Weekly Seeds: From the Tombs
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Second Sunday after Pentecost| Year C
Focus Theme:
“From the Tombs”
Focus Prayer:
Holy God, meet us in our places of torment and despair and cleanse our spirits. Amen.
Focus Scripture:
Luke 8:26-39
26 Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” 29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
All readings for this Sunday:
1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a and Psalm 42 and 43 • Isaiah 65:1-9 and Psalm 22:19-28 • Galatians 3:23-29 • Luke 8:26-39
Focus Questions:
How do you understand evil?
What is the connection between power and evil?
How may power be used for good?
How can we eradicate evil from our lives?
How can we overcome distractions that keep us from faithful ministry?
Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay
Where does evil come from? What is the source? Some think it builds its roots in power. Both the pursuit of power and the maintenance of it prove to be too corruptible to overcome. Others view it as inevitable, part of human nature or a result of unintended consequences. People from many faith traditions point to temptation, in various forms, and a singular event as the introduction of evil into a world otherwise known as good. Whatever the origin, evil permeates the biblical narrative and persists in every age of human history.
The gospel reading articulates the liberation story of a person overcome by, in their words, a legion. The narration refers to them as unclean spirits and demons alternatively. Some might say those terms are synonymous without any significant distinction, which may very well be true. At the same time, the lack of consistent identifier may indicate the gospel writer remained unclear of their precise identity and was covering all options.
Why does it matter? If we desire to go deeper in the story, questioning the details may make all the difference. A superficial examination leads to superficial theology and limits the testimony of the account. When the nuance receives little attention, we may become fixated on incomplete or inaccurate interpretation or distort the message the original audience would have understood.
For instance, when read on face value, the term legion just reflects a multitude of spirits or demons assaulting the man’s being. Yet, that term has a meaning that should not be divorced from the telling of this story and the exploration of the afflicted person’s condition.
Then a bizarre outsider becomes an insider (8:26–39). For the first and only time, Luke’s Jesus leaves Israelite territory. He encounters a demoniac on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, likely a gentile, unclean—an extreme outsider who dwells not among the living but in tombs, as good as dead. As in other restorations, violations of norms (this time regarding gentiles and tomb impurity) are formidable. Also the demons name themselves “Legion,” which the narrator associates with “many demons.” But it is also Latin for many Roman soldiers. Moreover, how this demoniac plays out his insanity involves psychosocial manifestations of oppression (Theissen, 255–56). Indeed, Jewish people named the Romans who subjugated them “swine.” They equated Roman legions with herding pigs, and a Qumran text belittles a legion for worshiping the emblem of swine on their standards and weapons (Annen, 184). The demons enter swine that bring about their own demise by jumping in the lake (symbolically?). The man then becomes an insider at Jesus’ feet, who makes mysteries of God’s commonwealth known to others. He hears God’s word, does it, and is Jesus’ kin.
Robert L. Brawley
This story of the possessed person is the story of an oppressed person, whose life is driven by influences exerting their will and power against the person’s control. That sounds like evil perpetrated perhaps, if the reference to the Roman military were truly activated symbolically, at the hands of the state. Oppressive regimes have exerted their will without authority or accountability too often in the history of human political interaction. (Politics simply being the way we relate to one another within the contexts of a communal or societal structure.)
This is why the gospel is political. Jesus was political. The kindom of God offers a political alternative to the relational structures presented in the world today and reflects the ethos and hope for the restoration of Creator’s intentions for creation. Good news for the poor, marginalized, orphaned, oppressed, imprisoned, and subjugated threatens the position of the powerful and privileged. Jesus was not executed by the state for teaching personal repentance; Jesus generated a movement of liberation and freedom that ran counter to the agenda of the imperial forces at work during his time.
Following Jesus sets the faith communities claiming the Christianity of the early church against nationalistic aims and exclusionary practices. The church, before the sanction and subsequent corruption of the state, birthed itself in the radical belief that God’s will be done on earth as in heaven. The church today continues to have a remnant focused on that hope and expectation. Our challenge is to overcome the distractions that keep us from attending to the main thing. And, those distractions are legion.
They often start with our own survival and suggested responses that pretend at relevancy while masking as complicity to empire when authentic ministry in the way of Jesus exemplifies relevance in meeting human needs and proclaiming God’s justice and righteousness. The antidote to the perceived decline in the church (and actual decrease in church affiliation) is to live as the church with boldness, conviction, and freedom. And, perhaps, we need to summon the courage to exorcise some demons.
Safe from the perils of the lake, Jesus creates a storm of his own in the region of the Gerasenes. Immediately after reaching land, he encounters a man whose life is so distorted by the demons inside him that he has long made his home among the buried dead, naked, isolated from the society of the living. When Jesus permits the army of demons to find a new home in a herd of pigs, which promptly rush to destruction, the man is restored to health and, at least potentially, to the community. That community, though, responds with fear so intense that Jesus has no choice but to leave. The man, bereft of his demon army, now tries to remain with Jesus, but in an interesting reversal of the demotion of existent family relationships in 8:19–21, Jesus sends him back to his own house. He will need to be the one who tells the Gerasenes the story of God’s saving work.
John T. Carroll
Who among us will tell the story of God’s saving work? Who among us will respond affirmatively to the call to participate in God’s saving work?
In a press conference, Rev. Tanya Lopez, pastor of Downey Memorial Christian Church in California, recounted the story of an apparently unhoused person being surrounded and eventually detained by men presenting themselves as police outside the doors of the church. She questioned them, tried to advise the man of his rights, and attempted to gain information from him to follow up. Those presenting as police refused to identify themselves, had no warrant, and threatened her with their bodies and their rifles. She said, “I had to go ahead and meet the moment with my faith recognizing that putting myself on the line is what it means to be a person of faith.”
Is that our testimony?
It’s a tidier story to assume the man in the gospel narrative was possessed by spirits that were attacking his mind, body, and soul individually, but there are details in the text that invite us to go deeper into his life circumstances. He was unclothed and apparently unhoused, and it is not clear if his status was a result of demon possession or if the demons targeted him because of his vulnerability.
As soon as Jesus sets foot on Gerasene soil, a demon-tormented man comes out to him “from the city.” Mark 5:2 has the man come “from the tombs,” where indeed he also makes his home in Luke’s version (v. 27), but the Lukan phrasing is more subtle. This man has been separated from the city by his disorder and now inhabits a liminal space between worlds: human and demonic, living and dead. Although his approach to Jesus does not have healing as its motive, Jesus meets him in his place between worlds and brings release for which he has not asked. In spatial terms, the approach “from the city” is reversed at the close of the story by Jesus’ direction that the man go back to his house, and by his telling the news of his healing “in every city” (v. 39).
John T. Carroll
How many people suffer between the reality of needing support and the world that expects everyone to be able to function independently of one another even though the Creator crafted us for community? How many find their places of residence a tomb of hopelessness, apathy, and despair because the voice of legions proclaims the theological heresy of individualism, self-determination, and national exceptionalism?
The church may need a spiritual cleanse in order to purge those things that have little to do with God and so much more to do with our comfort and convenience, our allegiance to oppressive systems and privileged institutions, and our outsized preoccupation with the numbers in our pews and the condition of our property.
When the man noticed Jesus’ approach, he cried out, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” This is the question for the church and all who follow the way of Jesus, at every hour, what would you do with me, Jesus?
The answers would bring us out of the tomb of resignation and despair to allyship and empowerment: to be the church, the embodiment of Christ in offering deliverance, salvation, and liberation.
Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
“Lord, I Want to be a Christian” (African American Spiritual)
1 Lord, I want to be a Christian
in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.
2 Lord, I want to be more loving
in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart.
3 Lord, I want to be more holy
in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart.
4 Lord, I want to be like Jesus
in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart.
For Further Reflection
“Do not build your tomb out of ruins,
(Using) what had been made for what is to be made.
Behold, the king is lord of joy,
You may rest, sleep in your strength,
Follow your heart, through what I have done, There is no foe within your borders.” ― Miriam Lichtheim
“A civilization is a tomb of the old Culture, and womb of the new.” ― Joe Dixon
“The sorrow that lay cold in her mother’s heart… converted it into a tomb.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne
A preaching commentary on this text (with works cited) is at //ucc.org/SermonSeeds.
The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments below this post on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.
About Weekly Seeds
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Weekly Seeds is a service of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.