Story | Mark 5:1-20

Transcript is automatically produced. Errors may be present.

Good morning, friends. Good morning. Thank you. You guys are a lot more upbeat than the first service. They were a real downer. So my name’s Alex. I am one of the pastors here, and I am leaving to go volunteer in kids ministry, so if someone else would like to come up and and give the message, that’d be great.

We’re in the middle, or end of a series really that we’ve been in for the last few weeks wrestling with this question of love thy neighbor. And so what I’m gonna say before we even get into this is this week is designed to nudge us as a community a little bit out of our comfort zone. We have a comfort zone.

We just have a way at South of doing things in a particular way and those things are good. So my hope is that we nudge just a little bit. So let’s take a moment and I’m just gonna ask God to do what He does, which I think is to comfort those of us that are afflicted and afflict those of us that are comfortable, and nudge us i- in the way that He needs to go.

So Jesus, for my friends who find themselves comfortable today, would You bring affliction, and for those of us that feel afflicted, and there’s so much going on, and we feel like life is an ache right now, would You bring comfort? Because that’s what You do. Your capacity to speak to two different groups of people is immense, and we trust You with that.

Amen. Few weeks ago, I shared with you how my poor job at replacing a valve in a shower led to a huge renovation project. I tried to replace a show- valve without breaking it. I broke everything and ended up removing all the tiles, and in we went to full restoration. Many of you have experienced the same thing.

I tried to do things I wasn’t qualified to do, and now here we are. And then just the other day, our construction guy, Emmanuel he surprised us with a text message. He just sent me at the time something that felt like a cryptic picture. It looked like this. A dumpster arrived on our driveway that he’d organized to pick up just a few things that the project created, some bags of rubble, and then the rest of it was ours to fill.

The favorite part of this for me was watching the look of delight that entered onto my wife’s face the moment she found that there was a dumpster that could be filled. There was an author several years ago called Gary Chapman who wrote a book called The Five Love Languages. I think he missed one of the love languages.

I think my wife’s love language is ordering a dumpster. And then for the next- That week or so, we went into this project of trying to decide which of our stuff was dispend- dispensable and which should be kept. Now, if you’re a certain age, maybe a student, maybe in college, this idea might seem completely foreign to you.

You might be screaming out, “I don’t have enough stuff. I need more things. I don’t own much at all.” And then suddenly, i- in the Western way of doing things in the world that we live in, suddenly that I don’t have enough stuff turns surprisingly into this moment of realizing you have way too much stuff, and you have to get rid of some of it to continue gathering more stuff that you don’t need, and then you repeat the cycle over and over again.

As we went through this process I think there was an unspoken question in it. Is this just stuff that can be got rid of? Or do the things that we’re holding in our hands, the things that we’re looking at, are they part of our story? My wife and I have been living out a story for 16, 17 years, a story that began the moment I walked into a room and saw her across the other side, and God said, “That’s the woman you’re supposed to marry.”

And I walked up to her and said, “Hey, God said we’re supposed to get married.” It didn’t say that part. That would be crazy. But i- it’s a story that’s been shaped since then, and some things we own reflect that story, the beautiful kids that have come into our lives, the experience we’ve had. A- and some of it’s just stuff that kinda sits to the side of that story and can easily be gotten rid of.

Stories are central to our lives. We have stories with people, stories with places, stories, hopefully, depending on where you are in your spiritual journey, stories with God. And today we get to focus on this piece called stories. Sto- stories are memorable. I’d love to be able to say good stories are memorable, but in actual fact, just because of the way story works, actually all stories are memorable.

They have a way of just gluing to some particular synapse in our brain. The writers Chip and Dan Heath did an experiment years ago. They wanted to demonstrate the power of story. And so they did two things. They told a piece of data. They spoke out some data, gave some ideas around an NGO, a charity that does amazing work.

They go– gave details on how much money this charity raised, how much it spent on the area it worked in, all sorts of wonderful things. And then they said, “My guess is that this data will just disappear somewhere. You’ll want to remember it. Your instincts will tell you it’s important, but you’ll forget.”

And then they told a story, a nonsense story as it turned out. A story about a man who was on a flight from Seattle to Houston. While waiting at the airport bar, he had a woman walk over to him and say, “Can I buy you a drink?” He was excited. He’d expected this thing to happen multiple times. It had never happened to him.

He was delighted that finally his dream had come true, and so he says, “Yes.” And the woman goes to the bar and comes back with two drinks, and that’s the last thing he remembers until he wakes up in a bathtub of water and ice. He begins to panic until he sees a sign in front of him that says, “Call nine one one.

Don’t move.” Looks to his right and sees a phone on the table. Picks it up, calls nine one one quickly. The operator answers and says, “What do you need?” He says, “I don’t know how to explain this. I was at a bar, now in a m– I’m in a bathtub of ice. It simply said call nine one one and so I did.” The operator says, “Okay.

I want you to do something for me really quickly. I want you to reach behind your back. Can you feel a tube of something coming out of your back?” He says, “Yes, I can. I’m panicking even though you say not to panic. What’s going on?” She says, “What’s happened is this: There’s a group of criminals in the area that have harvested people’s organs.

You’ve fallen victim to their schemes. Someone will be there to help you immediately.” This story passed around person to person for a whole bunch of years, about twenty years ago. Everyone, it seemed for a while, had a friend of a friend who this story had happened to, or at least they’d heard it.

You can call every hospital in America. This story has never happened to anybody ever, and yet the story is so memorable. It sticks within your synapses. As I spoke those words, you maybe pictured a specific bathtub. You maybe pictured a specific phone sitting on a table, a specific space, a specific airport lounge.

Your brain is designed to m-remember stories. They grasp somewhere deep inside of us, and they don’t let go. But the stories that work the best, that connect at the deepest level, are stories of transformation, stories where somebody in everyday life becomes something special, something different. This i-is a picture of the hero’s journey, a classic story that moves through different cycles where an everyday person in an everyday world becomes something other than they are.

And while that might seem abstract, might seem something unrelatable, most of the stories you love probably fit that cycle. Story of a hobbit that leaves his hole and goes out into the world on a grand adventure. Story of another hobbit that does the same thing a few years later. Story of a young man who finds out that his life that feels dull and even painful, he’s actually a wizard, and has a moment where someone comes and declares that fact to him.

“You’re a wizard, Harry,” or something like that. Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire. A nobody living in a nothing part of the world becomes something more than she could be. It’s a hero’s journey. Or how about Spider-Man? Just the everyday Peter Parker, a little bit nerdy, who finds suddenly, to his surprise, he’s now one of the great superheroes of all time.

These are stories that we connect with, stories that we enjoy, stories that become, to a degree, part of us. This is one of the architects of that hero’s journey, Christopher Vogler. He said, “An effective story grabs your gut, tightens your throat, makes your heart race, your lungs pump, brings tears to your eyes, or an explosion of laughter to your lips.”

We’re constantly asking questions like, “Where is this story going? What does it all mean?” We’re excited every step of the way. Terry Pratchett, the British author, says, “People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around. Stories shape us.” Why talk about story in this way? Perhaps given that stories connect with us so well, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that God, it seems at heart, is a storyteller.

We experience church as kids or we read the Bible for the first time and our first assumption is that maybe God really likes rules. Maybe He gives laws. Maybe that’s what He does. And yet as we read and read, what we find is almost every page within the scriptures is full of story. God seems to love telling us stories for us to grasp this grand meaning of life.

He is a storyteller. Maybe you have a specific part of the Bible that you love. Maybe you memorized a specific couple of verses. Amen. But one of the most important things is to be able to take those verses and move them into the big story of the scriptures. This is Bernard Anderson, great narrative theologian, says, “Many people lack any awareness of the Bible as a whole.

They know a few statues of scripture here and there, like the 23rd Psalm or the Sermon on the Mount, but they’re very hazy, if not completely ignorant, about the larger dramatic context within which these favorite passages have meaning.” When we get to the heartbeat of the story God has written, suddenly the words on the page come alive to us in new ways.

The story goes like this, in case you’re unfamiliar with it. At some point in history, God decied- decided to create a group of people For himself. He pulled them out of slavery, out of a land called Egypt. He made them his own. He gave them a name. He called them to be something more than they were. But time and time again, the people betrayed him.

And so eventually, as a punishment, they go into a place of exile. But surprisingly, this God calls them out again, and once again restores them and forgives them. He gives them a king, a good king. But in the years that follow, almost every king that follows this good king is evil. And then, most surprisingly of all, this God steps out of the heavens into his own story, becomes part of it, lives in it, dwells with us.

God has been writing this story since the beginning, and he’s still continuing to write it now. The Hispanic writer Jorge Borges says this, “Throughout history, humankind has told two stories, the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean Seas in quest of a beloved isle,” the Odyssey, “and the story of a God who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.”

Think about those two stories for a second that have been common throughout history. The first is what it is to be lost. Story of being lost, trying to find home. And the second, the greatest story of all, is what it is to be found. What it is for God to enter the pages of the story, coming, looking for you.

I think the good news in the midst of this story-writing God is that God, it seems, still loves to write stories. He still creates stories. And somewhere this seems to be true, that God plans for, longs for, is intentional about his story intersecting with our story. And the moment that happens, everything becomes different.

We just sang some words in a song. Maybe you heard them. This is my story, this is my song. One of the great hymns of all time, Blessed Assurance. Think about that line by itself for a moment. Isn’t that the h- isn’t that the heart song of every one of us until our story interacts with the Jesus story?

This is my story. It’s my song. It’s like Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. It’s that kind of feel. And somewhere our story interacts with the Jesus story, and the invitation is to make his story our story, over this story, beyond this story. It’s supposed to change the story, impact the story. I love the way Tim Keller describes this experience.

He says it’s like this, “The story of the gospel, the good news, the Jesus message is you are more sinful than you ever dare believe. You are more loved- than you ever dared believe. It’s the reminder most of all that you are deeply, fearfully even, wonderfully loved. That God does everything he can to connect our story with his story.

The passage that we’re gonna read in just a few moments is that kind of story, perhaps the first original kind of story. But I have a question, like a pondering, a tension question for me at least. Many of us in this room would say we have interacted with this story, that it has become our story. Some of us might say we’re still on a journey towards that.

Some of us might say we don’t know. We’re just still trying to figure it out. If that story has impacted my story in the way that I hope it has, why do we find it so hard to share our story? Why is it so hard to share that experience? Why is it easier for me to stand up on stage and talk about that than to share it with another human being face to face?

Why is sharing a story about how Jesus’ story has interacted with ours a difficult thing for many of us to do? And maybe you’d sit here and say no, actually for me it’s really easy. I do it all the time.” But my guess is most of you in the room might say, “Yeah, I actually find that hard.” What gets in the way?

But before we get too far, before we get lost, let me make sure we all know where we are in this series, ’cause I have a confession to make, and I’d like to land this series in a specific place. This series was called Love Thy Neighbor and it was really based around what Jesus said about neighboring in the Gospels.

Jesus says, without saying it directly, that neighbors are not people that are like you. Everyone in Jesus’ time would probably have said they were. They were the people you connected with, the people that looked like you, the people that had the same values as you. And Jesus says neighbors are not like you.

Jesus said neighbors are people that are near you. It’s the people that you interact with, the people that you come across on the road of life. Those, Jesus says, are our neighbors. And so this series was designed around five practices, five things we could enter into if you call yourselves a follower of Jesus, and if you don’t, you’re off the hook you can do it if you like, but you don’t have to.

And they look like this. Begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve, and this final one, share your story. Share with someone the moment that Jesus’ story interacted with yours. Share something like what life looked like before you experienced Jesus, how you experienced Jesus, and what life looks like now. Some of you in the room are really perceptive people, and so you might have noticed an acronym in play here.

B-L-E-S-S. This series came about when I read a book, the title of which was simply Bless. And part of me thought maybe we call the series Bless.” But I just really don’t like that word. It just reeks of some kind of particular language. Maybe it’s that I worked with a pastor from the South for years with an even more southern wife, and every now and again, she, in a slightly condescending way, would say something like, “Ah, bless your heart.”

It’s a phrase that just trips off the tongue unless you have an English accent, when you simply cannot get it off. But maybe you’re from the South. Maybe you could say this perfectly with all of the undertones that phrase comes with. Bless your heart. Or the related phrase, bless you. The thing that we’re trained to say every time somebody sneezes.

Even if someone’s preaching a sermon, even if everyone– someone’s in a perfectly good flow, we feel called to yell out, “Bless you,” in a louder voice than anyone should use for almost anything. We’re just trained to say, “Bless you.” Something that came from a superstitious age when people believed a sneeze meant your soul was trying to escape your body, and the words bless you crammed it back in.

Something that has become so ingrained in our society that we cannot escape it, no matter what we do. Bless doesn’t mean what I think it should mean. Perhaps you’ve caught on to the fact that words have a way of changing. This is St. Paul’s Cathedral in the middle of London, built after the Great Fire of London in sixteen sixty-six.

At its time, the tallest building in the world, and certainly the most spectacular. The outside is a masterpiece. The inside is stunningly beautiful. And when the architect, Christopher Wren, finished building, he invited the monarch of the day, King James II, to h- be the first person that got a tour of the building.

King James walked in and said this: “It’s amusing, awful, and artificial.” Those kind of words get a reaction if you’ve just designed something, even if the person saying it is the monarch. But in the language of his day, amusing meant amazing. Awful meant full of awe. And artificial meant you must have worked really hard to create this.

In the language of the day, this was a compliment. Today, it’s an insult. Words change. They shift. And some words don’t change meaning. They just get downgraded. They become less than they’re supposed to be. Love, less than it’s supposed to be. The love that you have for a person, a family member, a spouse, the love you have for God now is the same word that we use for the way we love our shoes, the way we love our jeans, the way we love our home.

It doesn’t mean what it used to mean. Grace, downgraded. It doesn’t capture the tones that it was supposed to capture. And bless. Bless is a downgraded word. And yet, that’s, I think, the word that God might pick when he thought about neighboring and what it is to care for those people around us. In Jesus’ time, 2,000 years before that as well, the word bless meant something valuable.

This is Numbers chapter 6, “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” Bless meant something. And in the story of Abraham, one of the great heroes of the Old Testament, bless meant something.

Abraham was an everyday person, that hero’s journey character. Sat waiting for nothing really with his whole people around him, his family, time after time, gen- generation after generation, the same place. And surprisingly to him, God turned up and spoke to him and invited him on a journey. And perhaps even more surprising to Abraham was that he went on the journey.

And as he journeyed with God, God says these words to him, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” Maybe with the idea that Paul had in 2 Corinthians 9, “God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

You are blessed to be a blessing is the heartbeat of scripture. However uncomfortable those words seem to us today, however out of our zeitgeist, our cultural moment they appear to be, we are blessed by God. To be able to bless other people around us is the heartbeat of what God does in our story, whether we like those words or not.

And so as we kinda conclude this story, this series that might be called Bless, the last piece for a church like South is the biggest stretch of all. I’ve noticed this thing about churches, having worked in a few of them over the years. Churches seem to fit one side of the pendulum or the other, one side of the spectrum or the other.

And there’s some churches that would say, “You know what we’re wonderful at? Outreach. We have great programs like a food bank- We get involved in community stuff. We give away money through benevolence. We make sure that people’s lives get better. We take concrete steps to trying to improve the world around us, and that’s a really good thing.

I love that heartbeat to South. And then there’s another group of churches, a group of churches that if we’re honest at South, we might kinda look down on. A group of churches that say, “Yeah, you don’t need to worry as much about that stuff. Just tell people the story. Go out, preach the message, stand on the streets.

Get everyone in the church to tell their story over and over again, hopefully i- in a really succinct way to lots of people. ‘Cause then you’ll change lots of hearts, and that in turn might start to change the world.” And South is a church that’s always lent towards this side. We are great at doing outreach stuff, but we’re not so great at the other piece.

And I think the call of church, if we’re honest, is to land in the middle, that this is a nudge, not a demand. This is for you to take what God has for you and ask questions about it. This is a nudge, a wondering, a pondering as to whether there isn’t a piece we might miss at times. Whether in the truth that our story is uncomfortable to sha- share, we might be missing a little piece of the story.

So that’s what I hope we get today. This passage we’re gonna get to, get through is fairly long. I’m gonna ask you to stand. We’re gonna read it together. I’m gonna kinda skip pretty quickly through the first half. That’s gonna feel unusual to some of you ’cause the first part of the story feels like one where we might have a lot of questions.

We have a podcast on Thursdays that enables to ask those questions, but the first half is less helpful in terms of where we’re going than the second half. So if you have a copy of the scriptures, Mark 5:1. Soon as we get into this, some of you are gonna be like, “Wow, I got questions here.” They went across the lake, they being Jesus and his disciples, to the region of the Gerasenes.

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been chained hand and foot. But he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had said to him- “Come out of the man, you impure spirit.”

Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And then he begged Jesus again and again not to send him out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs and allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the impure spirit came out and went into the pigs.

The herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told them about the pigs as well. And then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people.

Tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and all the people were amazed. Jesus, thank you for this passage. Thank you that you know us as a community. You know where we need to be nudged, where we might put our hands up and say, “Okay, Jesus speak to me.”

We want your will, not our will. Help me to get through this passage succinctly because I need your help in this. Amen. You may be seated. What is going on in this passage? There’s a lot, right? It’s got all sorts of language that needs so much translation, and as I say, I’m gonna kinda lickety-clip through the first half.

I don’t know what lipi- lickety-clip means, but it sounds like it- … means something about moving fast. They went across the lake to the regi- region of the Gerasenes. Jesus crosses a lake for the first time. He moves out of an area that’s primarily Jewish people into an area that’s primarily non-Jewish people or Gentiles.

He goes with this really specific purpose in mind. I want you to capture this for a second ’cause the next verse of the la- the first verse of the next section kinda wraps it up in this way that helps us see how purposeful his decision is. So this is Mark 5:1. “They went across the lake to the regi- region of the Gerasenes.”

Verse 21, after our section, “When Jesus had crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake.” Jesus goes for one reason and one reason only, to meet with one particular person that Mark is about to describe. Doesn’t stay, doesn’t talk to anybody else, just one interaction with one person. That’s the sort of person Jesus seems to be particularly wired to reach out to those who particularly need him.

“When Jesus got up out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him.” Pause a second. In our language, in our world, this seems like a nonsense story, right? There’s many of us that would say, “How can you expect me to believe in those kind of things?” Here’s what I would say. If you travel around most of the world, most of the world has a much deeper understanding of the spiritual world than almost anyone in America can possibly have.

So I’ve traveled to places that would read this story and say, “Oh, absolutely, I know what you’re talking about.” And yet culture has shifted as well. So what I think might be true is this. First, for followers of Jesus. I think for followers of Jesus, I know that some of us might say, “I don’t think this stuff is real.”

And other of us, others of us might say, “Oh, I think this stuff is constant and everywhere.” And I would say the middle ground is probably the right place to dwell. I think we can trust what Jesus says, and we can trust the experience of many of our brothers and sisters who’ve lived in different places around the world but have experienced stories exactly like this.

And yet we can also say that we don’t have to be afraid, that Jesus seems to walk into these situations unafraid, completely con-control of the situation, and we get to live like Jesus lived. I think this story is one that we can take at face value. And yet the first century had very little language for mental illness, for physical illness.

Often things were automatically spiritual. And so sometimes we call things physical and mental when they might be spiritual, and sometimes they perhaps called things spiritual when they might be physical or mental If you are someone that struggles with some of the things that the man described in his struggles, do not assume that the same story is true for you as was true of this man.

I want you to be gracious with yourself and not assume by nature of some of the similarities that the same thing is true of you. Regardless of how we would take this story, this would be a common story for Jesus’ listeners. A man who has experienced a deep persecution in life, who is struggling to the point that he is now no longer his own person.

For them, spiritual influences were real and common, and for us, we often miss them because we don’t know where to look. The story has four characters, Jesus, the man, the impure spirit, and the crowd. As I say, we’re gonna move fairly quickly once we get going. This man is described as living in the tombs. No one could bind him anymore.

He’s incredibly strong, not even with a chain. He’s stronger than just ropes, but chains as well. He had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day amongst the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

In this story, the man himself is completely passive. He has no capacity to help himself. He is completely under the sway of this impure spirit that the story describes. And something else that I think Mark intentionally wants us to know. He is completely lost. There’s no way of solving his situation for himself.

Nobody else, the story is clear, can help him. This man is deeply hurting, deeply troubled, and in this moment, Jesus steps into his story. Mark wants us to grab hold of this story as the worst case scenario, the person least likely to be reached. It describes how many people have tried to enter into his situation to do something for him, and no one in the story has been able to help.

That’s the picture that he’s trying to let us grasp. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He being the spirit, not the man. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name, don’t torture me.” There is an awareness in the story constantly that Jesus is central, and Jesus is in control of every moment of this story.

Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit.” And then Jesus does something that might surprise us, which a lot of commentators think is linked to the time in which he lived. Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” In this first part of the story, the spirit knows Jesus’ name. Jesus doesn’t know the spirit’s name.

Knowing a name gave a picture of control, a picture of authority, and Jesus steps again into the authority. He asks his name, and the impure spirit gives it up. “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again to send him out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.

The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs. Allow us to go into them.” Poor pi- I always felt sorry for the pigs in this story. He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. And the herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

There is so much in this story that we don’t have time to cover. Again, there’s a podcast for a reason, and we can get into all of that. Aaron, get researching. We’ve got work to do, my friend. It- it’s the next part of the story they wa- that I want us to capture. I want us to notice what happens to this man who encounters Jesus, how the crowd responds to what happens to this man that encounters Jesus, and what Jesus does next, what he asks the man to do afterwards.

Podcast. Note that. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and people went out to see what happened. For a moment, think about yourself in the position of the unspoken people in the story, the innocent people in the story, the people whose job it was to care for the pigs.

How do you go back to your employers, the people that have paid you to care for these pigs, and say, “So I’ve got a story to tell you,” right? “There was this man in the hills. He had an impure spirit. This man came from across the lake and cast out the impure spirit, but the impure spirit went into the pigs,” right?

“And then the pigs all ran into the lake.” As a person working for an employer, how do you feel explaining that story? That’s a difficult one to get through, right? And understandably, the people who own the pigs have questions. For a community like this, an agricultural community, the pigs would often be a significant source of income for the people, and so they have questions, concerns.

And so they come to find out what happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who’d been possessed by the legion of demons. Again, remember, in Mark’s perspective, the man who was the furthest gone, the furthest away from the way of Jesus, the furthest away from God, the one who could not be helped.

They found the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there dressed and in his right mind. They see a man who nobody could help. Now healed, whole, and complete. In Luke’s version of this story, he wants us to grasp just the different s- just the different way things happen. So in his version, Jesus arrives, the man is naked, the man is distressed, and then following Jesus’ miraculous healing, the man is now whole and in his right mind, is now clothed, and then Jesus leaves.

It’s a story that reflects, at its heart, our story for those of us that follow Jesus. Maybe not the details, but it resembles the rescue, the moment that Jesus’ story intersects with our story, the moment we’re invited in to something. The man is transformed. There’s a change. A new story is evolving from this story.

Those who had seen it, the people, the sheep tenders. No, the pig tenders. Pig, swine herders, whatever the word is. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man, and told about the pigs as well. And the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

There is a story about a man that no one can help, and Jesus’ miraculous healing of this man, and there is a story about a monetary loss, a cost. Which story do you think is most on the minds of the crowd, the people that walk into this story? They’re concerned about the second one, right? They can only see the economic fallout.

They can only see the problem that has developed. In actual fact, they are completely disinterested in the transformation. So much they ask Jesus to leave. They can have nothing to do with him. The crowd makes a choice. They make a choice in favor of trying to keep their system, their way of doing things, and a choice against all the things that Jesus is bringing, all the things that Jesus is offering.

And so Jesus, true to the rest, gets into the boat, and the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. The one who was transformed says, “Let me come with you. Let me keep learning from you. Let me dwell with you, become a disciple of yours, take a journey with you.” All of the things that might entail.

The man is free, but still a social outcast. He’s not taking off with the crowd. They don’t want anything to do with him. He is just as much of a problem as Jesus is. But Jesus sends him. Look what Jesus says in verse 19. “Jesus did not let him but said, ‘Go home to your own people and tell them how much God the Lord has done for you and how he has had mercy on you.'”

Jesus says to him, “You have a story to tell. Your transformation is not for you alone.” Go take that story with you wherever you go, and then watch what happens next in the story. I think it’s fascinating ’cause remember, Jesus is not listened to. They’re not interested in continuing to learn from Jesus.

Watch what happens. So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and all the people were amazed. A man goes where Jesus went, Jesus who was not received, Jesus who was not accepted, and his story of transformation transforms others in turn. They experience Jesus through what he says.

Let me summarize that for you in some way. The former outcast returns to the community that feared him, now acting as messenger. It’s a transformation story, one that reflects the experience we have where Jesus does something in us, and we’re invited to go share it with those around us. As comf- uncomfortable as that may feel to people like you and I, and very much I in that sentence.

How does your story connect to the Jesus story? Maybe you’d say, “I’m not sure it does. Loads of questions still.” That’s great. Maybe you’d say, “Used to. I’m wondering if it still does.” Maybe you’re saying, “Oh, I remember the moment it first connected.” Maybe there’s a person that shared that story with you, teacher, Sunday school, kids’ min, whatever the new language is, youth ministry.

Maybe it was a neighbor, a friend, golf buddy. Whatever that looked like for you, maybe remember that first moment the story intersected with yours. You remember the transformation that followed and what that story meant to you. We experience this moment as followers of Jesus where our story of transformation begins.

It’s not like the hero’s journey that we talked about. It’s not this moment where we become the hero of a story. In actual fact, in our story, God is always the hero of the story. It’s never quite us. He’s the one that does the transforming work. It’s not our job. In our story, God is the center, but he takes our stories, and he asks them to share it with those around us.

He sends us to share it with others. What’s it look like for you, for I to share our story? Is that doable for us? Will we say, “I’m on the uncomfortable side of that spectrum”? Maybe even further than uncomfortable, “I’m the no way side of that spectrum.” Or are you on the easy, do it all the time side of that spectrum?

And again, knowing South just a little bit, some of the tensions we have, some of the commonalities that draw us together, my guess is more of us might lean towards, “Man that’s complicated at least.” Here’s what I’m convinced of. I’m actually convinced that your story is, wherever it is- Actually makes a difference.

That actually there’s a way that your story can speak into other stories that is true. You are unique. Your story isn’t, but you are. Your story connects with all sorts of other stories all over the place, and you might be the reason the pro- the person that helps bring transformation. I love Paul’s 2 Corinthians 3 idea, “And all we who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

We are transformed people, continuing to transform, continuing to change. And when we see Jesus and who he is and what his story means it nudges us to share it with others. D.T. Niles, the brilliant Sri Lankan evangelist, said this, “Evangelism, the sharing of the story, is one beggar telling another beggar where they found bread.”

It should feel that central to who we are. So back to the question, as we kinda nudge to a conclusion. Why do we find it so hard to share our story? Was my original attention question. And I have some ideas for you, and these are for you to take or leave as God introduces them to your heart. This is description, not prescription, right?

That’s on you. Maybe you’ve just seen the story shared badly. Maybe you’ve run across the angry street preachers yelling at the top of their voices, demanding people make a decision. Some years ago, I was pastoring at another church that was brilliant at the outreach thing, just like South is. And we hired a director of evangelism to help nudge us in this direction, and he came back from the food bank that first day, and he said, “Six people prayed to follow Jesus today.”

And I said, “Do you know their names?” He’s “No, not really.” “Do you know if they’re ever gonna connect with anyone?” “No, not really.” “How did you get them to pray this prayer? With a gun?” It felt like it was very particularly forced and ugly and not what we wanted. Maybe you’ve seen it done badly. Maybe you’ve seen Jesus shared in awful ways.

Maybe you get a sto- sense that sharing of a story, this story, doesn’t fit with our culture. Maybe your sense of today’s culture is we just do our own thing, right? Your truth is your truth. And kinda feel some of that sense of the culture of today. And yet I think following Jesus requires trusting that his understanding of why the story matters and how culture matters in the midst of it is probably more intelligent, better understanding of it than ours.

Maybe you think it doesn’t fit with our culture and Jesus says, “You gotta trust me on this. I know what the culture needs.” Or maybe this is a big one for you, and knowing some of you, it might be. Maybe you just say, “This story isn’t complete in me. I’m still messy. I’m still edgy. I’m still a l- a little bit broken.

I’m not ready to share any story. I don’t even know how this story’s gonna turn out in me, let alone somebody else.” And yet I think what we see over and again in the pages of scripture is people that shared story early and confident even when they weren’t quite sure what was happening in them. That if you don’t start now, my guess is you’ll probably never start.

Or maybe you’re on the other end of the spectrum. Your story isn’t edgy. It isn’t fringe. It isn’t like I’m coming back from intense brokenness. Maybe your story’s the opposite one. Maybe you might say, “My story isn’t special. Grew up in a Christian home. Started following Jesus when I was young.

Nothing really changed. It feels too simple, too linear.” And yet your story matters just as much as anybody else’s in the room. Don’t believe that your story of how Jesus has kept you, has held onto you, doesn’t matter. I had my own interesting teenage years. I remember this conversation with my mom one night where she was getting on me about a few different things, a f- few patterns of behavior she’d seen.

And I remember saying to her, “If I’m such a bad kid, why is it that I’m not out there doing hard drugs like all my friends?” And she looked at me with fire and thunder in her eyes and she said to me, “Maybe because you’ve been prayed for every day of your life.” I went, “Ah.” “Fair enough. Good comeback. Bravo, Mom.”

But here’s the last one that I think I would probably confess and may nudge towards some of you, depending on where you are in this moment. Maybe the story isn’t central. Maybe it easily finds its way a little bit towards the fringe. Maybe there’s other stories that hold the central place in your heart.

Maybe the story you’re building is the big thing. The everyday life that’s going on right now is the thing that holds the center ground. And the Jesus story just has a way of nudging enough to the fringe that it never seems quite as important to share. One of my favorite preachers of all time is a guy in Michigan called Don Davis.

Preaches primarily in the Black communities around Flynn and some of the surrounding rural areas, and he tells a story about his upbringing, about his first experience of church. And he said, “In the small Black community that I grew up in the South, there’d be this moment that the preacher stopped preaching.”

And he said, “I’m done telling the story. Now Sister Mabel is gonna come sing the story for us.” He said every week as they came towards the end of a service, Sister Mabel would kinda wander down the aisle. And with just pure voice, nothing to support it, no music, just her, she would sing the same song every week.

She’d sing these words: “He’s sweet, I know. He’s sweet, I know. Storm clouds may rise. Strong winds may blow. I’ll tell the world wherever I go, I found a savior and He’s sweet, I know.” He said every week this song would get sung. And he never really thought much about it, but he would watch as he’d see his parents and their friends, their neighbors, who would sing this song with tears pouring down their face, just into this moment, into this story.

And he said, “When I got older, I saw and I realized, I knew what their lives were like. Poor folk. Porters, janitors, street sweepers. The story was all they had.” There’s a reason that Jesus says to us who find ourselves in the position most of us might say we find ourselves, how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

There’s so much going on, so much to find its way into the center. And I wonder for me if it’s hard to share the story, and maybe you guys watching at home or you guys in the room, because it’s not really center. Finds its way to the edge so easily in the midst of the life we get to build. Here’s my encouragement to you this week, my nudge for you this week.

Don’t let the story you’re writing come before the story God has written. The story about a God who made for Himself a people, at great cost to Himself rescued them over and over again. This God who travels across lakes, steps onto the side to welcome in a man who finds himself as far from God as he possibly can be, will welcome him home, make him new, bring him into a family.

That’s the story. And this story will be with you when life is great, and this story will be with you in hospital rooms when everything seems at its worst. It’ll be with you on gravesides when you stand and bury people that are most important to you. It’ll be with you whatever happens. Don’t let it lose its centralness when life is good.

What’s your roadblock to sharing your story? Maybe the call of this series for you is to begin with prayer, to pray for a specific person. Maybe the call is to listen to a neighbor that’s hard to listen to. Maybe it’s a call to sit and eat with a friend, help them on their journey. Maybe it’s a call to serve.

Maybe your call is to share. Maybe your call is to grab a grill and bring it onto your street and invite your neighbors in. Maybe your call is to connect with someone, spend some time with them. Maybe your call is to share your story. Let’s stand, friends.

Jesus, I thank you for South, this community that surprises me in its capacity to serve. I am so proud of this community, so glad I get to call it home. The way it steps into great need, feeds people, clothes people, helps provide a home for people. Through South, you help transform Littleton, the world around it.

Thank you for all the missionaries that have come through this church that find themselves in all parts of the world now. Remind us to share our story. Let us take that home with us. Challenge us. Weigh it up. Decide whether it’s for us. I pray for my friends that will be hard on themselves because this is hard for them.

Help them to be gracious with themselves. I pray for my friends that will be easy on themselves because I’m easy on myself.

Help them to be challenged, to listen to what you have for them. Amen.