The Gospel According to Juneteenth

Luke 8:26-39

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— 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.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

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. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 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 were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “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.

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I didn’t plan to make today all about Juneteenth, really. Back in May, when I realized that June 19th – this newly minted National Holiday – fell on a Sunday, I thought it would be meaningful and fun to collect our Mission Sunday offering for the month in honor of the occasion. And this week I asked Jeannie if we could sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – the Black national anthem - in honor of the day. And then I saw that we’d be reading that bit from Galatians, which promises that, baptized into Christ Jesus, we are no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free, but that we are all ONE, thanks to faith, thanks to the grace of our creator, and thanks to our shared humanity as children of God, too.

So I thought perhaps the stars and the lectionary and the calendar might have aligned in such a way that maybe there’s supposed to be more said and wondered about and learned, here, on this Juneteenth, after all.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who just started learning about Juneteenth, as something worth commemorating, within the last few years or so. It was only declared a national holiday last year, but within the last 2-3 years, Juneteenth started showing up on my Google calendar, much to my surprise. It just showed up, like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Arbor Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Flag Day, Father’s Day.

And not only was I surprised and curious about that, once I looked into it, I was a little embarrassed that I’d never been taught or told about it before, since it’s been celebrated by Black people in our country since it happened in 1865.

The short story is that June 19th – Juneteenth – marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers finally announced to enslaved people in Texas, that they were free. What’s sad and significant and worth celebrating about Juneteenth, is that this announcement finally came to those enslaved children of God in Texas – the last state in the country to hear the news – which didn’t happen until more than two months after the end of the Civil War, which the traitorous Confederacy and those longing to keep their right to own people lost, of course. And the announcement of Juneteenth’s liberation came to enslaved Texans more than two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which would have otherwise, at least symbolically, granted them their freedom.

So the significance of the Juneteenth holiday is that it means to mark for our country an even fuller, more comprehensive “Independence Day,” than what the 4th of July, ever could have meant for the millions of enslaved Americans who were owned and terrorized and treated as property for so many generations. Maybe you’ve heard what Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and Black abolitionist had to say to white people about the 4th of July holiday, back in 1852:

So, if we buy what Paul is selling in Galatians, and I hope we do – that our baptism and our faith and the abundance of God’s grace makes us one in Christ Jesus, and that we are no longer bound by the labels and limits and institutions of this world; no longer male or female (remember last week’s sermon about Pride and Pronouns?) … no longer male or female … no longer Gentile or Jew … and no longer slave or free … than the freedom and liberation of Juneteenth is quite a day worth celebrating for all of us, not just our Black neighbors, friends, brothers, sisters, and fellow citizens.

Which brings me to Jesus and this strange story from Luke’s Gospel. It’s especially strange when we take it at face value and try to make 21st Century sense out of this moment when Jesus exorcises a host of demons from a possessed man, sends those demons into a herd of pigs, who are then driven madly into a lake where they drown because, apparently, even though fat floats, these pigs couldn’t swim.

Well, I learned a while ago that some smarter people than me believe this story – like so many stories in Scripture – might have more meaning if we read it literately, rather than just literally. (It’s hard to take this story literally, anyway, when we’re given the impression that Jesus arrives in a boat, on the shores of Gerasa, which was a town 25-30 miles inland from any significant body of water.)

Anyway, these wise scholars point out that the occupying Roman army had a history of terrorizing the Jews in the region of Gerasa, so that when that possessed man names his demon “Legion,” a word used by Rome to quantify its military might, and when that “Legion” of demons gets cast into some unholy, unclean, symbolically sinful swine as far as Jews were concerned, and then drowned, anyone listening to this story in First Century Palestine, would have connected that demonic “Legion” to the “Legions” of the oppressive Roman Empire and realized that Rome just got owned by that Jew, from Nazareth, named Jesus.

The moral and message of the story, then, would have been one of hope and vindication and justice and joy that the Kingdom of God, in Jesus, was more powerful even than the empires of this world. And, of course, that God, in Jesus, always stands for and stands with the outcasts, the outsider, and the oppressed in this world.

So I see a lot of common ground between what Jesus is up to with the possessed man and the Gerasenes and what happened for the enslaved people in our own country a few generations ago: as always, Jesus’ message is one of good news for the poor, freedom for the oppressed and release for the captives. Happy Juneteenth!

Sadly, the other common ground we can find in this story is that not everyone gets that, or wants that, or is willing and able to hear that message of good news.

In Gerasa, it was the swineherds and the townspeople who missed the point. The swineherds were probably mad that their valuable property – all of that livestock – was lost and gone forever. This is, of course, what upset so many slave holders, and the Confederacy, in general, back in the 1860’s, too.

And who knows what made the average bear in Gerasa so afraid that day – that a miracle had happened?; that a possessed man had been made well?; that an outcast had been welcomed in?; that they were being asked to look at him and at themselves and their past treatment of him differently because of what Jesus had done?

Maybe all of that is the kind of thing that made so many – and still makes so many – uncomfortable and unwilling to acknowledge the beauty and fullness of what Juneteenth represents. Maybe all of that is why it took so long for the last enslaved people in our country to get news of their liberation … because their enslavers couldn’t see their humanity or if they could, they refused to acknowledge or atone for how they had oppressed them so sinfully. Maybe it’s why there were armed white people protesting and terrorizing a Juneteenth celebration in Tennessee, just yesterday.

In that same speech about the Fourth of July, by Frederick Douglass, he also says simply, “Oppression makes a wise man mad.” And maybe that’s what was up with that guy who was possessed and cast out and living in the tombs of Gerasa back in Jesus’ day.

“Oppression makes a wise man mad.” I think Jesus would concur. And I think this miracle with the possessed man, the exorcised demons and the drowned pigs is a picture of God’s judgement against oppression of any kind. I think it is a picture of God’s call for justice in an unfair world. And I think it’s an invitation, on a day like Juneteenth, to celebrate that justice when it comes, to work toward more of it however we’re able, and to hope for that kind of liberty and justice for all – and mean it, every day.

Amen

NOTES:

You can read the entirety of Frederick Douglass’ speech HERE.

There’s a great chapter about Juneteenth in Clint Smith’s book How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.

The Coffin Confessor

Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb taking the spices they prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, but they didn’t find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.

The women were terrified and they bowed their faces to the ground. The men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He’s not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, crucified, and on the third day, rise again. Then they remembered these words and, returning to Jerusalem, told all of this to the eleven and all the rest.

Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles but these words seemed to them an idle tale and they didn’t believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking inside, he saw the linen cloths and went away, amazed at what had happened.

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I heard an interesting story on the This American Life podcast recently about a guy from Queensland, Australia, who calls himself “The Coffin Confessor.” His name is Bill, and he was actually a private investigator by trade, before he picked up a side-gig some time ago that led to this new, much more interesting job title. What’s cooler than being a private investigator, you wonder?

Well, this guy was investigating some financial matters for a client who, unbeknownst to Bill, was dying of a terminal disease. As they became friendlier and talked more, his client made an off-hand comment about how he had some things he’d wish he could say at his funeral – for everyone to hear. He explained that he had thought about making a video of himself saying everything he wanted to say to whoever showed up at his funeral, but that he suspected his family wouldn’t actually play it. Bill, just trying to be funny, suggested that he could crash his client’s funeral and say whatever it was he wanted to be said – and “The Coffin Confessor” was born.

So, when his client – now friend – died, Bill showed up at the funeral, not knowing a soul in the church. When the dead guy’s best friend got up to give the eulogy, Bill stood up from his pew to interrupt him – as he was instructed, contracted, and paid to do.

And, because he’s from Australia, it’s more interesting and fun to hear Bill tell it…

“It was a blur to start with. I mean, I was sweating, profusely. And I've got to say, it was -- you've got your time on your phone. And I'm looking at the clock, and I'm thinking, OK, his mate's about to do the eulogy. And I knew I had to get up within one minute, two minutes at most, to interrupt the eulogy.

“And his best mate stands up, and he starts blubbering and telling everybody how much he loves his best mate and starts talking about a certain particular time that they shared. And it was that moment, I looked at my clock, and I went, oh, it's nearly two minutes in.

“And in that church, there were long pews. And they were timber. So when you stood up or you even moved, they made a sound. And yeah, when I stood up, it made a sound. And obviously, everyone just looked straight at you, you know? I froze, to say honestly. I stood up, and I just stood there and went, OK.”

Well, since we’re in church I have to stop it there, because what Bill had to say, and the words he had to use to say it, are a little much for some people on Easter Sunday. The short of the long is that the man Bill interrupted – the dead man’s best friend? – had tried to sleep with his friend’s wife, while his friend was dying. And Bill’s job – the Coffin Confessor – was to call him out for it, in front of God and everyone. Bill was also asked tell the dead man’s brother to “take a hike” that day, in much more colorful language, for not being around or available to him and to his family for the previous thirty years.

So “The Coffin Confessor” did his job, said his peace on behalf of the deceased, folded up the letter from which he’d been reading, laid it on the casket at the front of the church, and walked out.

The dead man’s wife and daughter appreciated what he’d done and thanked him for it later. A relative of the dead man, who was also terminally ill, found it so meaningful, she hired him to do something similar at her own funeral when the time came. And so did others. And so, a star – or at least a new career – was born.

See, Bill has found himself crashing funerals ever since, for anywhere between $2 to $10,000, and for all kinds of reasons – some big, some small – some petty and some profound – “some good, some bad, some funny, some sad,” as Bill tells it.

At another funeral Bill was hired to air some dirty laundry about an affair between neighbors. Another time, an atheist asked Bill to let everyone know that the religious funeral they were participating in – that he just knew his parents would concoct on his behalf – was nothing he ever would have wanted. Another time, Bill helped a dead, muscled, tattooed biker come out of the closet as bi-sexual to a room full of other muscled, tattooed – very surprised – bikers just like him. Once, a dying man asked Bill to apologize to his ex-wife and let her know how much she meant to him. More than once, Bill has surprised a dead person’s family with a surprise windfall of money they never knew was coming.

So, “the Coffin Confessor” made me think about Easter and what brings us here today, not because of what this Good News might inspire us to have said on our behalf at our respective funerals … after we’re dead and gone. But because of how our faith in what brings us here today – even if that’s small – might inspire all that we say and do on this side of the grave differently … so that it matters for us and for the world, here and now, right where we’re still living.

What I mean is, God doesn’t want us to wait to start telling the truth – TO START LIVING OUR TRUTH – to start living into the fullness of who we are. Yes, the Good News of Easter is about life after death and resurrection on the other side of eternity – whatever in the world that means for you, for me, for all of us as believers.

But, precisely because of that promised eternity, this Good News, this Gospel of new life, matters just as much here and now, if we really let the truth of it have its way with us.

Because of God’s overwhelming grace, I mean, we don’t have to wait until after we die to be generous with our time or our talents or our treasures …

Because of God’s abundant mercy, I mean, we don’t have to wait until we’re dead to seek justice – for ourselves or others in this world …

Because of God’s promised love, you don’t wait to come out of the coffin as it were. Come out of the closet now, for crying out loud, and live and love as God created you to live and love…

Because of Easter’s good news we are called to apologize now… offer forgiveness now… extend mercy now…. share grace now…. on this side of the grave…with the people for whom it can still matter and make a difference in this world.

Bill Edgar, “The Coffin Confessor,” provides a valuable service, it seems, for which there is a growing market apparently – he’s written a book; he’s in conversation about a movie; there’s talk of a reality TV show, as you might imagine. And the appeal for it, as he describes is, is that “mic drop” moment he gets to deliver on behalf of the deceased: when the dead have their say, when the deceased get the last word, when he walks out of a funeral, leaving all sorts of emotions – “good, bad, happy or sad” – in his wake.

But Easter reminds us that God always gets the last word when it comes to life and death in this world and the next. And because God’s last word is always something about grace, mercy, forgiveness, peace, new life and second chances …

Because God’s last word proclaims victory over death, forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting …

Because our “Coffin Confessor” is Jesus of Nazareth – crucified and risen for the sake of the world – our lives on this side of it all – right here and now – can be more honest and truthful, more fulfilled and life-giving, more holy and hopeful, and much more like the paradise we long for, the eternity that belongs to those who’ve gone before us, and the heaven that will be ours whenever the time comes.

Amen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.