sermon excerpts: "From Inside Out"

(Jonah 2:1-10 and Luke 8: 26-39)

Even though I’ve spent years in training and study for the magical letters of “M.Div.” after my name, I very much feel like just a regular person. Despite the fact that there was a laying on of hands and a call to the Holy Spirit during the ordination ceremony when I became a Minister of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care, there was no magical jolt of energy or electricity that infused me with supernatural powers of healing, mind reading or exorcism. I’m still just a regular person. I watch too much TV, drink too much coffee and don’t call friends and family as often as I should.

So I take great solace that the great leaders of the Bible were in all ways, very ordinary, regular people. Each person had a weakness and a dark side. Jonah is one of them. ... Jonah’s prayer read this morning comes to us from the belly of a whale. It’s an apt metaphor for the inner struggle that we face when presented with a choice of following God’s call or following our own will. Because, more often than not, those two paths do not flow together.

Jonah feels as far from God as one could possibly get. ... It is an instinct to call out to God in the dark times, anxious for a glimpse of light.

Such was the situation for the demon-possessed man of Gerasene. ... Along comes Christ and everything changes. The power play here is impressive. That Jesus can compel a legion of evil spirits and demons to obey his word is reassuring and frightening at the same time. He succeeds in a place where he should theoretically be at his weakest. ... Yet, he is able to heal or save the man, delivering him from evil. ...

Realizing there was no place for him among the Gerasene people, the healed man attempts to follow Christ. And instead of saying, as he had so many times before, “Come and follow me”, Jesus says, “Stay. Turn back.” So this story is not one of healing but about one’s call to ministry.

Lay ministry is not about lay people standing up to the pulpit and conducting Sunday worship; although, I think that is a notable and important element of a healthy congregation. Lay ministry is about people expressing their faith in their homes, places of work and of leisure. When we live our lives and do what we do in a manner that speaks to our faith, that would be pleasing to God, then we are ministers.

Yes, the church is facing a time of crisis where the prospect of people entering the traditional role of paid accountable ministry is dwarfed by the exodus of ministers due to retirement and advancing age. And so a lot of effort and energy has been directed toward phasing in lay people as de facto ministers. And so we lose sight of what true ministry is.

The adventure doesn’t always lie across the lakes and oceans, where whales and storms wait. We are not all destined for mission work in exotic Third World locales. Sometimes the adventure is right where we are. ... That is the call, to share the peace within that we have here so that it may bloom and grow. This is what the gospel is really about: how to be a minister in your own way, in the place you find yourself, regardless of training or professional qualifications.

Jonah is beating himself up and worried sick about the decision he had to make about following God. The Gerasene man was conflicted inside, not only from the presence of demons, but by the decision afterwards to not follow Christ. Both these ordinary people found peace within.

As surely as Jonah moved from inside the whale to outside the city of Nineveh, or the Gerasene man moved from inside his spiritual turmoil to an outer declaration of faith in Christ, so too will our inner strength express itself in ways and means that go beyond our limits. That is the magnificence and mystery of ministry.