Pentecost 4c - Conclusion

Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22: 19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-29

I’ve started and deleted this morning’s blog a dozen times and all I can think of is what my colleague and friend Pr. Kerstin, now Captain Hedlund, used to say, “I got nothing.” The other thing that came to mind was cartoon character Bullwinkle J. Moose (The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show 1961 – 1973) “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” So I’m going with the theme of something out of nothing for Pentecost 4c. New wine will be found within the cluster of the people that provoke God on purpose and from those who are a stench in God’s nostrils a remnant will remain and be a blessing to God. When all appears lost and even God seems absent the cry of the psalmist is heard and the sound of future rejoicing can be heard in the suffering of the present. The divisions of race and creed and gender which seem fixed in stone are erased in the water of baptism as God pulls the present into the future where definitions that divide do not exist. And the man who could not be contained by chains is calmed by Christ and in his right mind changes the minds of the people of Gerasene. I don’t know if that’s pulling a rabbit out of my hat but as I said at the outset, I got nothing.