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2 | 3 | 4 | |
Joyce Fry  |
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Joyce Fry  The District Superintendent of
our Dayton North District of the United Methodist Church. |
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I. Legion There is this story
that has become good news for me and I pray that it may
become good news for you tonight as well. Not only is it
a story about good news for the man who was filled with
evil spirits but it is a story about how Jesus, a person
with a very clean heart waded in and got his hands mighty
dirty -- a model of ministry that you and I are being
called to exemplify. The story tells us that Jesus was
out in a boat out on a lake. The bible has several
different names for this lake: if you are from the region
of Galilee, you call it the sea of Galilee. If you are
from the city of Tiberius you call it the sea of Tiberius
but if you live on the southeastern side of the lake you
call it the sea of the Gerasene. |
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| Mark 5:1-5 1: They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Ger'asenes 2: And when he had come out of the boat, there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3: who lived among the tombs; and no one could bind him any more, even with a chain; 4: for he had often been bound with fetters and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5: Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out, and bruising himself with stones. |
 Jesus
had landed his boat on the Gerasene side and he met a man
who had been living in the cemetery among the tombs and
he asked this man, "What is your name?" The man
answered, "My name is Legion." Now, Legion was
a term used for a group of 6,000 Roman soldiers. This man
was saying, "I feel like I have about 6000 soldiers
running around inside of me and they are at war with one
another....and it’s terrible!" At times, the
story tells us, this man would pick up rocks and he would
gash his body. He would cry out in anguish. The Bible
says he was filled with an evil spirit.Now
I ask you tonight, "What is your name?" I
firmly believe that all of us have lots of names. The
name that I am called most of the time is
‘Joyce;’ but, I remember when my folks use to
get kind of upset with me it became ‘Joyce
Elaine.’ I was born during the war years and so I
made sure that my mother showed me the birth certificate;
because I had heard lots of stories about war babies. I
wanted to make sure who my mom and dad really were; and,
I found that my legal name was Joyce Elaine Fry. I go by
lots of other names. The United Methodist Church calls me
a minister and an employee. Besides those -- I am a
daughter; I am a sister; I am an aunt.What
are some of the names that you go by --
‘spouse,’ ‘husband,’
‘wife,’ ‘grandma,’
‘grandpa,’ ‘mom,’ ‘dad,’
‘kid?’ Are you a boomer or a buster or a mature
one or one of the generation X’ers? Are you a coach,
tutor? We each have lots of names. What happens to us
when our spouse and our kids and our parents and our
employer and our church all start calling our name at the
same time and saying, "Hey, would you do this for
me?" We are like that man; our life gets all out of
balance and we just want to scream!!!!! |
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