“What Is Your Name?”

Second Sunday After Pentecost

June 22, 2025

A man living among the tombs

Galatians 3:23-29

Luke 8:26-39

Children’s Message:

Using Crayons, ask the kids what they see. What do you see that is different? (different colors, sizes). What do you see that is the same? (made of the same stuff) How much fun would it be to color with just a white and a black crayon? Yeah, kind of boring. Do you think the colors here are ALL the colors in the world? No! There are INFINITE colors. It’s so much more fun to color with all kinds of different colors, isn’t it?

That’s what God has given us in each other. We’re all made up of the same stuff, but we’re all so very different. And that makes us interesting. In his letter to a church, Paul said that in Christ, we’re not divided simply by being male or female, slave or free, citizen or non-citizen. We’re all the same in Christ, AND we’re all infinitely different. And having both things true at the same time is the only way to live. And the only way to color.

(pass out coloring page)

Let’s pray. Dear God, thank you for making us each unique. And thank you for showing us how you love us and welcome us each equally. Amen.

Message:

The man was living among the tombs. He was all but dead, himself. The demons drove him out away from others, out of community. They drove him into loneliness and isolation. They deprived him of agency and self-control, of dignity, sanity, and community. He is anonymous, his mouth is bound, he is stripped of name and identity. He is the epitome of vulnerability and hopelessness.

And the community, in an effort to protect themselves from him, would chain him when they could catch him. He still broke those chains. At best, he was an incredible inconvenience. At worst, he was physically, emotionally, and spiritually dangerous.

And that’s how Jesus found him—naked and homeless among the dead. Everything about this situation screams, “Don’t go there, Jesus!” As a Jew, any contact with any part of this situation renders him unclean—tombs, Gentiles, demons, pigs. It’s dangerous. It’s unholy. And he has no business anywhere near that place.

And yet, that’s exactly where he goes. Right into the midst of death. He jumps feet first into the mud and muck of the hopelessness and suffering of this possessed man. And he asks, “What is your name?” Maybe he was asking the demon. To know one’s name is to have power over them. And the demon responds, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

But we never get to learn the man’s name. Maybe his name is our name. Who here doesn’t know the experience of the tombs? Who hasn’t felt the loneliness of rejection? Who hasn’t known the hopelessness of death? Who hasn’t experienced the pain of hate and denial? Whose mouths haven’t been bound in fear that what you say will have repercussions? Who hasn’t been chained by the expectations of others?

What is your name? What do they call you? They call me racial slurs I won’t repeat. They call me queer slurs that hurt too much to speak. They call me slut and stupid and Neanderthal. They call me weak and broken. They call me ugly and fat. They call me a mistake. And all these names leave us vulnerable, sitting among the tombs—alone. Except we’re not alone.

Jesus came into that place and sent the demons out of the man. And by the time the people from his community had made it to that place, he was clothed, aware, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. I imagine it took a bit of time for them to even recognize him.

The healing turned his world—and theirs—upside down. Did he remember his name? Did they? What does it mean for someone who has spent so long being possessed to be finally free? What do they do now? I can’t even imagine what it was like for the slaves residing in Galveston, TX to finally discover that they were free. On June 19, 1865—two and a half years after they were legally free—they were informed of their freedom.

They had lived for so long under the thumb of their ‘owners.’ Many didn’t have their own names but names bestowed on them by their white masters. They carried the last names of those who had purchased them. What does it mean to be free? What does it look like? Fell like? Is it real? Who are you when you are no longer known by the worst elements of your life?

Sadly, we never learn the name of the man in the gospel story. He’s first known as ‘the demoniac.’ Then later, he became the ‘exorcised person’ and ‘person who had been healed.’ He was still referred to by his association with the demons. How does one get past that? How does one live into a new name?

Who are you, really?   Beneath the labels and the diagnoses, the pretense and the piety, the fear and the shame?  Who are you when no one in this world is looking?  What name do you yearn to be called in the lonely stretches of the night?  Who were you before you lost yourself?  Before something vital in you died?

We know the name we were given in baptism: Child of God. Beloved Image of God. Beautiful. Worthy. Valuable. Precious. It’s one thing to know it and another to believe it—of ourselves AND of others. And yet, this is exactly what Jesus calls us to. And in these names—in our identify found in Christ—we come to know the truth of ourselves.

Who are you? What is your name? You are Life. You are Joy. You are Love. You are Kindness. You are Hope. You are Light. You are God’s Very Own. You Are.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE