June 19, 2022; Proper 7, Year C

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Without doubt this is one of the most inspiring verses in the New Testament, and it certainly numbers among St. Paul’s top ten greatest hits. It is also a fitting verse for us to read on Juneteenth, as we commemorate the day in 1865 when the news of emancipation reached the formerly enslaved people in Galveston, Texas—the day, in other words, when the promise of freedom for African-Americans was finally acknowledged throughout our whole country.

Notice, though, that it was the promise of freedom, as opposed to the reality, that was achieved that day. Systemic inequalities continue even now that make true liberty an unrealized dream for far too many in the United States. Black, indigenous, and other people of color bear a disproportionate burden of the poverty, violence, prejudice, and environmental degradation that keep our nation from living up to its highest ideals.

I don’t want to spend the rest of our time this morning talking about all the ways that our country falls short of its promise of freedom. You know our track record as well as I do. And besides, Christian history is as checkered and fraught as American history, if not more so.

I’m definitely not going to say that Christians have always had it right, any more than I think that our country has always had it right. The Church has, at various times, supported slavery, genocide, the exploitation of the environment, and many other social ills. There simply is no human institution, or none that I can think of, that has a perfect track record of truly respecting the dignity of every human being, of seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and of teaching us by example how to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I do think it’s important to notice that one of the dangers for Christians in the United States is how tempting it is to read Holy Scripture as if it gives a stamp of approval to the American way of life. This is especially true when it comes to the issue of liberty. There is a tendency among our fellow citizens to think that we Americans have that freedom thing sewn up; it’s such a core part of our identity that we even claim to “export” freedom to other countries.

Seeing ourselves as living in the land of the free, we may discount the importance of Christian freedom, of the liberating power of the Gospel. This can lead us to think that freedom is something that other people need, people in the past or people in faraway places like North Korea or Saudi Arabia; believing we’ve achieved freedom on our own, we look to the Gospel not to liberate us but to validate us, to comfort us, to reassure us that we’re on the side of the angels.

Today’s Gospel passage offers an intriguing perspective on questions of freedom, and it suggests that there is something deep in the human experience, in our souls even, that struggles with the kind of liberation that Jesus makes available to us. The story begins as Jesus arrives in the Gentile territory of the Gerasenes, but you should know that this is just after he calmed a storm as he and his disciples crossed the lake. This is an important setup for today’s story: open water is usually a symbol of chaos in Scripture; being able to subdue a storm on open water with nothing but his words is a clear signal that Jesus has access to supernatural, even cosmic power. The disciples are amazed and afraid, and this display of power causes them to wonder who Jesus really is.

Once they step foot on the other side of the lake, the disciples seem to fade from sight and the story unfolds as an encounter between Jesus and this one poor, demon-tormented man. The first thing to notice about these demons is that they call themselves “Legion”: this is a reference to the Roman army that would have been understood by everyone in first-century Palestine. The Rev. Dr. Judith Jones notes that not only the word legion but many other linguistic choices and details in the passage would have reminded the Greek-speaking audience of battle and military occupation. As she puts it, “the language of the whole episode evokes the experience of living under a brutal occupying power.”[i]

The second thing to notice that they recognize Jesus and acknowledge his power over them. His own disciples had just asked “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” As if in answer, the demons cry out to “Jesus, the Son of the Most High God.”

The point I want to make is that when Jesus banishes the demons and sets the man free, he was not just healing an individual: he was demonstrating once again his power over all earthly and supernatural forces that seek to enslave humanity. It does not matter if that which seeks to keep us chained and in thrall is a demonic power, an occupying army, the forces of addiction, unjust economic systems, or the brutality of racism—whatever is forging those chains and shackles, Jesus is the great liberator who can set us free, if we are willing.

What happens next is that people gather to see this man who was once out of his mind, naked, chained, shackled, and living in the tombs—they see this man clothed and sane and sitting at the feet of Jesus. They see that he is now whole, and free, and restored to his full human dignity. And they are afraid. They do not rejoice at this man’s healing and liberation; rather, they send Jesus away. They are afraid of true freedom. They don’t know how the status quo will survive under this new regime. They are not ready for the possibility of new life that Jesus has presented—a life where nobody has to be enslaved, nobody has to be scapegoated, nobody has to be treated as something less than human.

We all have demons—our country has them, our church has them, our families have them. Jesus offers us a way forward, a path of liberation and love that means both confronting those demons and letting them go. We don’t have to be defined by the forces that have bound us to them until now. We can follow the way of love. We can work to dismantle systems that keep people from being truly free. We can advocate for true liberty, true equality, and true justice.

Juneteenth, with its combination of celebration and lament, reminds us that no single action is the answer. We remember this day because it was one important step on the long journey to universal emancipation, complete freedom, and an end to systems of injustice that have long been supported by both church and state but that have no role to play in God’s Beloved Community. Those of us with power and privilege, those of us with a place at the table and a voice in the public square must learn from those have had had to put themselves, body and soul, on the front lines since time immemorial. We must not give in to fatigue or cynicism. We must not give up hope. We must continue to work for the day when there will truly be neither slave nor free, male nor female, and when all of God’s beloved children are one. Amen.

[i] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12-3/commentary-on-luke-826-39-4