I prepared today's worship service earlier this week before Trump made the decision with the request of Israel to bomb Iran and the nuclear war facilities they have been working on. I'll add a prayer in the Pastoral Prayer for those who continue to be affected by war, our need to kill one another, and in line with today's sermon message; I'll point to the demons of nationality and greed. Scriptures tell us that we are all one in Christ - may we someday learn to understand what exactly that means and may all people have greater respect for all life, regardless of our differences.
Worship
Service for June 22, 2025
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Come, let us worship the Lord our God,
whose love quenches our thirst.
P: We are parched and thirsty for God’s
healing word.
L: Let us praise God who is with us always.
P: We seek the one who will not desert us.
L: Let us open our hearts to God who calls us
by name.
P: We come, seeking a reconciled relationship
with God.
Opening Hymn –
For the Beauty of the Earth #473/182
5 vs. Blue
Prayer of Confession
Life is
sometimes like a giant spider web. We
seem to get caught and entangled in its threads, not knowing which way to turn
or how to extricate ourselves from the dilemmas in which we are trapped. Lord, you know that so many of these dilemmas
and burdens are of our own creation, coming out of our stubbornness and fear. We find it much easier to turn our back on
people in need, or just write a check and hope that the problems go away. Forgive us when we decide not to become
involved in the solution when we would rather back off from helping and turn
and run for cover. Give us an extra
measure of courage and strength along with Your forgiving love, that we may
again place our whole trust in You. (Silent
prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Let go of the demons that bind you in
sorrow. Christ has broken those bands
and reaches out in love for you.
P: Today, we receive God’s loving blessings,
for they are given to us as gift and promise.
Thanks be to God. AMEN!
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Loving
God, you have given us many blessings and supplied us with everything that we
need. We are your servants, the people
that you have created. When we are
tempted to move away from you, O God, bring us back by your benevolent
mercy. When we fail to use the gifts and
the talents that you have given us, renew us with the strength of your will and
the wisdom of your direction. When we
would rather stand idly by than to become involved in the passion and the
suffering of this world, move us to act with the gift of your compassion. When we surround ourselves with images that
would lead to our destruction, renew us with the Spirit of your live-giving
love. When we walk away from you and the
lives to which you have called us, lead us to repentance so that our broken and
sinful hearts might be healed by your Word.
Hear also the prayers of your people
who lift up their worries and concerns… we pray now for...
There are times when we need you to
hear the unspoken prayers of our hearts, because we cannot say them aloud. Hear us now Lord, in silence…
All this we ask not only for our sake,
but also for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord who taught us to pray
together saying…Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed by Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread. And forgive us our debts as
we forgive our debtors. And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – How
Great Thou Art #467/147
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – I Kings 19:1-15a
Second Scripture Reading – Luke
8:26-39
Sermon –
The Casting Out of Demons
(based on Luke 5:26-39
I first met Dale on Sunday morning. He walked awkwardly with the help of a
walker, but wore a bright smile that Sunday morning. It was my first church job as a summer
Evangelist at a church just north of where I grew up. Although Dale wore a bright smile when I first
saw him, I came to learn that Dale’s presence in church was not very welcome. Dale didn’t go down to Sunday school classes
with the other children. The Sunday school teachers had tried to include Dale,
but after several parents threatened to withdraw their children, they asked Dale’s
parents not to send him anymore. So, Dale
stayed in the sanctuary with the adults. Most of the adult members tried to tolerate his
presence but for some, he was simply unnerving. Why?
Because Dale was severely autistic. Sitting still and behaving the way that was
expected in a church was impossible for him. As long as we were singing hymns, Dale was extraordinarily
happy. He would catch the rhythms of the
music and rock back and forth and sing. Oh,
and he definitely had a set of lungs on him.
He would sing clearly and loudly.
But he never sang the same words as the rest of the congregation and the
tune never seemed to match most of the time.
But it was clear from his movements and the sounds that emanated from
his lips that he was indeed singing. The
trouble was, on top of that, Dale never stopped singing when we did. When his parents would attempt to put an end
to Dale’s song, he would flail about and sometimes throw himself on the floor
which would require both parents and several people nearby to help get him up.
Now there are some churches where flailing about and throwing
yourself to the floor would be interpreted as a sign that the Holy Spirit was
present. But the reaction of the
worshippers to Dale’s outbursts made it clear that they feared that he was
instead possessed by spirits of the evil variety. Oh, they would have never come out and said
that he was possessed by demons, they just acted as if he were.
On a good day Dale’s behavior only made people
uncomfortable. On a bad day, his
behavior embarrassed some, offended others, but often outraged many.
Dale’s parents had become new members when Dale was only
4 and had exhibited much of the same behaviors yet seem to have been tolerated
by the membership then. I guess many had
thought he’d grow out of the outbursts and disruptive behavior, but now that he
was nearly a teenager his behavior was becoming untenable.
I remember being asked to join the pastor in a meeting
with members of the session, deacons, and a couple of the Sunday School
teachers. The meeting had been called to
deal with the complaints and concerns of several long-time members of the
congregation that had decided that Dale’s presence could no longer be tolerated
at worship and something had to be done.
The people who complained were not bad people. They were fine upstanding members of the
congregation who found themselves unable to deal with Dale’s presence in their
midst. During the meeting we agonized
over what to do.
We knew that members had stopped coming to the early
service which Dale’s family attended. We
also knew that some visitors found Dale’s behavior so disturbing that they
never darkened our doors again. Perfectly
reasoned arguments were made for excluding Dale from worship, which opened up
new arguments about where to put him in Sunday School which found him also
disruptive. The pastor struggled to
remind us that we had a responsibility to Dale and to his family. After three hours of painful discussion, it
was decided to call another meeting the following week after everyone had an opportunity
to think more about it.
During the week that followed the congregational members
were abuzz with people putting in their two cents worth. Whenever a member of Dale’s family would walk
into a room, the place would become deadly silent. When we gathered for the second meeting twelve
people had petitioned to speak on the issue. Annie was one of those who spoke. Annie was just eighteen years old and she was Dale’s
baby-sitter. She’d been helping to look
after Dale for about six months in order to learn more about autism. She’d been attending classes at West Chester
University and was learning various techniques that were being used at the time
to better understand and teach autistic children. Annie volunteered to work with Dale on Sunday
mornings.
I don’t use the word miracle very often. But I have to tell you that what Annie and Dale
accomplished in just a few short months was nothing short of miraculous. Dale still sang in his own unruly style, but
Annie’s approach never caused Dale to flail about or throw himself to the
floor. And I learned after I left in my
correspondence with members who had become friends, in time even Dale’s
shouting was brought down to a minimum. For
several years while she attended West Chester, Annie and Dale were inseparable
in worship. By the time he was fourteen
Annie had graduated and Dale was no longer the unreachable child he once was. Annie along with Dale’s parents and teachers
had taught him how to reach out and communicate with others. Annie had also taught many of the church members
how to communicate with him. In the
community that gathered as Christ’s body, God’s grace had inspired compassion
in the church and healing took place for everyone; Dale, his parents, and
members of the church.
I tell this story not to necessarily point to Dale and
draw parallels between him and the metaphor of the demoniac in the gospel
story, but rather to look at how Dale’s demons resemble the demons that haunt
us. Because each of us are haunted by
our own demons; demons that live in us, and most of us have such a variety of
demons that you could call them Legion. And I’m not talking about the gremlins that
annoy us from time to time. I’m talking
about the really scary demons that get in the way and cause us to behave in
ways that we’d rather not think about. Most
of us manage to confine those demons to the farthest recesses of our
consciousness. But that doesn’t stop
them from impacting our lives.
However, most of us wouldn’t call the stuff that haunts
us, demons. We’re modern sophisticated
individuals and we know a thing or two about the human psyche and so our
metaphor for the stuff that haunts us has changed; these days we are more
likely to call it baggage. Rather than
referring to demons that haunt us we talk about baggage that we haul around, or
baggage that we need to unpack, or baggage that we need to leave behind, so
that we can move on. But there’s some
stuff that we carry around with us that is so disturbing, or so paralyzing, or
so frightening that the metaphor of baggage just doesn’t quite capture it and some
of it functions more like the demons of old.
Dale’s “demons”, if you will, were upfront and pretty
unsophisticated. His autism never let him
pretend for a moment that they weren’t there. His coping skills were limited and so all too
often his demons would parade about in public much to the chagrin of the people
around him. Just like the demoniac that
Jesus encountered, sometimes Dale would need to be bound in order to calm the
demons. Oh, sure nobody ever actually
bound Dale with chains, or drove him out of town; they found more polite and
acceptable ways to bind him and to ensure that his family kept him away from
good decent folks who were trying to go about their business.
In our culture, just as in the culture of the first
century, you are not supposed to let your demons parade about in public. So, most of us have become pretty adept at
keeping our demons to ourselves. We’ve
learned the fine art of capture and control and so in the deep dark recesses of
our consciousness our demons flail about, and if from time to time they manage
to escape, we quickly toss a net over them and haul them back under control. Modern life is designed to help us keep our
demons tightly bound up.
Besides personal demons such as addictions of all
different kinds; money, greed, alcohol, narcotics, entertainment, disengagement,
and phobias of all kinds. There are also
societal demons and these are legion.
Racism is a demon, Poverty is a demon, Powerlessness is a demon, Self-depreciation
is a demon. And those who prop them up are
demonic in effect.
Rev. Reuben Sheares, a UCC pastor said that “a strategy
of liberation includes a ministry of exorcism, the naming and casting out of
demons.”
But we are not alone in the face of our demons, neither
personal nor societal. For the One in
whom we live and move and have our being, lives and breathes in us, and there
is no demon in heaven or on earth that is a match for the reality of our
connectedness to the Source of all that is. For there is nothing in heaven or on earth
that can separate us from the LOVE of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It’s a power that each of us is intimately
connected to. It is a power beyond our
demons. If we only stop and listen. Listen to that still small voice that comes to
us out of the whirlwind.
One last thing about Dale. It was near the end of summer, I was just
about ready to go back to seminary in another week. We had just had our last youth group event. Annie came to me in a panic. Dale was missing. We searched the church and couldn’t find him
anywhere. The parking lot was almost
empty when we went outside to see if Dale was there. My car was parked alongside the equipment
shed. I was about to hop into the car to
head off in search of Dale, when I heard soft crying in the shed. I found Dale on the floor inside, his shirt
was torn and he had a cut above his eye. When I asked him what had happened he just
looked at me and said, “I’m not a retard.”
I asked Dale to tell me what had happened. But he refused to tell me. He just said, “Don’t worry, I know they’re
sorry. It’s okay don’t be mad. It’s okay.”
Annie and I cleaned Dale up and the three of us went to
the Dairy Queen nearby. Dale was in the
middle of his favorite desert, a large butterscotch sundae, when he caught
sight of a couple of the other boys from church. Dale jumped up from the table and went
straight for the boys. Suspecting that
these boys might have had something to do with Dale’s injuries, and worried
that he was going to strike out, Annie and I followed quickly. By the time he reached the boys, they realized
that we were behind him and they looked more than a little worried. But, instead of striking out, Dale just smiled
at them and said, “It’s okay. Don’t
worry; I know you’re sorry. It’s okay.”
To this day, when I’m weary from battles with my own
demons if I’m able to simply stop, to stop just for a few moments and listen,
sometimes that still small voice speaks to me. Sometimes that still small voice sounds just
like Dale saying, “It’s okay. Don’t
worry; I know you’re sorry. It’s okay.” And when I hear that voice, I can’t help but
see and hear that beautiful child of God. “It’s okay. Don’t worry, I know you’re sorry. It’s okay.”
However the voice comes to you, you will know that there
is nothing in heaven or on earth that can separate you from the LOVE of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord,
give us the desire to grow in our faith in you and in love for all people. May our lives reflect what you have given to
us, so that we might bring honor and glory to your holy name. Take these gifts and bless them. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – Jesus,
the Very Thought of Thee #310/89
Benediction –
Friends, May the grace of God,
the love of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all,
those that you love and those that no one loves now and always. AMEN.
Postlude
