Weekly News
June 21, 2019
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Dearest Friends,
If you know me, you know that I love things that are weird, especially the weird parts of our Biblical witness. And this week's reading does not disappoint!
Could you recognize the Bible story from the picture in last weeks email?
It is the story of the Gerasene Demoniac, the story in Luke's Gospel where Jesus casts a whole host of demons out of a man who had been tortured by them for years...and those demons inhabit a herd of pigs who promptly drown themselves in the nearby lake.
This story comes right after Jesus calmed the storm and right before he heals the hemorrhaging woman: a string of miracles...or is it? At first glance, these events simply portray Jesus as a healer sent by God. More subtly, however, the story reveals Jesus as one with cosmic authority, able both to calm the chaotic waters and to free people from occupying powers.
And we post-modern, educated, intellectual, discerning folks might scoff at the thought of cosmic forces and demons, writing them off as an ancient, pre-scientific understanding of scientific and medical explanations. But I would encourage you to pause before you throw the mysterious out with the skeptical bathwater. In our faith, we do well to sit with those stories and experiences which makes us uncomfortable, and listen a little more closely to what God has to share with us through them. Maybe you, like the Gerasene Demoniac, have not been occupied by demons that left you naked and convulsing in an ancient burial ground, but surely there are things in your life that you felt powerless over, that led you down paths you never dreamed of walking.
Join me and the rest of our beautiful community of faithful wonder-ers on Sunday as we go deeper into this weird but beautiful story handed down through the ages from our ancestors in the faith.
Peace and Blessings,
The Rev. Ingrid Brown
Next Week:
Don’t come to church!
Rarely will you read that in an email from us, but for the next two weeks worship will be at a different location: June 30th at Comox United Church (CUC), and July 7th at Comox Valley Presbyterian Church (CVPC). We are grateful for the unity we experience as we live out our call to be together as the body of Christ in the world, beyond congregational and denominational boundaries.
But come on back!
July 14th will be a celebration of the Summer Day Camp program and the kick-off to our “St. George’s Summer of Play” with a sermon series “Storybooks and Scripture”. Be sure to attend for lively music, thought-provoking preaching, and loving community as we offer St. George’s hospitality to our friends from CUC and CVPC.
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