22nd June 2025
Reflection with readings below
Today’s readings from the First Testament encourage us to turn to God, to seek God’s help in times of strife – and goodness are we not in a world best by strife? Turning to to God in prayer is a sound response.
Why? Because you will find strength and comfort through articulating and sharing your concerns with God. Because prayer helps us understand and to increase our awareness of the issue and of ways in which we might be part of the solution.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a timely reminder that we are all equally created by God. God does not divide people into groups that are honoured or despised, more important or less important, more loved or less loved. Any divisions we see are human-made. The passage should also remind us that God, having made all created things, saw that they were all good. Not just humans but creatures too. Not just humans, but plants too. Not just humans, but ecosystems too. When we elevate ourselves above the rest of creation, seeing ourselves as more honoured, more important and more beloved by God, then we become careless and destructive, greedy and thoughtless – we become the cause of harm and violence, damaging and destroying the world in which we live. As baptised Christians, we all called to treat all with equality and consideration and love.
Today’s gospel is a wonderful story of compassion and healing, of freedom and new beginnings. It is also a story about community and togetherness.
What is the difference between the words ‘ill’ and ‘well’? The former is begins with ‘I’ and the letter with ‘we’. Isolated, focused only on ourself and our own needs: we are ill. Together we can support and nurture one another; we consider the needs of our group and we gain from what the group offers; we are well.
In this story we Jesus as the transformative agent who releases Legion from all that ensares him, then he restores him not just to his right mind but to his community. Can we follow this example? Can we help release people from fears and systems that trap them? Can we restore communities, ensuring everyone is included and made welcome? Can we restore relations not just with people but with creatures and plants? Can we restore damaged ecosystems re-establishing sustainable relationships between all component parts?
Isaiah 65:1-9
I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that did not call on my name.
I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and offering incense on bricks;
who sit inside tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat swine’s flesh,
with broth of abominable things in their vessels;
who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all day long.
See, it is written before me:
I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their laps
their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together,
says the Lord;
because they offered incense on the mountains
and reviled me on the hills,
I will measure into their laps
full payment for their actions.
Thus says the Lord:
As the wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, “Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,”
so I will do for my servants’ sake,
and not destroy them all.
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah inheritors of my mountains;
my chosen shall inherit it,
and my servants shall settle there.
Psalm 22:18-27
18 Be not far away, O Lord; *
you are my strength; hasten to help me.
19 Save me from the sword, *
my life from the power of the dog.
20 Save me from the lion’s mouth, *
my wretched body from the horns of wild bulls.
21 I will declare your Name to my brethren; *
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
22 Praise the Lord, you that fear him; *
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel;
all you of Jacob’s line, give glory.
23 For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them; *
but when they cry to him he hears them.
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him: *
“May your heart live for ever!”
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the Lord; *
he rules over the nations.
Galatians 3:23-29
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Luke 8:26-39
Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 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. 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” — 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.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
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. 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.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 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. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 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. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “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.
The Green Tau 