Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship for this 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, landing on June 22, 2025!
Due to an unfortunate scheduling conflict, Pastor Nathan won’t be leading the service, and thus there will be no live stream. However, you can read through the service (along with the sermon) in the bulletin that is found here. The sermon is also just included below.
May God’s mighty love reveal to you healing and welcome, this day and always!
O God, may you speak to us now and to the forces that surround us, that by your Spirit your Word might illumine the darkness, your wisdom shine in our hearts, and your welcome reveal to all your love, through Jesus Christ. Amen.
Anyone of you like listening to music? I totally can’t see if anyone raised their hands or not, but it’s cool if you raised them anyway. But I listen to music a lot, especially in my younger years when my ears had more free time. I dabbled in a lot of different genres, from rock to pop and even a bit of country (albeit reluctantly). But as you may know, my favourite genre would be hip hop/rap, in spite of the warnings from a lot of my more evangelical friends and acquaintances and even family members of the dangers of listening to such devil music. So heavy were these warnings, that some of them even put me onto Christian music, namely, Christian rap.
And I have to admit, some of it wasn’t half bad. I mean, it wasn’t anywhere as good as the secular stuff, but some of it was decent. There was this one group in particular that I really enjoyed. They weren’t rap, per se, even if they were labelled as such. But they were more of a blend of genres that became their own unique sound and flavour. I enjoyed their music so much that to this day some of their songs still find themselves on my playlists and rotations. So to say that they were influential in my life is a bit of an understatement. I had all their albums, knew most of their lyrics, and even quoted them in a number of sermons, bible studies, and devotions over the years. Their music even helped me through some pretty difficult times in my life. I looked up to them, often wondered what it’d be like if I were them, and even tried to dress like them for a short period of time.
And I wasn’t the only one. They had droves of fans. Their concerts everywhere were always sold out. They won a bunch of awards both in the Christian and secular worlds, and the Christian music scene clearly was influenced by them as they started new labels, produced a lot of music, and mentored a number of up-and-coming acts.
So very popular, they were. But as it turns out, the more popular you are, the more chance there is to get caught in some sort of scandal, which is exactly what happened recently to one of these guys that I’m talking about.
Earlier this year I heard rumours that one of them had engaged in some illicit activities that involved abuse both of substances and unfortunately people. The rumours were denied, of course, and the source of the rumours was ousted as a liar. But then earlier last week, the particular band member in question actually came out and confessed to a lot of the allegations against him. Many of the heinous acts he confessed to happened at the height of his popularity as well, which could mean I might have been bumping some of his music at the exact time these things were happening.
And to be honest, it was a very unsettling realisation.
I mean, how could he? How did he let this happen? How could he have fallen so hard?
My view of him in my head had completely changed. I was disappointed, discouraged, and very disillusioned that yet another one of these music moguls that I admired would turn out to be such a sleazebag. Yes, I said “yet another one”. This guy wasn’t the first or the only one by far. And I’m sure he won’t be the last. So many of these favourite artists or celebrities get caught in their really bad choices and decisions, and they end up being cancelled.
It’s like no one, no matter how good they seem, is free of these wrongdoings, these sins, these… demons.
And that’s kind of what was happening in today’s gospel lesson. I mean we don’t really know what this fellow named Legion was like before, but we do know that now that he has a whole host of these demons living in his head rent-free, influencing him, and causing him to do some real scary stuff, and so he’s been cancelled by the townsfolk. I mean he was just plain cancelled. I’ve heard of people cancelled before, but he’s the most cancelled cancelled-person that was ever cancelled. The guy was chained up in the graveyard outside the city just so people wouldn’t have to deal with him, for crying out loud. It’s like out of sight, out of mind.
But we know the story, we have heard it many times over the years. But this time around I wanted to focus on the reaction of the people after Legion, thanks to Jesus, was healed, freed, liberated from his demons.
In that… they were afraid.
They didn’t know how to deal with this difference in their set paradigm. They couldn’t handle the change in perspective of this man they have been conditioned to fear for so long now that the source of their negative opinions has been removed. They didn’t know how to un-cancel someone that they’ve so callously cancelled. I mean they couldn’t accept it. They couldn’t believe it. They couldn’t see how God could care for even him, and how that same healing might be able to take care of their own demons as well.
And that’s the thing, it’s easy to vilify and put down the wrongs of others, but we very seldom ever stop and recognise our own capacity to commit the same kinds of acts and be involved in the same kind of corruption. We can see the mistakes of others and even blame them for them, but we don’t always admit that that could have been us making those same mistakes. We sometimes even join in on the cancelling of celebrities or even countries that are controlled by obvious demons, but we might not try to point out the demons that could be controlling us.
Our demons of selfishness, pride, and closed-mindedness.
Now, this isn’t to say that just because we might share in some of these demons, that we let things go scot-free. Just because we might have the capacity to do wrong as well, doesn’t mean that the wrong should go unpunished. Just because we didn’t get caught in our scandals doesn’t mean there still aren’t consequences and repercussions.
But it does mean that even in that, there is healing. Even when we cancel or are cancelled, God welcomes us. Even when we might be tormented by our demons, God reaches out God’s hand of love and support and calls us by name to come home.
And to be honest? That isn’t exactly easy to accept.
Because we want those that we’ve cancelled to stay cancelled. We want the evils of the world to stay out of our sight and out of our minds. We want those demons to stay hidden, even if it’s in the dark recesses of our own selves.
Again, I’m not saying that we should condone the evil of the world, but I’m saying that instead of focussing on them, we can focus on where God is and how God is working in our lives and in the lives of others in spite of that capacity for evil. I’m not saying that we should lift up and honour those demons, but I’m saying that we needn’t be afraid of them because the God that is on our side is bigger and stronger than they ever could be. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to be good, but I’m saying that we shouldn’t pretend that we can’t be bad, because then we could be blinded to how much God loves and cares for us, enough to come and be with us as one of us to teach, to heal, and to show us love.
And in that, maybe we can see God working in and through us and all people. Maybe we can see the love of God through Jesus in the healing and making whole. Maybe we can see the power of God through the Spirit, flowing in and around our community, bringing us together in worship, and showing us just how much each and every one of us are forgiven and redeemed.
I get it though, we might want to keep cancelling others and maybe even some of the traits within ourselves. We might want to point out the wrongs of others and maybe highlight how we would never be that bad. We might want to pat ourselves on the back for how well we think we have our demons in check. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s not disguise the pain of self-loathing to be some righteous indignation. Let’s not deny that we are sinners that have been reformed as saints. Let’s not forget that God’s grace and mercy are vast and can cover anything and everything and will continue to welcome us back into community, wholeness, and God’s kingdom.
So in this season after Pentecost, may we see the acceptance that God’s love has for all people and even ourselves, that we might see the worthiness that God gives, enough to be forgiven in love. Thanks be to God. Amen.