[Sermon] Disrupted to Be Whole

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo + June 22, 2025

Second Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 12

In a world that clings to categories and systems that divide, God’s healing often arrives in ways that unsettle and surprise. Pastor Hector reflects on how Jesus’ liberation of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke’s Gospel challenges societal boundaries, religious expectations, and even the comfort of the faithful. Healing, in this story, is not a return to the familiar but an invitation into a radically new kind of community. This sermon invites us to consider that we, too, may need to be disrupted—our assumptions, our routines, and our sense of order—in order to truly experience God’s wholeness. The good news is that the Spirit moves us not toward control, but toward compassionate transformation. Wholeness begins where control ends.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatically generated captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Grace to you and peace from Abba Father-Mother Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

And we say amen? Amen.

How are you today, my siblings?

Perfecto. Perfecto.

And I ask you this question honestly, because as I was thinking through the week on the message for today, it’s like every time that I turn on the radio—or no, I don’t really listen to the radio. Uh, I don’t know what a radio is anymore. But when I’m listening to podcasts, and reading some articles online, and all that—every time that I turn into the news—it was like my message just changed and changed and changed, because something new, and something bad, or something else that was bad, is happening around in our community and around in the world.

Just this morning, as I woke up and I started checking—I mean, if there is anything new, or to say maybe, maybe to say, “What else is happening now in the world?”—I see now there is more war, and more war, and more war. And that really makes me ponder, and makes me think about the message for today.

So I invite you, just for a few minutes, to be with me in the reflection of the passage that we read—the two passages that we read—because I think that both messages invite us to think about the same, the same thing. And in some way, I mentioned already that with our young worshippers.

Uh, last Thursday we celebrated Juneteenth. And I believe that you’re aware that this is the time when, in 1865, the last remaining enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their emancipation—two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed.

So as I was thinking about that, I was thinking of the passage in the Gospel that we read today in Luke, about this man who has been enslaved by a condition and a situation. And I was thinking of these young, uh—uh—Black Americans, that—what they could have been thinking when they heard that they were free two and a half years later. What was their reaction? What did it mean to them to know that for two and a half years, in their minds, in their hearts, they were thinking that they were enslaved, that they were slaves—but actually, they were free?

And how were they able to reconcile those two realities—the reality of having been slaves, but the reality of having been freed?

And I think that St. Paul, in the letter to the Galatians, is helping us to reflect on that. That many times in our lives, we live lives as if we were still enslaved by everything that is around us and pulling us in so many directions—when we, in fact, are freed by the grace of God.

And what does it mean for us, then, that if we are freed, but we are still trapped in our minds and in our hearts by these ideas that this world just infuses in us? How do we reconcile those two realities? Or how do we acknowledge, or recognize, or embrace the reality of being already liberated?

Last Wednesday, Pastor Joshua—you know him. His full name is—he’s a—it’s a Swedish name. Hyphenated Swedish name. And I know that he feels like he is the minority because he’s Swedish among Norwegians. But we are not going to get into that here.

But in order to avoid saying his long name—which is hyphenated—Pastor John-Otto-something-else—I cannot pronounce his Swedish last name—he was leading the Bible study on Wednesday. And he was telling us that he knew of a congregation—I think it’s a Roman Catholic congregation—on the south side, near Tacoma.

And he said that one of the things that he experienced in that congregation is that one day, when he was in worship, there was a situation where the preacher is preaching, and then a person stood up in the middle of the congregation, interrupts the worship service, and starts yelling and talking and having a dialogue. And then the preacher patiently waits. At the end of whatever the person was saying, when the person sat down, the preacher thanked the person for his views and for his opinions and comments—and then the message continued.

What he said—Pastor Joshua—is that, at the end, he knew that that congregation had made the decision to be a congregation in which people who were suffering from mental health conditions could be part of the service. And the congregation was to embrace it fully and totally. And that was an example of what happened normally in that congregation—when a person suffering from a mental health condition would just stand up and start talking, and everybody was fine with that.

So one of my comments, and one of my reflections on that, was that—well, I don’t think that this congregation was just that easy. That people would say, “Oh, let us try to be nice, and today, whoever stands—we just, you hold it—because we are nice people.” I do not think that that was the case. Because we know what happens in congregations.

And I’m going to say this with respect, but also as an acknowledgment of the challenge that the scriptures present to us today. Years ago, when we started with the prayer ground—this prayer ground, yes, where our new worshippers are—I remember that that caused a little bit of disruption in the life of this congregation. Yes or not?

It was hard for us. And in the beginning, probably we wanted to be nice and to say, “Yeah, we can handle that.” And three weeks into that, it was like—wait—maybe we don’t. We cannot handle that.

How long has it been since we started with the prayer ground? Years now. And I can tell you that we, as a congregation—it was not just because we were nice. We had to go through a serious—and intentional—opening to the power of the Spirit to embrace the idea that this prayer ground is not just a place to keep the kids. It is part of who we are as a congregation.

And the call that we have is to be a place where everybody—and especially young worshippers, that sometimes are discriminated against and segregated in congregations—can have the opportunity to be in the life of this congregation. And it will be noisy, and sometimes disrupting. And thanks be to God for that. Because that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

And what did this Holy Spirit say from the very beginning that it was going to do? In our lives—and in the lives of every single congregation around the world. Amen?

And that is something that, personally, I thank God for in this congregation, and for each one of you. And I want to encourage you to continue to struggle with that. And I encourage you that we continue to be open to the possibility of what this Spirit is doing. This party that I talked about last Sunday—this is the party of the Lord! Where there is noise and movement! Where we can grow together, where we can struggle together, where we can be transformed together.

You saw it—and you see it every Sunday. I show you a picture that was drawn and given to me last Sunday.

And the little girl, Abby, told me at the end of the service—because the conversation continued after the service—she came to interpret the picture to me and said, “This is a new rainbow. And this little—this is me, looking at the rainbow.”

And the parents asked her and said, “When did you do that? Because we didn’t know that you drew that for Pastor Hector.”

And she said, “Oh, when I was home.”

But I don’t take that as me—or only for me. I take this picture as a testimony of your ministry. I take this picture as a call and an exhortation, my siblings in Christ, to continue to be this place where—no matter where we are, who we are, where we come from—we can find a place where you and I can transform each other and grow together.

There is enough out there to tear us apart. To make us hate each other. To bump each other.

As church—as the people of the Pentecost—we are called, as St. Paul says, to see each other as one body. Where nobody is less or more than anybody else. Where all of us are the people who God has chosen to be a light, and to be an extension of the divine compassion of God.

I told you—the Spirit is disruptive. I think I have read from my notes only one line, and it’s already 10 minutes.

I just want to say a couple of things that I have here. And I invite you to look at this passage that we read together, maybe in a different way.

Most of the time, our tendency is to think and to read the passage in the Gospel as: God is calling us to be the disruptors. We feel this passion and this desire to disrupt all these systems. And we become the heroes—the messiahs—that are going to liberate the world.

But I think that the passage is inviting us to think beyond that.

May it be possible that another way to read the story in the Gospel is to hear Jesus telling us that his reign of liberation will disrupt us—as a congregation and as individuals? Jesus’ liberation and healing is not just disruptive to the powers that bind others—it is inherently disruptive to us and the systems of which you and I are part.

Jesus’ actions disrupted the townspeople, because they were expecting a Messiah that was going to liberate them from the Gentiles, from the Romans, from the oppression. And guess what? The power of Jesus threatened their stability.

The actions of Jesus disrupted the disciples, because they were expecting a Messiah that was going to be healing—and the healing happens, not only within the disciples, but happened in Gentile territory. And not only that—because Jesus goes beyond that—Jesus prioritizes a Gentile, a demoniac. And not only that—Jesus commissions a Gentile to be an evangelist of the good news: “Return home, and tell how much God has done for you.”

It’s not just the nature of Jesus’ reign—again—it is disruptive. It doesn’t just tweak existing systems. It inverts values and exposes hidden costs. It prioritizes marginalized people over the community’s economic comfort or sense of order. And Jesus prioritizes the spiritual liberation and the restoration of God-given dignity over the material wealth and social conformity. And Jesus does it by tearing down boundaries, over maintaining purity and separation.

Jesus’ invitation to the disciples—to you, and to me—is to be disrupted into true freedom.

The call to follow Jesus isn’t just a call to disrupt others’ oppressive systems. It is first a call to be disrupted: our assumptions challenged, our priorities rearranged, our comforts disturbed, and our hidden complicities exposed.

We are called to let die anything that can separate us. Anything that will segregate others. Anything that will tear apart the body of Christ. We are called to be agents of healing and transformation.

You and I are transformed and reoriented.

The choice for us is: will we, like the townspeople, reject the liberator because his freedom disrupts our normal? Or will we, like the man and the disciples, embrace the disruption as the necessary path for true liberation—both for others, and, crucially, for ourselves?

I believe that if we listen to this story from this perspective, it will help us to prevent placing ourselves solely in the role of heroic liberators—and will force us to humbly acknowledge that we might also be the townspeople in need of disruption, or even the ones unknowingly bound, needing liberation ourselves.

The good news, my siblings in Christ, is that God is making possible what humans cannot make possible: to form a family out of strangers.

And that’s why I wanted to keep my back here—another drawing that was given by another young worshipper. For those of you who are online, I will try to read—and maybe you can see on the screens there—but it says:“God wants the church to be full of love.”

And here is God.

“Return home, and go tell everyone what God has done for you.”

Amen.