Scriptures: I Kings 19:1–15a; Psalms 42 and 43; Galatians 3:23–29;
Luke 8:26–39/8:26–40 IV; II Nephi 9:135–37; Doctrine and Covenants 161:6a

Prelude

Welcome and Call to Worship: Galatians 3:23–29

*Opening Hymn: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” HS 20
OR “Sing to the Lord a Joyful Song” HS 55
OR “Halle, Halle, Hallelujah” Worship & Rejoice 5

*Opening Prayer

*Response

Lighting of the Peace Candle

Scripture for Peace: Doctrine and Covenants 161:6a

Prayer for Peace

Focus Moment

“Witness”

He didn’t understand. Heard the words, but didn’t grasp the meaning. It was like a foreign language, and mumbling as if with a mouthful of marbles. The key words were being filtered out and left forgotten and flattened on the floor.

But then he saw.
He saw what enthused them,
what filled them.
Saw the lives being lived.
Then he knew
it was how he wanted
to live.
It had nothing to do with words
and everything to do with The Word.

—Lu Mountenay

Congregational Hymn: “My God, How Wonderful Thou Art” HS 193
OR “Put Peace into Each Other’s Hands” SP 15
OR Ministry of Music

Sermon

Scripture for Confessional Reflection: II Nephi 9:135–37

Disciples’ Generous Response

*Closing Hymn: “We’re Singing a Peace Song” SP 19
OR “God Be with You Till We Meet Again” HS 488
OR “Community of Joy, Proclaim the Living Christ!” R-16

*The Congregation Is Sent Forth

Leader: The congregation is sent forth to live in the presence of God.

Community: Blessed be the name of our God.

Leader: The congregation is sent forth to love, to care, to suffer for the world for whom Christ died.

Community: Blessed be the name of Christ Jesus.

Leader: The congregation is sent forth to bring hope in the midst of despair, life in the midst of death.

Community: Blessed be the power of the Holy Spirit.

*Postlude

Scriptures: I Kings 19:1–15a; Psalm 42 and 43; Galatians 3:23–29; Luke 8:26–39/8:26–40 IV

Jesus’ calming of the natural storms on the Lake of Gennesaret is followed by a complicated story of his calming the disturbed nature of a deranged person. Luke’s story is a shortened version of Mark’s and reveals again Jesus’ power to overcome evil with a foreshadowing of his mission to the gentile world.

The modern view of mental illness makes this story difficult to understand, because its context is in a world that explains mental illness as demoniac in origin and pigs and tombs as unclean objects in the Jewish faith. However, it still speaks of God’s assurance and hope and commissions disciples of Jesus to proclaim him to those who are estranged from God and one another.

A naked man comes from the tombs and falls at Jesus’ feet screaming that Jesus is the “Son of the Most High God.” Jesus in a counter-cultural act disregarded the Jewish law of ritual purity to reach a demoniac who lived in the tombs and wandered among unclean pigs. He could have ignored this deranged, unclean man but instead with compassion asks his name. The unclean spirits within the man respond, “Legion,” a number representing a Roman military unit of five or six thousand men—conveying the overwhelming power that the demons have over the man. (The use of “Legion” reflects a possible anti-imperial stance.) The demons beg Jesus to not send them “back into the abyss,” but instead to allow them to enter a large herd of swine feeding on the hillside. Jesus commands that the demons leave the man, and the tormented pigs stampede over a steep bank, fall into the lake, and drown. In the understanding of that time, the depth of the lake would reflect the “underworld,” the place where the “unclean” belong. So the unclean demons had been put into the unclean pigs and had returned to where they belonged.

This exorcism calls many to witness of Jesus’ healing power: the man, the swineherds, the people who came to see, and then all those living in the surrounding areas who came and confirmed that Jesus had healed the man and restored peace to his life.

The story of healing now becomes a missionary commissioning and foreshadows the missionary imperative in the Acts of the Apostles. The man is sent home to witness to his gentile neighbors and family what God has done through Jesus. In Mark’s story, he reports that the man went to the Gentiles and began “to preach in the Decapolis” and “all were amazed.” The healed man who asked if he could stay with Jesus is now sent as a pagan disciple to declare throughout the whole town what Jesus has done for him.

This story speaks to modern-day readers on two levels. First, Jesus’ compassion led him to a man with real need. This truth about Jesus’ nature gives those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and fear the assurance that the Holy Spirit is available to help them to carry their burdens and make them whole through Christ’s peace. It also gives us the example to set aside our uneasiness of those who are different from us or on the margins of society and reach out in compassion to those who have great physical and spiritual need. Jesus disregarded the cultural rules that told him to ignore this unclean man. We are to be countercultural in our reaching out to those in need.

Second, Jesus continues to call ordinary people with problems, pains, and struggles to healing and commissions them to go and tell others “how much God has done for them.” It is in the witness and inviting that healing continues, and others receive the assurance that God is near and calls them to wholeness, invitation, and witness, too.

3. If you’ve never felt a missionary calling to reach out and commission others as Jesus did, why not? What holds you back from modeling Jesus’ actions and call?