Lectionary for June 22, 2025
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28 (22);
Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
There was an old hymn that we sang in some of the Methodist congregations that I grew up in called “My Jesus, I Love Thee.” Each stanza ends with the line “If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.” Somewhere in my teens and 20s, I started remembering that lyric differently and ended many prayers with “If ever I needed you, Jesus, it’s now.” That prayer, and the consolation that God knew what I was praying for before I even asked (Matthew 6:8), saw me through many missteps. Mind you, I didn’t pray much before getting into trouble. When it comes to praying after the fact, I’m in good company. The lectionary passages this week are about God showing up for people before they even knew they needed help.
In the opening of Isaiah 65, God speaks of showing up for people who weren’t even looking for God in the first place. God was found by those who didn’t seek the Lord. God announced the divine presence to a nation that didn’t call on the divine name. God opened God’s hands to a people who rebelled and turned away (1-2). From the Garden of Eden to Noah’s ark, to Abraham’s tent, to Hagar’s sojourn, to Moses’ flock, to Samaria’s idolatry, to Jerusalem’s injustice, to the exiles’ disappointments, to the disciples’ confusion, to Paul’s confused wrath—in all of these places God showed up uninvited but ready to claim, love, heal, equip and activate for mission.
Here in Isaiah, God speaks to returned exiles (probably), mingling with the folks who weren’t even significant enough to the Babylonians to deport. Pathetic, conquered, unwalled Jerusalem was a waste, and the temple lay in ruins. Surrounding peoples, including the Samaritans, Ammonites, Arabs and Philistines, united to prevent the rebuilding of the Holy City and its walls (Nehemiah 2:19, 4:7-8). As the scroll of Isaiah describes the returned Jews, they weren’t especially holy or deserving of help. They ate unkosher food, offered forbidden worship, and falsely boasted of holiness that they didn’t possess (Isaiah 65:2-5). God didn’t help Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah reconstitute and protect a Judean society because they deserved it. Instead, God points only to Godself as the reason for grace.
God answers prayers before they are even prayed!
Isaiah’s scroll goes on to say that those who were committed to continued sin in the face of God’s mercy would be punished. But, to everyone who accepted God’s graciousness, God would extend an invitation to dwell on the mountains of Judah. And then before anyone even asked for peace, God would see to it that no one, of any ethnicity or affiliation, would try to harm or dispossess anyone else (24-25). God answers prayers before they are even prayed!
Looking ahead hundreds of years, Jesus went to a land where he had not been welcomed or sought. The confrontation with the possessed man from the land across the river was not an answer to anyone’s prayers. As the story is told, we gradually learn the background information. The man was habitually naked and lived in the graveyard (Luke 8:27). He was repeatedly chained and guarded, but the demons wanted to escape that situation (29). The people of the area were accustomed to the man’s condition, and it was only when Jesus exorcised the man that he could sit quietly while wearing clothes—and this frightened his neighbors (35).
In other words, the townspeople treated the man as a sort of demon-trap. He was chained up, and guards were used to keep him in the graveyard. The man was near enough to town to offer him up as an easy alternative target for all sorts of demons, but he was far enough away that people didn’t have to see the consequences of his repeated possession by many spirits.
Luke’s Gospel initially buries the headline. As soon as Jesus arrived, he commanded the demons to leave the poor man (29). A brief conversation ensued in which Jesus allowed the demons to pick their next, this time nonhuman, victims to their own folly. Before the man could attempt to ask for help, before the demons could interrogate Jesus, the Messiah showed up to bring him double freedom—from the demons and from the cruel abuse of his community.
The moral of the story is that God is not surprised by our needs. When neighbors are abusive, when people are sacrificed or forced to disappear to make others feel safer, God notices. And God shows up to make things right—before we even ask. Even while writing this reflection, humming in my head “If ever we need you, Jesus, it surely is now,” I feel God say, “I already know.”
