By Nanette Sawyer

Gospel Reading: Luke 8:26-39

For Sunday, June 23, 2013:  Year C—Ordinary 12

Even more than Twitter, Jesus changes everything. He upsets the socio-economic situation, brings outsiders to the inside of communities, and gets himself run out of town doing it. I think about how women who were effective healers during times of witch craze were often targeted. After all, if someone can heal, maybe they can also make people sick.

What are the townspeople in this story afraid of more: Jesus taking away their livelihoods, changing the social economic situation by (killing) allowing the pigs to die, or, his apparent capacity to control demons?  If a person can cast out demons, maybe they can send demons into you, too. Was this what the townspeople feared when Jesus sent demons into pigs?  As for the demons themselves—oddly it’s their fears that take centerstage.

By Nanette Sawyer

Old Testament Reading: 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a

For Sunday, June 23, 2013:  Year C—Ordinary 12

When we get right down to it, Elijah is a murderer, and we need to think long and hard about this fact.  What are the implications of this element of Elijah’s life? How might this story guide us in our own lives as Christians?

I would much rather focus my reflection on the “still small voice” in this story, because my romanticization of it is so comforting. As a contemplative soul, I love the idea that we can encounter God in “sheer silence” as the NRSV translates this phrase. The “still small voice” is the King James translation.

I have many times referenced this phrase when inviting people to look for God in quiet reflection. But this story is so much more complicated than a tale of meditation.