Proper 7 (12) – Year C

Second Sunday after pentecost: June 22, 2025

Gospel Lectionary Text

Luke 8:26-39
8:26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.

8:27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.

8:28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me"--

8:29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

8:30 Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him.

8:31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

8:32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission.

8:33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

8:34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.

8:35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

8:36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.

8:37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.

8:38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying,

8:39 "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Context

Welcome to the Second Sunday after Pentecost. This week, Jesus meets a man tormented by a legion of demons — naked, chained, isolated, crying out among the tombs. His suffering is undeniable, and his healing is dramatic. But what if the real sickness wasn’t just in the man?

What if the demons that torment him aren’t his alone? What if “Legion” is not just a name, but a clue — a representation of the community’s collective sin? Maybe this man was carrying what the town refused to face. Their fear. Their shame. Their violence. He bore it all, exiled to the margins, safely contained — until Jesus shows up and sets him free.

And suddenly, the community is exposed. The demons are out. The system is all messed up. The man is healed, but the town is terrified. Perhaps they preferred the arrangement as it was. One man broken so the rest could feel whole. One scapegoat to hold their shadows. But now he sits clothed and in his right mind, and there’s no more hiding. The collective sin has surfaced.

Jesus doesn’t just heal individuals. He heals the systems that shape the community. He breaks the chains of isolation, not only for the outcast, but for the whole. And that kind of healing? It’s unsettling. Maybe even enough to send us running — unless we’re ready to be healed, too.

Question

Who in your community has been made to carry what no one else wants to face?

Reflections

Where are his people?

Today’s passage tells of Jesus’ encounter with a demon-possessed man. This isn’t the only story about possession in the Bible, but it’s one of the more dramatic: exorcised demons cast into a herd of pigs, a man healed and restored to society, and a community struggling to grasp what God was doing right before their...

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The Cost of Liberation

We see people in our cities struggling everyday with their own demons: mental health, substance abuse, homelessness and more. We know, however, that their healing and restoration will require some sort of sacrifice on the part of the community and of the individual.

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Seized By Fear

The man in the tombs we see in this passage is tormented by demons that will not go away. They have “seized” him. They have overpowered his life and isolated him from the community. They had taken up residence in his mind, body and soul. When Jesus casts out the demons from this man, we…

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Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:

Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.

Poetry

excerpt from Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”

Prayer

This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Centering Prayer: 

Come, Holy Spirit, wild and free. Do as you please. Shine your light on me that I might see things as they are, not as I am. Free me to act in your name with courage, creativity, and compassion.

See the complete prayer >