Transcript
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Have you ever had that moment when you returned to a place that once felt like home, and somehow something changed? It’s subtle. Maybe it’s the street you grew up on, that porch in the summertime, or the little diner where your family always sat in the same booth. You go back and everything looks the same, but something inside says this isn’t how it used to feel. You wonder, is it the place that’s changed? Or is it me? And perhaps home doesn’t feel like home the same way. There is a phrase that names this feeling, and maybe you’ve heard it before that you can’t go home again.
And that phrase, it comes from a novel by the same name. You can’t go home again. Written by Thomas Wolfe and published in 1940. In the book, the main character leaves his town, writes a novel about it, and then returns again. But instead of a warm welcome, he’s met with resistance. People saw themselves in his story, and they didn’t like what they saw. So just like that, the place he once called home no longer felt like it.
You can’t go home and say, but when I think of today’s gospel, I do wonder if there’s more to it. Because what if that ache, that sense that things don’t fit the way they used to, is exactly where Jesus shows up? Not to take us back to what was, but to meet us where we are and lead us into something beautiful, something new.
You see, in today’s gospel from Luke, we meet a man whose sense of home has completely unraveled. He lived among tombs, isolated, cut off from others and himself, chained by fear and misunderstanding. The man was not only possessed, you see, he was dispossessed of dignity, even of his name. But that’s exactly where Jesus shows up. Right toward this man’s pain. Right into his wilderness. Because there is no darkness too deep, no past too painful that can keep our Lord Jesus from loving us there. Jesus sees this man not as a threat, not as a lost cause, but as someone deeply worthy of love. And in one incredible moment, Jesus sets him free.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were that man, I would cling to Jesus. I would say, Lord, take me with you. I don’t want to look back because home. Home for him was complicated. Home was the place where people remembered his worst chapter, where the whisper of shame still lingered. But then Jesus looks at him with compassion in his eyes, love in his voice, and says something unexpected and yes, something difficult. Jesus says, go home. Luke tells us plainly. The man begged to stay with Jesus, but Jesus sent him away. The gospel writes, return to your home and declare, how much God has done for you.
Now let’s pause there, because that right there is everything. Jesus doesn’t send the man back empty handed. Jesus sends him with a story. One not defined by the past, but reshaped by God’s very love and grace. Because here’s the gospel good news not just for that man, but for you and for me. With Jesus, our worst thing is never our last thing. With Jesus, our worst thing is never our last thing. Let’s let that truth live in us for just a moment.
Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what happened when the man Jesus healed returned home. We don’t know what changed around him. Only that something had changed. That somewhere on that dusty road home, something changed within him. With Jesus in his heart, shame shifted to joy. Fear turned to faith on fire. And that man, after all he had been through, went back proclaiming, preaching, heralding what Jesus had done for him. In the end, home hadn’t changed, but he had. So maybe it’s true. You can’t go home again. Or maybe by grace you can, just not as the same person who left.
Now, I’ll admit, today’s gospel sounds strange. Demons. A man shouting in the tombs. Pigs running off a cliff. It’s dramatic and disturbing, to be honest. It’s the kind of story that makes even seasoned preachers pause for a second or third cup of coffee and pray. Help me out here. God. Yet maybe it’s not so far from us.
Because, like the man Jesus meets, most of us have carried things that have felt too heavy. A wise Episcopal religious brother once called them our personal demons. Fear that lingers. Regret that echoes. Maybe not shouting, but the kind that whispers and wears us down and says you’re not enough. You’re too much. You don’t belong. We all have our own. But like that man Jesus healed. Jesus never leaves us friendless.
And that’s why we come to the Lord’s table. Not because we found our way to Jesus, but because he finds our way to us. We come hungry for renewal. And Jesus feeds us. We come thirsty for hope. And Jesus offers us the cup of salvation. In fact, one of my favorite lines from Eucharistic Prayer C, the one will pray today says that we come to the table not for solace only, but for strength. Because here at the Lord’s Table, like the man in today’s gospel, Jesus meets us. He knows us by name. He does not define us by fear. He doesn’t reduce us to our past. We are met here by the healing love of Christ, strengthened in the communion by grace, and we belong to him. We always have.
So, my friends, as you return from this table today, or receive a blessing in its place, or join us from wherever you are online, may you carry the gospel with you. That with Jesus your worst thing is never the last thing. Jesus says, return to your home. So let us return to the places we’re called to go. Whether familiar or unfamiliar, comforting or complicated. And let us return after church today, as people who have been met by Jesus and sent by Jesus and loved by Jesus. And when that day comes, maybe quietly, maybe suddenly, when someone needs you to bear witness as a glimpse of hope, when someone needs you to share a word of healing, when someone needs you to bear witness, to believe that grace is real. May your life and mine speak boldly and faithfully with love in our hearts like that man Jesus healed that day and proclaim, Look how much Jesus has done for me.
Amen.