in Christ, and so we don't need that protection, we have this direct access. And that's kind of the theme of this passage, that people have direct access through Christ. [00:23:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And when you were explaining that to me earlier, I was struck by the possibility of, you know, sort of a trite take on the Reformation's key turns influencing translation, I think so. So the law is bad because it's all about grace and justified by faith. [00:23:38] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly, Fran. And I don't. [00:23:40] Speaker A: And I don't disbelieve that, that. That truth, but whether that's flavored, the use of the word disciplinary I'm sure it does. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure it does. [00:23:48] Speaker A: Think about that and be cautious in our. [00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd be really cautious. So, I mean, this is. Continues, this whole field to be disputed in New Testament studies, but I just wanted to let people know that's what's going on in the Greek, and that's likely the image. I'm pretty sure that's the imagery that Paul is engaging with as he speaks about that. [00:24:07] Speaker A: The last thing, this isn't as impactful, perhaps, but just I was thinking, you know, with the Trinitarian conversation about being in God and God in us and just the image of being clothed. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Oh, isn't it beautiful? [00:24:20] Speaker A: As you were baptized into Christ and have clothed yourself with Christ. This again, it's just another image, an intimate image of connection, of identification, of belonging, of dwelling, that struck me and does connect with what we were talking about last week. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that sense, as part of that is that you are all children of God. That might seem like, oh, yeah, we know that. But this is wild to be saying. It is wild that a person who's a slave, who literally can have tattooed on their head the I am the property of so and so, that they're a child of God. [00:24:51] Speaker A: Well, and they belong to Christ, which means whether they're circumcised or not as well doesn't matter. They are Abraham's offspring. So this is outrageous stuff. [00:25:00] Speaker B: So awesome and outrageous. Yeah, yeah. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Oh, so 8, 26. And following the Jerusine demoniac. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Is this your favourite passage, Fran? [00:25:17] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it is in the sense of the tremendous suffering and desperation that comes through this text from this person or the description of the person. [00:25:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:34] Speaker A: And obviously the trepidation we have now, quite rightly, about talking about what is going on here in terms of mental health episodes and treatment of animals. Treatment of animals and putting that into its context. And I will just flag that. I think a key conversation for us here now, but broadly in preaching, is about evil and what is evil and the place of evil, and 100% agree with you. How do we talk about that? Should we talk about that, et cetera. It all comes through here. [00:26:05] Speaker B: It does. And I think inviting people into the complexity, I'd be encouraging people to do that rather than just trying to say, well, it's old and we don't. We just. We don't believe that. Because that's really unhelpful. Because in. For centuries, until really recently, people believed in cosmic forces. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Well, other traditions. [00:26:24] Speaker B: And I was about to say it. And other and other parts of the Christian tradition would absolutely. In the world currently. So I'm not saying therefore we should, but I think we need to acknowledge that there's kind of be the kind of this arrogance. [00:26:35] Speaker A: I was going to say it's arrogant. [00:26:36] Speaker B: It's like, oh, they're so primitive. But you know, personally, I think there are. Well, I think there are forces of evil that lie and destroy and dehumanise and also hurt the earth. [00:26:48] Speaker A: And we, we participate those which just gives them a face. [00:26:52] Speaker B: That's right. [00:26:52] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah. [00:26:54] Speaker B: So we're not talking about. Oh, I'm sure you, I'm saying we. But I imagine you agree we're not talking about people then going out of worship and saying, well, that person's evil, they're possessed by devil. We're not talking about that. But we have to have some sophistication, some spiritual maturity, be able to go. There are things, there are movements in history that reflect evil. So you know, looking at the Nazi movement for example, which dehumanised an entire group of, or more than one group of people, Jewish people, and then also gypsies and people with disabilities and gay people and so on. And that had a power of its own in the sense that just swept over a nation. You know, there are movements of evil and we've continued to see them in our culture. [00:27:32] Speaker A: So this is one episode in four incidents in Luke's Gospel clustered around this chapter where we're actually getting a display of a greater power than these forces. And that is in Jesus. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:46] Speaker A: So a power to reclaim lives from demonic forces or from ill health and so on. [00:27:52] Speaker B: That's right. [00:27:55] Speaker A: So that's the theological. [00:27:56] Speaker B: That's right. [00:27:57] Speaker A: And exactly. [00:27:58] Speaker B: And this story's in Mark as well, the earliest Gospel. And I think that's so central to the author of Mark's understanding too of this world is not neutral. Jesus has, has. I really don't like the language of invader because it's war language. But there is a battle at stake, you know, so Jesus power is liberating from forces that bind. [00:28:19] Speaker A: And the presence of the disciples one way or another here and beyond indicates that this power of Jesus, this power to heal and bring love so dramatically actually is their task too. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:28:33] Speaker A: So that, you know, and then the end, the 12 are sent out to do this work. [00:28:36] Speaker B: That's right. [00:28:37] Speaker A: So yeah, again it's a 72. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:41] Speaker A: And that's the power. So this is a dramatic, healthful, life filled power that is not guarded by Jesus. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So what's really a couple of things that are really interesting about the passage is that in the various tellings of this account, but including here in Luke is we're given clues like this is a non Jewish area. So this has crossed the sea. It's in the Decapolis, there's pigs. [00:29:06] Speaker A: So not a Jewish area. [00:29:07] Speaker B: It couldn't be more obvious. We can miss it because we're not. But, you know, this is food that is taboo to eat and they've got whole herds of pigs. So this is so clearly a gentle area. So Jesus is crossed to the other side and then is encountered by this person who has been utterly dehumanized. So no clothes, living among the dead. So there's kind of levels of impurity as well. Like that's just horrendous. [00:29:30] Speaker A: It's a terrible image, you know, and then kept under guard, we learned, and bound and shackled. So this is a person living amongst the dead, not in a house, but then has episodes. That means that he's restricted his movement by the people. They're scared of him. Maybe they're doing. Maybe they're doing it to protect him. [00:29:48] Speaker B: And who knows? But all of that because we are often, you know, and so that we think about the treatment of people with mental health issues through the centuries and this sending out and imprisoning and everything. Like this is a human. [00:29:58] Speaker A: This is a confronting passage for that, actually. So you need to be aware of your context if you're talking in those terms. Yeah, but the contrast too with the. After Jesus has brought out the demons and we'll talk about. Yeah, sure. But you know, the depiction of the person after that, you know, just he's sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind, one, three, three separate things, one sentence. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Utter dignity restored. Yeah, yeah. Utter dignity restored. And so. Yeah. [00:30:33] Speaker A: Okay, so where did the demons go? Wow. [00:30:36] Speaker B: So the legion. So some. Just to point out, some people working in New Testament scholarship in kind of post colonial context are arguing that there are connections here to the Roman because the legions, so the army. So that this might be actually a political reading as much as anything else, which is a really fascinating thing. And I often think I can imagine. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Sorry, Jed Myers might have that tape. [00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:55] Speaker A: Mark account of this. [00:30:57] Speaker B: So it's this sense. I don't think we have to go either. Or it can be spiritual and political because life is theological. But that's another interesting part. So Jesus casting out the empire becomes part of the reading and the empire that is linked to this dehumanizing of the people. Like, it's fascinating to think about those tensions. Yeah. Really compelling. So there's that. Where do they go? I remember studying with Brendan Byrne, Jesuit, New Testament scholar, and him just emphatically saying, it's not about the pigs. When people started being really concerned about the pigs die, he's like, it's not about. In the sense that they're symbolic of the gentile context, and it's about the focus on liberation rather than worrying about the welfare of the pigs. [00:31:39] Speaker A: And again, this is possibly a red herring just to mix our animal metaphors, that the demons, if they're not in something, so they plead with Jesus. And so Jesus move. I'm question. Jesus move. To put the demons in the pigs is a response to the demons, almost. [00:31:55] Speaker B: A compassion to them. Yeah. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Well, if you're evacuated from this man, you are no longer a being. [00:32:02] Speaker B: So you need somewhere to be. [00:32:03] Speaker A: So you need somewhere to be. [00:32:04] Speaker B: It has that sense about it. Yeah. So there's this text written between the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Enochian traditions, where there's all kinds of demonology and angelology, which could. Well, it probably likely is like this whole sense of there being other forces becomes massively significant in that intervening period. So before Christianity starts, Christians don't just invent demon talk. Like, it's become a really important worldview at the. In this period, which we probably don't have time to. To go into. What if just before we finish, I just wanted us to think about the reaction of the people because they're not thrilled. They don't like Jesus, stay with us. Like, it's really contrasting. It's like, can you just leave, please? [00:32:44] Speaker A: I mean, they're more scared of the man made. [00:32:47] Speaker B: Well, yeah. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Than they are of the Jesus who fixed him. [00:32:50] Speaker B: Now, isn't this profound as we think about, like, when we are confronted with. As a community or as churches or as individuals, I guess we've been othering someone. They're so this, they're so that, or whatever. You know, we talk about love all the time, but, you know, we're pretty judgy as humans. We're confronted with their dignity, their humanity. Sometimes that's very uncomfortable because we've, you know, we've decided that all those people who vote like this are that or all, you know, whatever it is. But they're confronted with their own. Their own cruelty and violence, their own dehumanizing in recognizing the dignity of this man. They're also. Their financial stakes have been really interrupted because of the pigs, at least for some of them. So there's. I think there's some clues for us in that, in the reading, too, about Jesus. Liberation isn't just doesn't always feel awesome. It's very challenging because if we've got power, we're misusing it. We're challenged into balance about using our power for others, not over others. Also, it might have economic costs as well, like. So our understanding of the world is changed in Jesus, the living one who calls us to recognize that all things are held in love. Not. Yeah. [00:33:59] Speaker A: And at the end, before we finish, just to note that the man sought to remain with Jesus, but no, he's an agent of witness. [00:34:08] Speaker B: That's right. [00:34:08] Speaker A: And grace sharing in the city. So go back these people who perhaps haven't listened to home. [00:34:14] Speaker B: How ironic. He hasn't had one. [00:34:15] Speaker A: He hasn't had one. So. Yeah. Go back to your home. How many years since you've been there and, you know, prodigal return. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And that really sense of, you know, where we're sent, like where we might want to go in ministry and where, like not just. Or damage all of us. And where Jesus calls us to be. And it might be with people who we find really uncomfortable. [00:34:32] Speaker A: And it might be at home and not some exotic other place. [00:34:35] Speaker B: That's right. [00:34:35] Speaker A: I think we might need to be. [00:34:37] Speaker B: That's right. It might be in the local setting and all its clunkiness and our clunkiness, too. Yeah. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Good point. To finish by. The well is brought to you by Pilgrim Theological College and the Uniting Church in Australia. It's produced by Adrian Jackson. Thanks for listening.