After saying goodbye to our friends and communities in Ames the past month has been spent getting our family settled here in Des Moines. We moved into our new home a couple weeks ago, two days after the end of school for our kids.

Our first week in town was mostly spent back in Ames scrubbing, staging and schlepping stuff around our previous home, readying it for sale.

After three days on the market, some good news: our old house is now under contract. Whew! Assuming all goes well with the close we’ll be back to one mortgage soon. And are very much looking forward to that.

With the unpacking of boxes now in process, an updated sense of the familiar has started to take shape. Food stuffs are located in new-to-us places: cereal to the left of the fridge, the coffee maker under the kitchen window, Splenda and coffee beans in the drawer just below. The chaos of uncertainty, punctuated by cries of ‘does anyone know where the so-and-so is’ are becoming less frequent by the day.

Now if I could consistently find where my boxers went! Then all would be well 😊.

We were lucky to have landed a 100-year-old brick home here we simply adore. As we’re quickly learning older homes come with unique challenges.

The previous homeowners took two antique chandeliers with them. Unlike what we’re used to they can’t be found at the local big-box home improvement store. And a couple of our doorknobs broke on move day; the metal piece connecting the two sides simply split in half. Wanting to repair instead of replace I took the broken remains to Ace Hardware.

For Ace is the Place with the Helpful Hardware Folk.

Ace pretty much always has the answer. So when the wise septuagenarian took the door knob, studied it for 30 seconds, handed it back, and kindly suggested I try an antique store, well I knew we were in for a new kind of adventure.

Coffee and Curios
Often, I like to prepare sermons away from home and office. Places like restaurants, coffeeshops, the occasional bar even helps to get the creative juices flowing. So when Ken Kamba suggested West End Architectural Salvage and Coffee Shop might be a fun place to try it piqued my curiosity. A morning of sermon writing accented with a break to browse for chandeliers and doorknobs from a certain era sounded great.

After studying the gospel passage while sipping coffee at West End some I decided to take that break. And what a salvage shop it is – four levels of brick walls and wooden floors of warehouse awesome. I marveled at dozens – or was it hundreds? – of chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, doors aplenty stacked neatly side by side, and wall upon wall of reclaimed metal, wood, glass. Each piece held decades of patina; many items dated back a century or more.

Looking around I couldn’t help but wonder about the former stories each treasure held. What house had that front door once protected? What dining room had this chandelier once illuminated? What porch had these wooden columns once supported, stately greeting guests as they arrived?

And yet at some point each had been separated from their purpose. I was surrounded by:

– doors that didn’t open
– chandeliers that didn’t light
– columns that did not support

The warehouse had an air of sadness. The space was filled with once magnificent items. And now? They were shadows of their former selves.

Yet I also found myself surrounded by potential. For one –
purchase,
cleaning,
sanding
painting,
and installation –

…and BOOM. With a little tlc each piece could return to that which they had been created to do. There were thousands upon thousands of happy reunions just waiting to happen all around.

After snapping a few photos of chandeliers and doorknobs and sending them to my wife I headed back downstairs to write.

Unclean
Our text today from Luke 8 is a personal favorite. In it we see Christ travel by boat from Galilee, which is Jewish territory, to the Garasenes, a land of Gentiles. Throughout scripture we’re reminded there is no border Jesus won’t cross to cure that which ails us.

We don’t know the exact nature of what possessed this man. It almost goes without saying that after two millennia understandings of physical and mental health have evolved.

We do know he referred to himself as Legion. The term, shared by the Roman military, signals a destructive presence. A Legion is many more than one, all bound together and up to no good. The name suggests a kind of existential schizophrenia, marked by confusion between a singular identity and the plural meaning of his name.

Like my jaunt through the salvage shop looking at antiques, the man Christ encounters is a shadow of his former self. His ailment has left him naked, homeless. The man used to reside in the city, but no longer lives there. Instead, his days are spent on the outskirts of town, in the graveyard, alongside the dead.

Oh, people had tried to help him. They restrained him with chains, hoping time might return him back to some semblance of normal. We now know better: incarceration, without rehabilitation, doesn’t do much good.

Besides, the chains hadn’t worked. The man would invariably break free and head away, once again, from community. And head back to the graveyard wilderness he called home.

I can’t help but wonder what life had been like before all this. Was the man married? Did he have kids? What of his vocation – was it fisherman, carpenter, scribe? What family, friends, loved ones had this ailment harmed? How much had been lost?

The man was flailing, separated from his purpose here on earth.

Clean
Enter Jesus. Christ approached the man and removes what possessed him. There are no thoughts or prayers in this narrative. Just healing action. The man, now freed of his demons, and in his right mind, puts on some clothes and sits down at the Lord’s feet.

As Jesus got back in the boat to leave the man begged to come with him. “Let me be one of your disciples, please!”

Christ had other plans. Go back to your people, Jesus asked. For you have been restored to your community. A community that, for far too long, you were separate from.

Build bridges.
Reconnect with loved ones.
Reconcile with those who were harmed.

Now healed the man could return to that which he had been created to do. Now he could look forward to countless reunions just waiting to begin.

Now made clean he was once again in right relationship with God, self, neighbor.

The man then went, proclaiming throughout the city all that Jesus had done. The story features both a happy ending, and happy beginning as we consider what, for him, is to come.

Community
As I returned to my seat at West End I heard a familiar voice. “Hey Pastor Ryan!” It was Matt, a member of my previous congregation in Ames. He was sitting with a few other guys at a nearby table, sipping coffee, playing cards.

I overheard the men talking, joking. One round of cards led to another. At some point a guy from the coffeeshop walked over and offered each of us a cupcake. It was the owner’s birthday. They wanted us to celebrate with them.

The moment felt light, relaxed, peaceful.

While munching on the cupcake I remembered a previous conversation with Matt. He is a social worker for the VA here in Des Moines. His patients are veterans. Many of whom have served in active duty in places like Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq. Along the way their time in the military had led to serious mental health challenges. Difficult diagnoses including things like schizophrenia and PTSD.

The diagnoses are associated with symptoms including distrust of others, altered perceptions of reality, a tendency to self-isolate.

Could these card players be clients? I called Matt to ask.

“Why yes,” he confirmed. Playing cards in public helps them get out of the house. It helps them see the world is safer than they might think. We also coordinate gatherings so they can volunteer alongside others and participate in senior center activities as well. I help them for as long as they need. Our goal is that, over time, they can better reconnect with others on their own.

Being in community, he shared, turns out to be the best medicine of all.

I had witnessed my friend in a therapeutic moment, helping to heal these men from that which ails them. Helping them to reengage with others. Sitting there reflecting on Luke 8 I couldn’t help but notice the commonality these stories share. For reconnecting a person in need with their community is exactly what Christ is all about. He does it time, and time and time again.

And here it happened over something so seemingly mundane. With each sip of coffee, each round of cards, each bite of cupcake, the delicate act of healing had begun.

Close
Like old doors and chandeliers sitting unused in a warehouse, at times we too might feel separated from the world around. We too can feel isolated, disconnected from God’s purpose for our lives.

It is then when Christ –
calls us,
claims us,
cleans us,
restores us –

back to right relationship with our God, ourselves, our neighbors.

We too have some patina on us. And we each have our scars. But please know: the good Lord is not done with us just yet.  Amen.