WEBVTT 00:00:01.239 --> 00:00:05.679 Mark says, Sophroneo, the man is in his right 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:12.339 mind. And the town tells Jesus to Vamoose? Who's 00:00:12.339 --> 00:00:20.859 the crazy one? You step off the boat on a far 00:00:20.859 --> 00:00:24.660 shore. The storm is still rolling behind you, 00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:28.059 a rumor on dark water. The wind has gone quiet. 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:31.350 The air feels changed. And now you're standing 00:00:31.350 --> 00:00:35.009 in Gentile country, the wrong side of the lake, 00:00:35.170 --> 00:00:38.929 where tombs gape open in the hills and something 00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:42.729 wounded comes running out to meet mercy. Before 00:00:42.729 --> 00:00:45.570 you know what it costs, before you know who it 00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:48.329 threatens, you're watching a man come back to 00:00:48.329 --> 00:00:52.789 himself, sitting clothed in his right mind, and 00:00:52.789 --> 00:00:56.429 the whole town is afraid. Now, wherever you are, 00:00:56.429 --> 00:00:58.890 driving home, washing dishes, sitting in the 00:00:58.890 --> 00:01:01.700 dark, You've just wandered into our fellowship 00:01:01.700 --> 00:01:04.959 hall after our midweek meal. Tables are still 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:07.859 warm from conversation. Coffee's on in the back. 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:10.599 Pull up a chair and grab a cup. It's time for 00:01:10.599 --> 00:01:13.200 our Wednesday night Bible study. And I'll see 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:20.420 you on the other side. This is a perfect time 00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:22.659 for me to begin as we're wrapping up our dinner. 00:01:22.739 --> 00:01:25.120 But before we begin, there it is. Mr. Wayne giving 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:29.280 us the big thumbs up. All right. I have a Bible 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:31.879 story tonight that I think is a pretty cool one, 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:35.180 but as always, I forget sometimes. I need to 00:01:35.180 --> 00:01:37.939 set the scene for you guys about where we are 00:01:37.939 --> 00:01:40.500 in the story to talk about the story we're going 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:42.620 to talk about tonight. So let me do that. Before 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:46.239 we begin tonight's story, let me place ourselves 00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:49.819 first and foremost at the time of where we're 00:01:49.819 --> 00:01:53.079 at in the story of Jesus' ministry and the geography 00:01:53.079 --> 00:01:56.959 where Jesus has spent the day teaching parables. 00:01:57.790 --> 00:02:02.870 And he is on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. 00:02:03.269 --> 00:02:05.989 Now, I have a Q -tip here. I thought this might 00:02:05.989 --> 00:02:09.689 work. If you can't see it, then imagine instead 00:02:09.689 --> 00:02:12.270 of a Q -tip I'm holding up, imagine I'm holding 00:02:12.270 --> 00:02:15.370 up a lollipop with lollipops on both ends. The 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:19.250 bottom part, that's going to be the Dead Sea. 00:02:20.110 --> 00:02:23.689 Then the stick part, that's the Jordan River. 00:02:24.150 --> 00:02:29.469 The top lollipop. part is the Sea of Galilee, 00:02:29.629 --> 00:02:33.509 okay? And the Jordan River, the stick part, separates 00:02:33.509 --> 00:02:39.110 Judea from not Judea. And Jesus has spent the 00:02:39.110 --> 00:02:42.689 day, he's been teaching parables, and then he 00:02:42.689 --> 00:02:45.289 says, let's go to the other side of the lake, 00:02:45.469 --> 00:02:49.729 the other way. During the night, storm comes 00:02:49.729 --> 00:02:55.800 up, Jesus is asleep, he gets up, he tells The 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:59.500 sea to calm down? It does. The disciples freak 00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:03.599 out. And then the story says, we find them on 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:07.039 the shore, the other side. That's where we are 00:03:07.039 --> 00:03:11.520 tonight. The shore on the other side is a Gentile 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:15.719 region known as the Gerasenes. Okay? So where 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:18.080 we're going to jump off tonight is literally, 00:03:18.180 --> 00:03:23.639 we are stepping off that boat. onto the shore 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:28.199 of the Sea of Galilee in the Gennesarenes. And 00:03:28.199 --> 00:03:31.060 the storm that has just tried to swallow you 00:03:31.060 --> 00:03:35.780 whole an hour or two ago, it's only a memory 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:40.240 rolling behind you in the dark water. The disciples 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:45.639 are still shaken. Each one of them knows that 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:49.060 something has shifted. When he stood up in the 00:03:49.060 --> 00:03:52.280 bow, he looked at that storm like it owed him 00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:57.180 money and told the sea to calm down. And it did. 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:02.919 And now you hear it. Gentile country. The wrong 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:07.039 side of the lake. These are the hills of the 00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:11.060 Decapolis. Decapolis means ten cities. And there 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:13.379 are these hills around, and there are these ten 00:04:13.379 --> 00:04:16.370 little towns around it. That region. It was known 00:04:16.370 --> 00:04:20.750 as the Decapolis. Roman roads, Greek cities, 00:04:20.970 --> 00:04:25.850 occupation layered upon layered upon layered 00:04:25.850 --> 00:04:29.470 of these people's memory. And these hills, they're 00:04:29.470 --> 00:04:33.490 punctured with caves. Not decorative caves, but 00:04:33.490 --> 00:04:39.970 burial caves. Open mouths of rock and earth that 00:04:39.970 --> 00:04:47.910 hold bones and silence and decay. Jesus has crossed 00:04:47.910 --> 00:04:53.889 a storm to get here. He did not drift aimlessly 00:04:53.889 --> 00:05:00.550 to the other side. He aimed for this. And then, 00:05:00.550 --> 00:05:04.889 while standing there on the shore, a man starts 00:05:04.889 --> 00:05:08.410 running towards you. Mark doesn't soften it. 00:05:08.410 --> 00:05:11.889 Chapter 5, verse 2, we read, When he had come 00:05:11.889 --> 00:05:15.509 out of the boat, immediately a man with an unclean 00:05:15.509 --> 00:05:19.290 spirit met him out of the tombs. Mark says immediately, 00:05:19.829 --> 00:05:24.689 no welcome party, just a man from the graves 00:05:24.689 --> 00:05:31.050 running hard in your direction. He lives here 00:05:31.050 --> 00:05:37.060 in the tombs among the bones. And chapter 5, 00:05:37.139 --> 00:05:40.139 verse 3 says this. Nobody could bind him anymore. 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:48.120 Not even with chains. Anymore. That word should 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:52.639 break our hearts. Because anymore means that 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:56.319 they had tried. Not necessarily cruel people. 00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:01.759 People who didn't know what else to do. And they 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:06.009 built systems. Shackles, chains, a perimeter, 00:06:06.250 --> 00:06:09.750 a zone where the brokenness was supposed to stay. 00:06:10.569 --> 00:06:14.709 But he tore through all of that. Verse 5 says, 00:06:14.990 --> 00:06:28.310 This is not villain language. This is suffering 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:34.959 language. He's the town's open wound. What happens 00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:38.740 when pain goes untreated long enough that it 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:44.600 becomes spectacle? When the community stops asking 00:06:44.600 --> 00:06:50.579 how to help, starts asking how to manage. But 00:06:50.579 --> 00:06:54.579 when he sees Jesus from far off, he begins running 00:06:54.579 --> 00:07:00.639 towards him, not away, towards. The man who could 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:04.769 not be chained bows. The man who could not be 00:07:04.769 --> 00:07:09.490 managed needles. The town built systems to restrain 00:07:09.490 --> 00:07:15.269 him. The demons took up residence in him. But 00:07:15.269 --> 00:07:19.269 when mercy steps off a boat onto foreign shore, 00:07:19.529 --> 00:07:25.050 this howling, bleeding, cave -dwelling man recognizes, 00:07:25.110 --> 00:07:30.550 sometimes in our lives, the most broken person 00:07:30.550 --> 00:07:35.629 in the story. as the clearest sight. And sometimes, 00:07:35.949 --> 00:07:39.410 the people who think that they're stable are 00:07:39.410 --> 00:07:43.029 the ones who are about to be exposed. Friends, 00:07:43.089 --> 00:07:46.990 a few verses of Scripture tonight. Our few verses 00:07:46.990 --> 00:07:49.670 tonight comes to us from the Gospel account according 00:07:49.670 --> 00:07:54.470 to Mark, as recorded by Mark, but really spoken 00:07:54.470 --> 00:07:58.829 by Peter. Chapter 5, beginning with 15, and I'll 00:07:58.829 --> 00:08:02.779 read 17. They came to Jesus, they, the people 00:08:02.779 --> 00:08:06.519 of the town, and saw him who had been possessed 00:08:06.519 --> 00:08:13.439 by demons, now sitting clothed and in his right 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:18.319 mind. Even him who had the legion, which is what 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:22.240 the demons called themselves, and they, now spoke, 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:28.259 were afraid. They began to beg him, verse 17 00:08:28.259 --> 00:08:36.129 says, To depart from the region. Hear that again. 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:43.250 Let's not rush past it. The possessed man is 00:08:43.250 --> 00:08:48.529 now sitting. Clothed. And in his right mind. 00:08:49.590 --> 00:08:56.549 And they are now afraid. They have begun begging 00:08:56.549 --> 00:09:01.629 him to leave. Something is cracking open in this 00:09:01.629 --> 00:09:05.049 part of the text, and it isn't the man from the 00:09:05.049 --> 00:09:11.250 tombs. Why? Why would a town witness the most 00:09:11.250 --> 00:09:15.350 dramatic restoration in the gospel of Mark and 00:09:15.350 --> 00:09:20.730 respond to Jesus with, please go? They didn't 00:09:20.730 --> 00:09:26.070 say, teach us. They didn't say, heal more. They 00:09:26.070 --> 00:09:31.960 said, leave. It wasn't disbelief. Mark is clear 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:35.580 about that. They saw the man. They knew him. 00:09:35.700 --> 00:09:40.960 They had chained him themselves. Problem had 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:49.019 a cost. 2 ,000 pigs had just stampeded down a 00:09:49.019 --> 00:09:56.279 steep bank into the sea and died. It's not metaphor. 00:09:56.399 --> 00:10:01.820 That's inventory. It's livestock. That's somebody's 00:10:01.820 --> 00:10:08.399 retirement. In one afternoon, the cost of one 00:10:08.399 --> 00:10:13.440 man's restoration was written in many other people's 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:18.159 account ledgers. Healing stops being abstract 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:22.879 when it hits the books. And here's the layer 00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:26.679 beneath the layer. because the man's suffering 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:31.379 had become load -bearing. He was the town's warning 00:10:31.379 --> 00:10:35.080 label, the cautionary tale fathers told their 00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:39.019 sons, the one that they could all point to and 00:10:39.019 --> 00:10:43.460 say, well, at least I'm not that. Their social 00:10:43.460 --> 00:10:47.639 order had quietly organized itself around his 00:10:47.639 --> 00:10:54.470 instability. built on other people's brokenness, 00:10:54.529 --> 00:11:01.409 function. They're terrible, but they work. A 00:11:01.409 --> 00:11:05.169 demonized man in a graveyard doesn't disrupt 00:11:05.169 --> 00:11:08.990 the normal seating charts. He doesn't apply for 00:11:08.990 --> 00:11:13.309 jobs. He doesn't walk back into the room and 00:11:13.309 --> 00:11:18.850 demand he be heard. But a healed man is unpredictable. 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:26.220 answers now for the years of chains who loses 00:11:26.220 --> 00:11:31.159 the comfort of comparison if the man is now restored 00:11:31.159 --> 00:11:34.200 the narrative collapses and if the narrative 00:11:34.200 --> 00:11:38.440 collapses the town must reckon with what it's 00:11:38.440 --> 00:11:43.720 tolerated what it called necessary as long as 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:49.360 it stayed manageable healed people expose what 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:54.980 normal is hiding. And sometimes, normal depends 00:11:54.980 --> 00:12:01.120 on somebody staying sick. Notice Mark's language. 00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:06.860 Sitting, not pacing, not screaming. The posture 00:12:06.860 --> 00:12:10.600 of peace, a man whose interior weather has now 00:12:10.600 --> 00:12:16.580 gone quiet. Clothed, dignity restored, no longer 00:12:16.580 --> 00:12:22.440 a spectacle. In his right mind, surgical phrase, 00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:28.159 his mind returned to itself. This is not merely 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:31.399 a spiritual deliverance. It's the restoration 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:37.759 of a human being to his dignity. And their response 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:44.899 to that is fear. And I also don't want to miss... 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:48.720 That what the demons call themselves, they use 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:53.720 a term. They call themselves legion. That's a 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:58.860 Roman military term. 6 ,000 soldiers. Occupation 00:12:58.860 --> 00:13:02.779 fragmentation by force. Man didn't carry only 00:13:02.779 --> 00:13:06.860 personal torment. Embodied what an empire does 00:13:06.860 --> 00:13:10.840 to people. What domination does to our souls. 00:13:11.960 --> 00:13:15.539 Now consider the pigs for a second. In Jewish 00:13:15.539 --> 00:13:20.159 territory, on the other side of the lake, pigs 00:13:20.159 --> 00:13:24.220 were unclean, according to Leviticus 11. Avoiding 00:13:24.220 --> 00:13:28.620 them was an identity marker. We are Israel, not 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:34.460 the nations. But here, in the Decapolis, pigs 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:37.840 are ordinary livestock, economically normal, 00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:42.960 culturally native. And Mark, very cool here. 00:13:43.360 --> 00:13:48.240 stacks these scenes deliberately. The tombs, 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:53.360 unclean. Gentile land, outside covenant boundaries. 00:13:54.500 --> 00:14:00.159 Pigs, unclean in Jewish imagination. And a demon, 00:14:00.220 --> 00:14:05.259 named with a Roman military term. When Jesus 00:14:05.259 --> 00:14:09.480 casts out legion, and the pigs rush into the 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:15.250 sea, marked. lets the unclean and the oppressive 00:14:15.250 --> 00:14:20.830 collapse together in one violent purge. And the 00:14:20.830 --> 00:14:28.190 town stands on the bank and starts doing the 00:14:28.190 --> 00:14:36.250 math. This is why they asked him to leave. Not 00:14:36.250 --> 00:14:39.789 because they doubted the miracle, but because... 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:44.460 They understand the authority that just stepped 00:14:44.460 --> 00:14:50.039 on our shore is real. And then they began to 00:14:50.039 --> 00:14:55.500 ponder, what might it cost us next? And you know 00:14:55.500 --> 00:15:00.440 what? Cushing knows this math. Oil has run through 00:15:00.440 --> 00:15:04.840 our veins longer than the pipelines. It gave 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:08.740 us jobs, identity, a welcome sign, slogan that... 00:15:08.940 --> 00:15:13.259 I think is now rusting. It built churches just 00:15:13.259 --> 00:15:17.899 like this one, 123 years old. But it also taught 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:21.740 us what it feels like when the only economy you've 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:25.460 known begins to cost something deeper. People's 00:15:25.460 --> 00:15:31.220 health, fatigue, their imagination. The capitalist 00:15:31.220 --> 00:15:34.139 was asking the same question Cushing has been 00:15:34.139 --> 00:15:37.929 asking for decades. What if the system that feeds 00:15:37.929 --> 00:15:41.850 us is also the one that keeps some of us bound 00:15:41.850 --> 00:15:47.429 up? When Jesus steps ashore, healing becomes 00:15:47.429 --> 00:15:52.309 expensive. Man gets his mind back and somebody's 00:15:52.309 --> 00:15:56.169 herd runs into the sea. And they're grieving 00:15:56.169 --> 00:16:01.629 the pigs. So here's my question. What are you 00:16:01.629 --> 00:16:05.570 grieving? that you've been calling economics. 00:16:07.289 --> 00:16:12.070 And Jesus doesn't argue with the town's ledger. 00:16:12.210 --> 00:16:15.970 He doesn't apologize for the pigs. He does not 00:16:15.970 --> 00:16:20.169 offer a slower, economically sensitive version 00:16:20.169 --> 00:16:25.009 of liberation. He restores the man. And then 00:16:25.009 --> 00:16:28.309 he leaves. He doesn't force his presence where 00:16:28.309 --> 00:16:31.389 he is unwelcome. That's a whole nother sermon. 00:16:32.590 --> 00:16:35.129 But he leaves behind something that cannot be 00:16:35.129 --> 00:16:39.370 rechained and sent back into the caves. A healed 00:16:39.370 --> 00:16:44.470 man, a witness, a disruption dressed in restoration. 00:16:45.610 --> 00:16:48.730 Chapter 19 of our text says, Go, Jesus' words 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.210 to the man, go to your own people and tell them 00:16:52.210 --> 00:16:55.570 what the Lord has done for you. And now he has 00:16:55.570 --> 00:17:00.629 had mercy on you. And now let me turn the lens 00:17:00.629 --> 00:17:05.569 on you, my fellow Christians, because your healing, 00:17:05.630 --> 00:17:12.690 yours, is not only personal. It is public in 00:17:12.690 --> 00:17:18.109 the truest sense of the word. Your healing, it 00:17:18.109 --> 00:17:22.849 concerns the common life, the town, the system. 00:17:23.049 --> 00:17:26.809 When you return restored, you disrupt the arrangement. 00:17:27.559 --> 00:17:32.359 you remove their excuse against you. And your 00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:37.200 healing may cost somebody their pigs. And they 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:40.559 may stand on the bank and grieve them. And you 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:43.680 know what? Let them grieve. You keep walking. 00:17:44.839 --> 00:17:49.099 You're not meant to be load -bearing suffering. 00:17:50.359 --> 00:17:54.319 You were not created To hold up someone else's 00:17:54.319 --> 00:17:59.180 stability by staying unwell. By staying small. 00:17:59.839 --> 00:18:04.859 By staying in your designated caves. Tragic, 00:18:04.859 --> 00:18:09.880 but predictable. And if grace ever comes close 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:12.500 enough to threaten your version of normal, pay 00:18:12.500 --> 00:18:17.920 attention to what it is you're protecting. Because 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:20.539 one thing we stand on around here, friends, is 00:18:20.539 --> 00:18:24.880 grace does not ask permission. The kingdom of 00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:29.380 God does not preserve dysfunction for the sake 00:18:29.380 --> 00:18:36.880 of comfort. No, it restores. Even when restoration 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:42.980 costs pigs. Even when it frightens the neighbors. 00:18:44.430 --> 00:18:47.930 even when it has to cross a storm to reach you 00:18:47.930 --> 00:18:52.730 on the wrong side of the lake. A man once howling 00:18:52.730 --> 00:18:57.390 in caves, now sitting clothed in his right mind. 00:18:57.950 --> 00:19:02.369 And somewhere in the Decapolis, in the ten cities 00:19:02.369 --> 00:19:06.690 where they knew his name and his history, he's 00:19:06.690 --> 00:19:11.849 walking and he's bearing witness. Remember this, 00:19:11.950 --> 00:19:17.329 one healed person loose in a system is more dangerous 00:19:17.329 --> 00:19:24.130 than any chain ever forged. Amen? Amen. Thanks, 00:19:24.230 --> 00:19:38.190 guys. Thanks for coming tonight. If you saw yourself 00:19:38.190 --> 00:19:40.990 anywhere in that shoreline tonight, Standing 00:19:40.990 --> 00:19:44.109 there doing the math, grieving the pigs, wondering 00:19:44.109 --> 00:19:48.390 what mercy might cost, take a breath. Grace does 00:19:48.390 --> 00:19:51.690 not come to humiliate you. It comes to restore 00:19:51.690 --> 00:19:56.430 you. But restoration is honest. It will ask what 00:19:56.430 --> 00:19:59.329 you've been protecting. It will name what you 00:19:59.329 --> 00:20:02.190 have called necessary that might actually be 00:20:02.190 --> 00:20:07.089 bondage and still, still crosses storms to reach 00:20:07.089 --> 00:20:10.309 you. You're not meant to be load bearing suffering. 00:20:10.509 --> 00:20:13.549 You are not here to hold up someone else's version 00:20:13.549 --> 00:20:16.529 of normal by staying small. And if something 00:20:16.529 --> 00:20:18.869 in you stirred tonight, don't push it back down. 00:20:18.910 --> 00:20:22.869 Let it rise. Let mercy do what mercy does. And 00:20:22.869 --> 00:20:25.210 hey, if you heard something new today, if you 00:20:25.210 --> 00:20:27.170 heard something you hadn't heard before, something 00:20:27.170 --> 00:20:30.650 you hadn't considered before, or a little like 00:20:30.650 --> 00:20:32.690 in the offering plate like we used to do in church. 00:20:33.279 --> 00:20:35.839 And we're just stepping into Lent. We're walking 00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:38.420 this road all the way to Easter morning. And 00:20:38.420 --> 00:20:40.359 if you'd like to keep walking with us, tithe 00:20:40.359 --> 00:20:42.980 your subscribe. That way you'll know when it's 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:45.519 time for church again. And until we meet again, 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:47.180 friend, be blessed.