Pigs

 Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church 

 

 
 

 A warm welcome to each worshipper today. We celebrate you and offer you our friendship and love. We are a congregation of people who seek to grow spiritually, to become more like Christ in His compassion and acceptance of everyone while growing more aware of what it really means to be Christians today. 

 
 

As a Reconciling Congregation, EPUMC affirms the sacred worth of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and welcomes them into full participation in the fellowship, membership, ministries, and leadership of the congregation. 

  

  

  

943 Palmer Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12309 / 518-374-4306 epumc943@gmail.com / www.easternparkway.org 

 
 
 
 
 

Order of Worship 

June 19, 2022 

Juneteenth 

10:00 a.m. 

*You are invited to rise in body or spirit. 

  

Prelude God of Our Fathers George Warren; J. Wayne Kerr, arr. 

 

Greeting and Announcements 

 

Mission Statement: 

We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ. 

  

Call to Worship:  

When we long for the special effects we think life should offer: 

it is enough, for us, that God comes in a soft, summer shower. 

When we our hearts are cracked by the drought of doubt: 

it is enough, for us, that God opens up the fountains of faith for us. 

When our senses are deadened by the sales pitches of our culture: 

it is enough, for us, that God wraps us in the silence of grace. 

Thom Shuman 

 

*Hymn In Christ There Is No East or West #548    

            

Prayer of Confession: 

We come seeking God in mighty earthquakes. 

We come listening for God in resounding thunder. 

We come expecting God in sweeping victories. 

Yet God is found in a baby's touch. 

Yet God speaks in silence. 

Yet God is found in the least of these. 

Save us, O God, from our aimless wandering. 

Save us, O God, from our idols. 

Save us, O God, from our self-induced chaos. 

God, in your mercy, 

Hear our prayer. 

Amen. 

  

Assurance: 

Hear the good news of God's love for us; 

not in the earthquake, not in the storms, not in the mighty deeds 

but in the silence, in the gentle touch, in the quiet rain 

God says, 

again, 

“You are my Beloved. I love you.” 

Katherine Hawker 

 
 

Scripture Reading Luke 8:26-39 

Jesus Heals the Gerasene Demoniac 

26 Then they arrived at the region of the Gerasenes,[a] which is opposite Galilee. 27 As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn[b] any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” 29 for Jesus[c] 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.) 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. 

32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demons[d] begged Jesus[e] to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. 

34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 35 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 became frightened. 36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. 37 Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes[f] asked Jesus[g] to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus[h] sent him away, saying, 39 “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. 

  

Sermon Pigs 

 

I’ve been in the ministry for ten years now. With my experience and time spent in the Word, I’m well aware that some of our Bible stories are super weird. But this one, that has come up several times in this decade, takes the cake. This has got to win the award for weirdest Bible story. 

This text raises many questions, but the most pressing one for me is, what did those poor pigs ever do to anyone? 

I’ve looked at this text from a hundred different lenses. The one I’m using this time around, that I’m inviting you to look through for just a few minutes, is: maybe we’re not supposed to see this legion of pigs diving to their death as actual pigs. Maybe they’re a symbol of something else. The questions that come from that interpretation, then, are 

What are the pigs symbolic of? 

And, what about this demon-possessed man? What does he represent? 

I’m different from some of my colleagues in that I don’t believe any word of the Bible has one fixed, indisputable meaning. I believe the Word is a living mystery with countless messages and interpretations. The important element is less “what does it mean”, and more “what does this mean for us?” 

But before I say any more about that, I want to spend a few minutes talking about one of two holidays we celebrate today—a holiday called Juneteenth. Those of us who occupy white-dominated spaces have only recently begun to acknowledge Juneteenth, and it did not become a Federal holiday until just last year. Because of President Biden’s decision to finally give this day the recognition it deserves last year, my kids are enjoying a day off of school in observation of Juneteenth for the first time ever, and certainly not the last. I hope to raise children who see this holiday as so much more than a day off from school, and rather as a day to remember, respect, reflect, and make reparations. 

While the celebration of Juneteenth may be new to some of us, this is by no means a “new” holiday. This one goes all the way back to 1865. Though President Abraham Lincoln officially outlawed the practice of slavery with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, southern states that conceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy felt no obligation to follow Union laws, and thus the liberation of enslaved Black folks depended on Union soldiers reaching them and overcoming their Confederate captors. This happened in the town of Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger declared the end of slavery in Texas. 

We owe the holiday itself not to the actions of one white man, but to the hearts of many people of color. Juneteenth became a local, church-led celebration in Galveston in 1866, where folks read the Emancipation Proclamation, sang traditional African American liberation songs, and partied. Celebrations of Juneteenth spread from Galveston slowly, first throughout the South, and then slowly into the North, and even into parts of Mexico, where descendants of Black Seminoles who fled enslavement in the 1850s settled. As Jim Crow laws oppressed and terrorized people of color, Juneteenth grew as a show of solidarity and strength. As the Civil Rights movement of the ‘60s opened the eyes of the public to the suffering of their BIPOC neighbors, Juneteenth became an important day to celebrate Black Pride. Officially a state holiday in Texas in 1938, slowly the rest of the Nation began to appreciate the importance of this day, not just for the Black community, but for all of us. In the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 

And that brings us to 2022, at Eastern Parkway UMC, in a largely white congregation, in a very white suburb in the North. What does Juneteenth mean to us? 

We are like the residents of the town of Gerasene. Relatively privileged and comfortable, we live in settled neighborhoods in houses while a minority of our population, let’s think of them as Legion, have been relegated to the tombs, and largely forgotten by us, not because we’re bad people, or because we don’t care, but because their pain doesn’t affect us personally and because we don’t feel it, we don’t see it unless we look really hard. Our Legion, our BIPOC friends, and especially the Black descendants of former slaves, have found themselves demonized and chained over and over, first by the Transatlantic slave trade, and then by the KKK, and then by lynching, and then by Jim Crow, and then by redlining, and then by the destruction of their neighborhoods to create our suburbs, and then by segregation, and then by hate speech, and then by poverty, and then by mass incarceration, and then by the school to prison pipeline, and now by us when our doctors believe they don’t feel pain and our teachers believe they’re problem students and our political candidates think they’re fraudulent voters and our cops believe they’re violent threats and our suburbanites think they’re all thugs and we sit nice and comfortable in Niskayuna and think we’ve had a Black President so racism is over now. 

Then Jesus comes into this giant mess that we can’t clean up, especially since a lot of us won’t even reach for a mop. And our BIPOC Legion begs for help, and finally Jesus hears them when so many of their own white neighbors didn’t. And Jesus removes the pain from their hearts, and the overt and covert racism from our communities, and allows us to visualize the damage we’ve caused as a bunch of racist pigs who all go jump in a lake. 

This Juneteenth, rather than sacrificing a herd of pigs again, let’s instead own where we have failed to ease the suffering of our BIPOC neighbors, and resolve to do better. I think the best place to start is an earnest apology, from the White Church, to our friends of color, for all of our sins, both of commission and omission, that have fed the white supremacist pigs. 

And please take it from me—let us not kneecap our apologies by saying “I’m sorry if” or “I’m sorry but”. When we throw if in there we deny our culpability and even the pain itself, and whenever we say but, we negate every word we said before that one. 

Instead, let the apology from our White Church sound like this one: 

I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry my ancestors quoted the Bible to justify owning people, and my other ancestors protected them. 

I’m sorry for every time a racist preacher quoted Paul advising slaves to obey their masters in order to oppress you. 

I’m so sorry for every time any person has weaponized scripture against you or anyone else. 

I’m sorry that our Methodist ancestors made Richard Allen and his community sit in the balcony in worship, and that they refused to change until Allen left and made his own Church, the AME.  

I’m sorry that, to this day, you feel safer under your own roof than under the same one as us. 

I’m sorry for every time a Christian participated in an act of race based violence. I’m sorry it’s crosses the Klan burned. 

I’m sorry for all the barriers we have placed to your full participation and belonging among us, and I’m sorry for every time we put up a wall instead of adding a seat to the table.  

And on this day, I’m especially sorry for your beloveds shot by White Supremacists in our churches and the hate symbols graffitied on our buildings. 

About that last point: if we want to make it better, we have a golden opportunity right now. In light of swastikas found spray painted in the city, the Schenectady Clergy Against Hate invites y’all to have what we call a “chalk in” in every place where it’s allowed. It’s simple: fill up your neighborhood with drawings about love and equality. It takes a hundred acts of love to drown out one hateful pig, but with the help of Jesus, the pigs will all be washed away and we will help our healed Legion proclaim the radical inclusion of the Kin-dom of God. 

Amen. 

 
 

*Hymn Wade in the Water #2107 

 
 

Offering March of the Women Ethel Smyth 

Offertory  

 

*Doxology                                                                                              #94 

*Prayer of dedication             

  

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer 

Let us praise those fathers who have striven to balance the demands of work, marriage, and children with an honest awareness of both joy and sacrifice. 
 
Let us praise those fathers who, lacking a good model for a father, have worked to become a worthy and virtuous father. 
 
Let us praise those fathers who, by their own account, were not always there for their children, but who continue to offer those children, now grown, their love and support. As well, let us pray for those fathers who have been wounded by words and actions of their children. 
 
Let us praise those fathers who, despite marital discord, have remained in their children's lives. 

Let us praise those fathers whose children are adopted, and whose love and support has nurtured a thriving life. 

Let us praise those fathers who, as stepfathers, freely choose the obligation of fatherhood and earned their step children's love and respect. 

Let us praise those fathers who have lost a child to death, and continue to hold the child in their heart. 

Let us praise those men who have no children, but cherish the next generation as if they were their own. 
 
Let us praise those men who have "fathered" us in their role as mentors and guides. 
 
Let us praise those men who are about to become fathers; may they openly delight in their children. 

And let us praise those fathers who have died, but live on in our memory and whose love continues to nurture us. 
 
- Prayer of Kirk Loadman adapted by Debra Mooney, PhD 

 

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen. 

 

*Hymn How Like a Gentle Spirit #115, vv 1, 3, 5 

 

Benediction 

 
Postlude This Little Light of Mine Mark Hayes, arr. 

 
 

 
 

Staff 

Natalie Bowerman Pastor 

Betsy Lehmann Music Director 

Joe White Custodian 

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant